Adgully Exclusive | Baskin Robbins is keen to reach out to customers: Ashwin Uppal

Indeed ever since ice cream has come into the world, it has been one of the most sought after thing ' one that your taste buds would never say no to.

How many time do u have the ultimate urge to have a scoop of ice cream, no matter what the time is, no matter what the occasion is.

The origins of ice cream can be traced back to at least the fourth century B.C. Early references include the Roman emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68) who ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings, and it was King Tang (A.D. 618-97) of Shang, China who had a method of creating ice and milk concoctions.

Ice cream was likely brought from China back to Europe. Over time, recipes for ices, sherbets, and milk ices evolved and served in the fashionable Italian and French royal courts.

Since then, it has become a popular dessert, one that brings water in your mouth, with the very mention of it. And no body serves better ice cream than Baskin-Robins.

Baskin-Robbins, the global chain of ice cream parlors, was founded by Burt Baskin and Irvine Robbins in 1953, from the merging of their respective ice cream parlors, in Glendale, California.

It's one of the largest ice cream franchises, with more than 5,800 locations, 2,800 of which are located in the United States. Selling ice creams in over 30 countries, Baskin-Robbins has 31 favours of delicious ice creams.

Over the years they have created a name for themselves, so much so that they prefer the word of mouth technique. Ask Ashwin Uppal GM-Marketing, South Asia, Baskin-Robbins and he would tell you that they believe in the "neighborhood palour' concept.

"Globally we have largely been a brand, which focuses the neighborhood palour concept. Our global tagline is America's neighborhood ice-cream shop. Historically we have done all the marketing activities in the locality around the store. However, in the last three or four years we have realized that we need to start exploring other mediums because media is evolving and so is the customer," says Uppal.

But Ashwin believes it's time that they start to explore other mediums too as the consumers too are evolving constantly.

"We believe that we want to develop clientele and build relationship with customers in the locality of the store. For instance, if we have a store in Bandra, we would want to ensure that the influence around the store and the people who are essentially in that vicinity, are aware of the brand in the locality and are frequenting the outlet," he says.

"We have also realized over a period of time the consumer is also evolving and he is also getting exposed to a variety of media, we have started focusing on now a lot of media formats like digital and above the line.

"We are looking at radio, outdoor and so on and so forth. We believe that with time one needs to also change the marketing stand because the market is change, the consumer is changing and the dynamics of the business are changing. Therefore while the strategy has worked well for us in the past we continue to maintain a lot of focus on BTL in the future also. We will also be open to exploring all the other above the line media," he adds.

The brand recently celebrated its 65 anniversary and on the occasion, Baskin-Robbins has planned out new initiatives as well.

"Throughout the month we did a lot of initiatives, for example, we first tied up with Radio Mirchi and we did radio promotion with them. For 31 days of July, on each day we were promoting one product out of our 31 flavours. This was a unique approach. I don't think in the past any brand has ever thought of this approach," Uppal explains.

"We started a contest in our parlours which was called "spot the RJ contest', where the consumers had to spot a Radio Mirchi RJ in our parlours then they would stand to gain a lot of premiers and gift vouchers. This was in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore.

"Also we did a contest amongst our parlours, for example, we started a parlour decoration contest which happened throughout the month, where the objective was to ensure that our parlours had a very celebratory look as it was our birthday we wanted our parlours to have decorated look all through the month.

"We had also tied up with Make a Wish foundation, as a part of our CSR initiative. Throughout July anyone who bought any ice cream from our parlours right from Delhi, Banglore and Mumbai, on every bill, Rs 1 was being contributed to Make a Wish foundation. We are just cumulating the numbers now at the end of last month and will actually hand over the cheque to Make a Wish foundation," Uppal explained.

On the corporate sector, Baskin 'Robbins have toed with all the five star hotels and airline industry, who buy their products, which in turn is a sort of publicity for the brand.

With its presence in 93 cities and 400 parlours, Baskin-Robbins are now considering mobile and Internet platforms to enhance the image of the brand.

"We are aggressively focusing on that on using new mediums like mobiles and Internet. Our website is being redone. We are starting with our website in the digital space and intend to do a lot of activities in digital marketing aggressively," Uppal explains.

"Besides this, we are also looking at launching a map for Baskin and Robbins in India on the website, and we also hope to promote it offline. We tend to do a lot of SMS campaigns ' for this we will tie up with different local operators. We are also looking at national alliance now with some telecom players, where we can tie them and offer their subscribers some great offers of Baskin and Robbins," he added.

And in order to enhance to their brand value, they would be focusing on customer service as well. One of the things planned out is to provide home delivery to their products, which was never done before.

"We are actually actively looking at different operating models and trying to get closer to the customers. We cannot always only expect the customer to come to our parlours. We are also keen to reach out to them. So we are exploring all models," Uppal says.