• by Karl Greenberg , June 4, 2007

Baskin-Robbins is supporting a big store and product expansion with its first major integrated campaign in two years, one that links the brand to Sony's "Surf's Up" film.

The effort--including TV, Web elements (an online sweepstakes), coupon drops and a road show--promotes a new line of surfing-themed, fruit-flavored sorbets and drinks.

The flavors, available through August, include Penguin Swirl, a black ice cream and blue sherbet mix; Splish Splash, blue raspberry sorbet with blueberry ice; a series of Fruit Blast Smoothies; a Penguin Cone; Surf's Up Sundae; and Surf's Up ice cream cake.

Baskin-Robbins also is taking a "Surf's Up"-themed road show across the country this summer, offering samples, a new video game by Ubisoft and a host of interactive activities and giveaways. The tour began on Friday in Los Angeles and New York and will visit 31 cities.

The company will also show snippets of the new movie as part of an online sweepstakes, the Big Wave Instant Win Game, at bigwaveblast.com and at baskinrobbins.com/bigwave. That effort, in which consumers win or lose based on whether one of the animated penguins rides a wave or wipes out, runs through July. It dangles a grand prize of all-inclusive trips for four to Jamaica and Honolulu, as well as Baskin-Robbins ice cream for a year, video games, DVDs, and coupons for Fruit Blast Smoothies.

The campaign will be supported with the company's largest media buy in two years, with two 15-second spots running on network, cable and spot, as well as a coupon drop.

The TV spots, which started running on Friday, show two of the film's animated main characters, Cody Maverick and Chicken Joe, in a Baskin-Robbins store, talking with real people about the new Fruit-Blast Smoothies.

Baskin-Robbins went on the air with ads for the first time two years ago in April with a program supporting its sundaes called Candy Bar Madness, featuring Reese's Peanut Butter Cup sundaes and shakes, with national TV and a heavy up in spot markets.

The work is by the company's new agency, N.Y.-based Cliff, Freeman and Partners, which replaced Vitro Robertson in January.

Scott Colwell--vice president/marketing at the Canton, Mass.-based Baskin-Robbins, which is part of the Dunkin' Brands family--says the company will be on hand at the film's L.A., N.Y. and D.C. premieres, allowing moviegoers to sample the new products gratis.

Colwell says that, while this is the company's largest integrated campaign in two years, Baskin-Robbins typically has between four and six promotional windows throughout the year, with business peaking--no surprise--during summer season. "But our business stays strong right up through New Year's Day," he says.

He added that "Surf's Up" isn't the first filmic promotional partner; Baskin-Robbins has done similar efforts around the first and second "Shrek" movies, as well as "X-Men," "Sinbad" and "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" via Norm Marshall and Associates, an L.A. product-integration agency.

Baskin-Robbins is also in the midst of a strategic store expansion and product revamp aimed at expanding the company's retail footprint by between 600 and 800 stores by 2010 and moving the brand up-market into a premium region, somewhere between mass and boutique.

"One of the key priorities over the last two years has been to energize the brand and transform it," says Colwell. A store remodeling program entailing a new logo, signage, packaging, menu and store design is in progress, with 300 of Baskin-Robbins' 5,600 stores worldwide already renovated.

Included--and part of what Colwell says is a new focus on premium sundaes--is an in-store retail counter called a Sundae Station. The amenity orients the counter server toward customers so they can watch sundaes being created, and a foot rail will let the kids watch as well. "What we are doing," he says, "is really to continue to upgrade the premium nature of the brand--from the look of the building, the look of the packaging, to the menu."