Magnum - Find Your Summer
Magnum tasked LOLA MullenLowe to boost winter sales and encourage year-round consumption. The client aimed to challenge the seasonal perception of ice cream, targeting consumers who typically avoided it in colder months, by redefining indulgence beyond summer.
Creative Idea
Magnum reframed winter's chill as an opportunity for warm, indulgent moments.
Magnum's 'Find Your Summer' campaign encouraged people to defy winter's chill by actively seeking and savoring small, fleeting moments of warmth and pleasure, leveraging the insight that many deny themselves ice cream during colder months to redefine indulgence as a year-round joy.
Chasing Shadows and Solar Data in the Dead of Winter
High Stakes and Hard Numbers
The campaign shattered seasonal sales records, driving a 66.3% increase in low-season sales and a 38.9% rise in total Q1 growth. By utilizing a data-driven DOOH strategy, Magnum achieved a 65% improvement in cost-efficiency compared to standard campaigns. In the UK, the initiative propelled Brand Power to its highest level in five years, proving that ice cream can thrive as a "state of mind" rather than a weather-dependent purchase.
Cinematic Craft Meets Solar Tracking
Director Juan Cabral - the visionary behind Cadbury’s "Gorilla" - shot the hero film in Buenos Aires to capture the specific aesthetic of winter light. The evocative black and white cinematography by Ale Burset was designed to contrast the harsh urban environment with the warmth of the sun. To bridge the gap between art and utility, digital billboards were integrated with real-time weather data and solar tracking. These "phygital" assets identified exactly when a pocket of sunshine would hit a specific street corner, updating the creative in real-time to guide pedestrians toward the light.
Numerology and Digital Rituals
The production contains a subtle Easter egg: in the hero film, the sun breaks through the clouds at exactly 3:14 PM. This is a reference to Angel Number 314, which signifies the realization of desires. Beyond the screen, the campaign evolved into a "media ritual" where consumers used proximity beacons to receive push notifications and discounts the moment the sun appeared in their specific location. This strategy was later expanded into the "Schedule the Sun" tool, allowing users to sync fleeting moments of winter warmth directly into their digital calendars.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Magnum, a brand synonymous with indulgence and pleasure, credibly delivered a message of year-round enjoyment.
Category
The ice cream category typically associates consumption with warm weather and summer, creating a seasonal limitation.
Customer
Consumers often deny themselves ice cream during colder months, yet crave moments of warmth, joy, and escapism.
Culture
The universal human desire to find pockets of happiness and warmth amidst the harshness of winter resonated culturally.
Company
Magnum, a brand synonymous with indulgence and pleasure, credibly delivered a message of year-round enjoyment.
Category
The ice cream category typically associates consumption with warm weather and summer, creating a seasonal limitation.
Strategy:
Reframe seasonal consumption norms to position indulgence as a year-round, accessible pleasure.
Customer
Consumers often deny themselves ice cream during colder months, yet crave moments of warmth, joy, and escapism.
Culture
The universal human desire to find pockets of happiness and warmth amidst the harshness of winter resonated culturally.
Strategy:
Reframe seasonal consumption norms to position indulgence as a year-round, accessible pleasure.
Results
The campaign achieved an "extremely warm" reception. Most importantly, it led to Magnum's "Highest Low Season In History" with a remarkable +66.3% SALES increase, as verified by a Nielsen Ad Impact Study. The campaign also garnered significant earned media and industry recognition, with logos from various news outlets and advertising publications like The Guardian, The Sun, Mirror, Stylist, The Times, AdAge, Adweek, and others appearing on screen.
+66.3%
sales increase during low season
Highest
low season sales in history
Strategy Technique
Use Radical Simplicity
Magnum used a radically simple insight - people deny themselves ice cream in winter - and an equally simple solution: just eat it anyway. No complex mechanics or gimmicks. The campaign's power came from stripping away everything to deliver one clear, liberating message about year-round pleasure.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Break the Norm
The campaign defied the conventional wisdom that ice cream is a summer-only indulgence. It encouraged consumers to break free from seasonal boundaries and enjoy Magnum year-round.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
This campaign's craft is exceptional for its ingenious digital craft, fusing a brilliant strategic insight with sophisticated real-time digital activation and evocative photography, transforming a seasonal challenge into a compelling consumer experience.
The sophisticated integration of real-time sun-tracking data with dynamic digital billboards and proximity-based push notifications represents an exceptionally innovative and effective application of technology.
The meticulous capture of fleeting sunlit spots in a stark black-and-white aesthetic, creating striking and evocative images of pleasure, demonstrates high skill and artistic vision.
The campaign's success is rooted in the synergistic blend of a brilliant strategic insight, precise visual capture, and cutting-edge real-time digital media activation, creating a holistic and dynamic consumer journey.
