Date of implementation:

June 27th - August 30th, 2013

Objectives and any challenges:

Magnum Toronto was North America’s first Pleasure Store – a global concept that delivered an indulgent, customized ice cream experience consisting of the finest, globally sourced, premium ingredients. The concept brought Pleasure to Toronto and challenged our team to bring to life all operational aspects of the Store leveraging global playbooks combined with our unique local adaptation of the concept. The objective of the store was to drive awareness and trial of Magnum products, both locally across the GTA and nationally through PR, paid and social media. In-store the agency aimed to maximize sales and generate earned media and social sharing from consumers through touch points within the in-store experience.

Insight and resulting concept:

Magnum Toronto was brought to life as the first North American city to host a pleasure store. They combined learning from global playbooks with a unique expression of the global concept through new social media and experiential tactics and elements of local flare.

The Execution:

The store offered an immersive experience for guests, featuring a 28’ custom built bar, bespoke fixtures, lounge furniture, art installations, integrated social media and interior design elements. At the heart of the experience, consumers were guided through a 6-step process to create custom Magnum bars, called “Make My magnum”. Choosing from various base flavors of ice cream, chocolate dips and 21 different toppings – no two bars were the same! The final product was beautifully presented on a branded Magnum ice cream “lolly” tray, and was inherently social as we saw thousands of consumers snapping photos and sharing them online before diving into the first bite of their indulgent Magnum treat.

The store was open for 9 straight weeks and was the focus of H2 brand activity, supported by integrated PR and social media programming that included a content partnership with E-Talk Canada, a celebrity attended launch event, weekly celebrity appearances in-store, a social media programming.

The Results:

Final results for Magnum Toronto include more than 136 million media impressions, with coverage by major national, marketing and fashion / lifestyle media outlets. Blogger and consumer sharing was extensive as well, as seen by the dozens of online articles, thousands of photos and posts shared in social media (tagged with #MyMagnum), and the organic word of mouth which sustained local buzz throughout the summer.

Results in-store exceeded expectations with a total of 41,744 bars sold (147% of target), and a steady increase in average daily sales that nearly doubled from opening to closing day. Due to demand, the store was extended by an additional 5 weeks, and experienced constant line-ups throughout the summer (average wait times were 30-60+ minutes). On closing day, we set a new Magnum Pleasure Store global record for “most bars sold in a day” (1,468 total).