SMINO

BBC ICECREAM continues to tap influential creatives in music, art sport and more. With the intention of maintaining the brand’s integral musical DNA, a partnership with brand friend and fan, Smino was brought to life.

Context: In 2003, Pharrell Williams introduced the brand in his iconic music video, Frontin’. Fast-forward to today and the brand’s relevancy among music still remains with behind-the-scenes relationships with music artists around the globe. Enter Smino in 2018…an emerging rapper from St. Louis shared his affinity for the brand, we began a relationship that would soon blossom to an organic ambassadorship. After a few small collaborative digital moments, it was time to finally give the fans what they were asking for—a full capsule and experience.

Solution: Create + implement a multi-year ambassador relationship that spanned seeding, content partnerships, and build up to a full product capsule and activation moment.

After two years of multi-touchpoint engagements, BBC ICECREAM gave Smino and his brand, Zero Fatigue the green light to customize classic ICECREAM iconography onto his cult-favorite satin hoodies and tees. To celebrate and amplify the launch, we teamed up with Amazon Music/Rotation to produce a city-wide ICECREAM x Smino Tour. Decked in his usual trucker hat and white, tee, Smino hit the streets of NYC in a co-branded ice cream truck to sell the capsule to fans and give out ice cream treats.

The tour culminated with an afterparty hosted at the BBC ICECREAM NYC Flagship.

The Results:

• Increased brand awareness among artist’s audiences

• Relevance + brand positioning goals met with partnership and cultural alignment

• Digital content experiences for audiences on brand and artist channels executed.

• Sold-out product capsule in 48hrs

• Consistent customer lines at each truck stop

• Excellent guest turnout for afterparty with an over-capacity venue

• 12m impressions

• +17% net audience growth MoM via social media during the month of capsule drop and activation