For over 80 years Blue Bunny ice cream has been creating delicious ice cream flavors and frozen novelty forms from its home in America's heartland. The brand has announced product enhancement, packaging innovation, and introduction of a brand ambassador named Blu.
To commemorate the comprehensive brand re-launch, Blu will debut in the Blue Bunny's advertising campaign that begins next week.
Blue Bunny ice cream is produced by family owned and operated Wells Enterprises, Inc., in Le Mars, Iowa, population 9,800. For more than 100 years, Wells has been making quality products for families to enjoy. Le Mars, declared the "Ice Cream Capital of the World," is located 25 miles northeast of Sioux City.
"When people think of ice cream they think of fun. That's where Blue Bunny comes in," said Adam Baumgartner, Vice President of Marketing for Blue Bunny. "We've re-launched the Blue Bunny brand having been inspired by ice cream fans and their desire to have more fun with their frozen treat. We asked, and then earnestly listened to ice cream enthusiasts, and we heard them say they want their ice cream to be more light-hearted. More fun. And they want it to come in packaging that clearly conveys there's good stuff waiting for them inside."
"We poured these consumer insights into our recipe for re-launch, and now Blue Bunny's improved flavors, shapes and sizes of fun-stuffed ice cream are available nationwide."
Blue Bunny will bring more fun to the freezer in the form of its Funwich, a new fusion of cookie and ice cream. The unique new form of ice cream novelty is a chocolate chip cookie layered with creamy vanilla ice cream, all dipped in a milk chocolaty coating, on a stick.
The ice cream brand has also put a new twist on a favorite novelty, the Mini Swirl. Aptly named the Big Swirl, this new item brings the ice cream shop dip cone to your grocer's freezer. A larger version of the Mini Swirl, it consists of swirls of creamy vanilla ice cream dipped in a milk chocolaty coating, all inside a crunchy sugar cone.
The brand's packaged ice cream innovations include new and improved flavors, and fan favorites from among Blue Bunny's four-dozen packaged selections include Bunny Track, Mocha Me Hoppy, Cherry Pickin' Chocolate, Salted Caramel Craze, Blu's Birthday Party, and Super Fudge Brownie. The brand will also offer on-trend, limited edition flavors, including Vanilla Cupcake, Coco Mango and Cherrific Cheesecake.
"To meet ice cream aficionados demand for more variety of quality, fun-stuffed ice creams, we improved many of our existing ice cream flavors, and created new and equally tasty ones," Baumgartner said. "In general we stuffed more ingredient pieces and swirled more gooey ribbons into our packaged ice creams. Depending upon the flavor, there's more pieces of cake, cherries, chocolate chips or pecans. More swirls of chocolate, fudge, peanut butter, strawberry or sea salt caramel. And no matter the flavor, all of our ice cream begins with fresh milk."
Blue Bunny ice cream is still produced locally in Le Mars. "We source our fresh milk from trusted, neighboring dairy farms, which lets ice cream lovers also count on us for farm-to-freezer ice cream," he said.
Blue Bunny is showcasing its 46-ounce and new quart-sized line of fun-stuffed packaged ice creams in see-through packaging to let consumers instantly establish at point of purchase that Blue Bunny ice creams are fun-stuffed quality through and through. The transparent containers are recyclable and BPA free, as well.
The brand re-launch also features an evolved logo reflective of the brand's history and future: 80 years ago a child suggested the playful name, Blue Bunny. Accordingly, the brand's logo has evolved to be playfully bunny-like in shape. It even grew ears.
To support the brand re-fresh, Blue Bunny will launch on March 14 a comprehensive, clever national media campaign that features its long-standing, but never-featured-before brand ambassador, Blu - a real bunny akin to the rabbit in a 1930s shop window that inspired a child to suggest the brand's Blue Bunny moniker. "We were founded in fun, and are on a mission to bring joy to everyday life through ice cream," Baumgartner said.
