My boyfriend loves Klondike bars. The double chocolate ones were a regular grocery store purchase before we discovered the (far superior) KitKat ice cream novelty. But while young “athletic” (read: thin) men might purchase Klondike bars, the brand needs to capture a more diet conscious audience as well to maintain market share.
That’s why the company’s new “doughnut” line is such a win. For summer 2020, Unilever’s mass-market subdivision Good Humor-Breyers released a line of Klondike bars with flavors inspired by classic doughnuts -- specifically Boston cream, triple chocolate and strawberry sprinkles -- complete with a hole in the middle. It’s a shrewd combo: nostalgic flavors meet an indulgent format but with stealth portion control.
While Halo Top’s popularity rush -- between 2016 and 2017 sales jumped from $44.3 million to $350.6 million (Nielsen, 2018) -- made light ice cream a focal point for frozen dessert companies, I believe Klondike is targeting a different market (Klondike is also technically not ice cream, but “frozen dairy dessert” meaning that it doesn’t have a high enough fat content to be considered ice cream. This is actually the case for most ice cream novelties on the market, and even many mass market brands, like Turkey Hill and Breyers). They’re not targeting people who will happily adopt a new product, they’re targeting people who don’t want to change. The doughnut bars use the same ice cream base as regular Klondike bars. They make no claims as to having fewer calories than the original, don’t say they’re low-sugar (they’re not) and don’t talk about their hidden protein pack (there isn’t one). This is simply an ice cream bar, albeit one with a hole in the middle.
Especially among young consumers, there’s a growing segment of people who see treats not as a rare, food-coma-level indulge power session, but rather as a nice addition to their weekly diet. Combine this with a backlash against the hard low-fat versions spiked with sugar alcohols (highly-processed sweeteners that have a chemical structure in-between sugar and alcohol, and activate sweet-taste receptors, without the calories found in sugar), and you have a perfect opening for these ice cream bars that weave moderated indulgence into their very format. I’d argue that the de-facto portion of ice cream novelties could be part of the reason that they emerged as a bright spot of the frozen dessert market in 2019, seeing a 4.2% sales uplift between August 2018 and 2019 (Iri, 2019).
Klondike isn’t the only one who’s spotted this trend, but they represent one of the best mass-market implementations. Last summer, Los Angeles-based stuffed mochi ice cream company My/Mo released a series of nostalgia-tinged flavors like s’mores, cookies & cream and chocolate sundae. Earlier this year, my beloved Kit Kat ice cream cones came out with a mini bar version. Magnum is also expanding its line of mini-bars to include its most recent flavors, like ruby chocolate. While Magnum and My/Mo lie on the more premium end of the market, the breadth of this trend demonstrates the market potential of portion-controlled novelties that retain their indulgent appeal.
The choice to dupe a doughnut is also one that I believe is significant as it allows consumers to double up on their indulgences (mentally, rather than literally, in this case). Unlike the DiGiorno Croissant pizza -- which, spoiler alert, I do not believe is a smart mash-up -- Klondike’s doughnut ice cream bars combine two similar sweets that people might actually want to eat at the same time. While the experience of eating a doughnut is undoubtedly different than eating an ice cream bar, by aligning the flavors together in the consumer’s mind, Klondike is able to help people feign satisfaction, or at least make a decision. Referencing doughnuts also helps to make the product seem even more indulgent than it already is, erasing any idea that having a hole in the middle of the ice cream bar means sacrificing a sweet bite.
And while we’re on the topic of doughnuts, indulgence and sacrifice, brands have already tried to market doughnuts with holes as “healthier” than doughnuts without holes. In the UK, high street bakery Gregg’s (think working class Pret a Manger) released a glazed doughnut without filling that it labelled as a diet doughnut. On one hand, I think this is absolutely ridiculous for more reasons than I want to get into right now. But what’s relevant here is the dialogues that are circulating around mass market food that can associate a completely indulgent product -- doughnuts for Gregg’s, ice cream novelties for Klondike -- with a sense of virtuosity due to a decreased size. Regardless of what you think about giving these foods a health halo, it’s an effective way to differentiate a brand and, ultimately, provide a product that people want.
It’s this approach to moderated indulgence that I believe will make ice cream novelties, like Klondike’s doughnut line, a bright spot for mass market ice cream sales this summer. As the coronavirus continues to keep Americans from participating in summer activities that lead to spontaneous ice cream cone purchases, novelties offer an easy way to step in and provide some of that summer spontaneity on a particularly sticky evening at home. And, for better or for worse, the fact that they’re individually wrapped will appeal to halfway-health-conscious consumers who are looking for sanitization reassurances.
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Fun Fact: Before the coronavirus halted new store openings in NYC, Krispy Kreme was set to open a 4,500 sq ft flagship in Times Square. Tourists would have been able to pop in 24 hours a day for fresh doughnuts, as well as NYC and doughnut-themed merch. At first, I thought it was surprising move given the fact that their star crashed and burned so dramatically in the US a few years ago (I now associate them more with the endcap at Tesco, and my British colleagues are more likely to talk about Krispy Kreme than my American coworkers, and our is (was?) steps away from Times Square). But then again, the doughnut market is in rude health with the global doughnut market expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.2% through 2024, reaching global sales of $55 billion (Goldstein Research, 2020). And frankly, all you have to do is see the oodles of St John-style filled doughnuts on Instagram, or spot a bloated Dough variety at a NYC cafe to see that people love doughnuts.