The difficult art of selling ice cream in Brazil

Convince the Brazilian taking more ice cream is no easy task. Unilever, a leader in branded Kibon, Brazil is investing $ 40 million in the highest bid ever made to transform the product in Brazilian's favorite dessert. After a period of expansion, the consumption of ice cream has been registering drop in Brazil: by volume, retreated 0.3% in 2011, 2.6% in 2012 and, in the first half of this year fell 7.2 percent, according to data from Nielsen.
The bet of Unilever to encourage Brazilians to consume ice cream in most occasions is flood him options. The row for home consumption of Kibon, which boiled down to traditional 2-litre pots and mark homemade recipes, was divided into four.
The company has spent the last two years changing the formula of the products and rethinking strategy. To increase the portfolio for more than 20 options, Unilever gave more visibility to the partnership with the chocolates of Mondelez-like Dream of Waltz, Laka and black diamond-and created packages of combined flavors beyond the traditional Neapolitan.
Starting this week, Unilever will bombard the media campaign on TV and aims to spread consultants in supermarkets across the country to convince consumers to at least try new things. "Our idea is to create more occasions of consumption for the ice cream," says João Campos, Vice President of Kibon.
To mount the new "menu", which will reach supermarkets in September, the multinational did research and quantitative gathered consumer groups around the country to try to figure out a contradiction in the Brazilian market: the client says like ice cream, but consumes very little product.
Obstacles. Several factors, however, explain the difficulties of market expansion. The first and main responsible for the fall of 7.2% in volume sold between January and June of 2013-is the fact that the average income of Brazilian, despite having grown in recent years, yet be well lower than the consumers of developed countries, where the ice cream consumption is much higher.
That helps explain why Americans and Australians consume more than 17 litres of product per year, while the Brazilian takes only 3. Today, a pot of 2 gallons of ice cream from leading brands-and doesn't cost Nestle Kibon less than $ 15. "We know we are asking for a disbursement to the consumer," says marketing director of Kibon, Cecilia Days. "Therefore, we are modifying our offer."
To subdivide its line of sorbets, Kibon placed the most sophisticated products in smaller packages so I don't end up scaring the consumer with prices. The strategy is to avoid lines as the Three Selections, with three flavors in a single pot, do not exceed the amount charged by the options already available today.
Price factor. Hold the price is a necessary measure at a time when consumers put your foot on the brake the consumption of "superfluous"-category in which, despite the efforts of manufacturers, the ice cream continues to fit.
The Brazilian consumer is at the stage where think twice on that purchase. According to Marden Silva Soares, market analyst from Nielsen, part of households ' income is consumed by benefits already assumed.
So, after trying out new product categories, the Brazilian entered the phase of migrating to cheaper brands in order to make the "achievements" fit in your budget.
"With less money available, the Brazilian is to consume less and worse," says the analyst. "Even if you invest in the revitalization of the marks and present new products, the leaders will be under pressure not to raise prices."
Culture. In addition to economic factors, cultural characteristics also prevent the accelerated expansion of the ice-cream sector in Brazil.
Retail consultant Adalbert Viviani says the ice cream still has to overcome the resistance of families to swap the desserts made in house by industrialized options.
"The space of Sunday lunch has not been conquered for the ice cream," says the expert. Furthermore, the attempt to sell the ice cream as food to be consumed between meals coming up in the very nature of the product. "Companies are trying to copy the cookie, which before was a very product associated with the coffee and today is consumed during the whole day," says Daly. "The problem is that you can't take an ice cream in the bag for work."
Another barrier is also on the way of the expansion of the consumption of ice cream: the concern with the body. A survey published by the Health Ministry last week showed that, for the first time, more than half of Brazilians are overweight, while obese parcel reaches 17%.
So, consumers are investing larger part of income in physical activities, says Soares, from Nielsen. "While the healthy appeal grows, decreases the room for indulgences like ice cream."