Coolhaus : food trucks and marketing

Hello there ! 

Today (finally) an article about food marketing. I've decided to talk to you about Coolhaus, a foodtruck concept from the States, which sells to you icecream scoops between cookies. 6 cookie bases, 25 ice cream flavors.

Freya Estreller and Natasha Case, the two founders of Coolhaus

This article will analyze the entrepreneurial adventure behind the concept and of course the social networks strategy of Coolhaus. But before, I'd like to warmly thank Natasha Case, co-founder of Coolhaus, who kindly agreed to answer my questions, being the first (and certainly not the last entrepreneur) interviewed for @New Marketing Experience. 

The entrepreneurial adventure 

The concept was created in Los Angeles in 2008 by Natasha Case, architect, and Freya Estreller, estate developer. Coolhaus for a "cool house", made of walls of cookies and icecream (the name also being a reference to Rem Koolhaas, Dutch architect, and to Bahaus, designer of the 1920's and 1930's).

Architecture, besides being the past job of Natasha Case, is at the core of the brand strategy. For example, the ice cream flavors, amongst which the "Frank Behry" (strawberry iceacream and snickerdoodle cookies) for Frank Gehry. 

Frank Behry Sammy

But, while many flavors are architecture-inspired, some are just wildly unexpected, such as the fried chicken and waffle flavor (video below), and contribute to the originality and competitiveness of Coolhaus. 

Fried chicken and waffle ice cream by Coolhaus

In an article from the New York Times, we find out that the initial investment was (only) : 10 000 $, which covered the total buyout of a van on Craiglist, and its re-designing (painting, decoration...). See here for the whole article. 

The flavor concept was wrapped up with a lot of detailed attention, such as an eco-friendly wrapper for the sammies (name for the combination of ice cream + cookie), made out of potato and whose writing's are printed in soy ink. 

The concept has expanded rapidly thanks to media support, a great customer relationship and an innovative social networks strategy, and today Coolhaus has 5 trucks: 4 in Los Angeles, 2 trucks in Miami, 2 trucks and 1 cart in New York, 2 trucks in Austin, a store front in Culver City, and their ice cream sandwiches are also sold at Southern Californian Whole Foods Markets.

Social networks strategy 

Overall strategy

The number of press releases (from Huffington Post, LA magazine, NY Times...) has clearly played a role in the success of Coolhaus, but we shouldn't forget its social networks strategy, that has been essential in spreading the word.

Coolhaus and customers

What's crucial to know is that Coolhaus decided to launch their social networks strategy right from the beginning of the adventure : being a mobile business, it was essential to let use them in order to tell people where Coolhaus was. 

One of my questions to Natasha Case was about the difference in community management for the different trucks. Well, as it turns out, there is a social media manager, who oversees the corporate account and the work of each city manager. Then, for each city, you have a manager that does his own community management, supervised by the group social media manager. 

Facebook

A few number : Coolhaus's fan page has nearly 12 000 fans, and an equivalent number of Twitter followers. 

Coolhaus's Facebook Page

Specific promotions are made on Facebook, for example the organization of a flavor contest for fans on Facebook. Each Thursday, Coolhaus releases an ingredient, and fans have to make their own perfume out of that ingredient. Last week, the winning flavor was raspberry white chocolate cheesecake. Then, the following monday, a photo tagged with the name of the winner is posted on Facebook, exposed to anyone. The winner then gets a certificate for a free-sammie (the name of the cookie + icecream combination) and is qualified for the finale, which will oppose the 12 weekly winners of the contest. The winner of the finale will see his / her icecream flavor actually be created, sold, and named after him / her. 

The problem with this initiative is that, despite how great the initial idea is, the contest is not valorized enough on Facebook. For example, there is no specific application on the Facebook page that allows people to enter in their suggestion and see the other ideas that people have already have. This could potentially generate for engagement for the fans. 

Moreover, the Facebook posts of the brand generate few likes and few comments : the interaction of the brand is more made on Twitter, a more instantaneous mode of communication.

Twitter

You can find different Twitter accounts under the name of Coolhaus : One global twitter account for the brand : @coolhaus, and then different accounts for the different trucks: @coolhausny , @coolhausla, @coolhausATX, @coolhausMIA, @coolhausDFW.

Coolhaus on Twitter 

What's great with having a local account for each truck is that the information is very quick to diffuse, and managers can answer directly to questions of their followers. A great twitter strategy, which allows clear user engagement, compensating the lack of interactions on Facebook. 



Tumblr

Coolhaus has created a Tumblr, which gets around 15 notes (equivalents of sharing) for each post. A good point (but also a disadvantage) about this Tumblr is that Coolhaus does not focus on their products but post photos, recipes, architecture or news about what they do. For example, they wrote a couple of weeks ago an article about the last festival they went to.
Nevertheless, more photos of the events and of the Coolhaus truck and followers would be great : it's for instance nearly impossible to find pictures of the truck on an official Coolhaus device. Very easy on the global Internet to do so, but Coolhaus should take advantage of their great brand image and broadcast more photos themselves.

Pinterest

Coolhaus does have a Pinterest account, on which there are 75 pins and 81 likes. Coolhaus follows 153 users, is followed by 93 people and posts about architecture, logos and other cool stuff. But, like the Tumblr account, nearly no pictural information is given about Coolhaus. Maybe making a board dedicated to Coolhaus customers, events of trucks could give a more clear image of Coolhaus.

Coolhaus on Pinterest

However, Coolhaus does make a certain buzz on Pinterest, with more than 150 pins created by users other than Coolhaus. An example that clearly demonstrates that Coolhaus has targeted a hype market, very sensitive to new trends.

Conclusion(s)

For those of you who are near one of the Coolhaus trucks, I strongly advise you to follow them on Twitter and get a bite of their food. If I weren't on the other side of the ocean, I would run there straight away ! 

And for those of you entrepreneurs thinking about a food business to launch, you should carefully look into the food truck concept, a market in exponential growth (read the great article of Fast Company for more information about that). 

And finally an advice for brands : even if using social networks not to sell but to communicate with customers and share your commun interests is the right thing to do, not communicating enough on your brand image can be too restrictive. Don't hesitate sharing pictures of your employees, of your customers, of your products, people will appreciate your transparency !

The word of the end : Natasha's advice for entrepreneurs

"Trust your instincts : don't be afraid to do something truly unique; people will appreciate the courage and the end result !"

Thanks for being more and more readers on @New Marketing Experience. If you have any feedback (positive or negative), don't hesitate sending in a mail to lily.gros@gmail.com or a tweet to @newmarketingexp.