Whether it’s at the White House or in your own backyard, the classic Easter tradition is an egg hunt. This year, Ben & Jerry’s put their own twist on the classic Easter game.
On Sunday, Ben & Jerry’s on Newbury Street held a “Golden Pint Hunt” to celebrate the holiday. In each golden pint, there were two golden tickets to go to the front of the line on Free Cone Day, which will be held on April 10.
“Easter just seemed like a really good fit in terms of sweets and getting people inside and we definitely wanted to do something fun,” said Olivia Zed, a Ben & Jerry’s account executive at BU’s PRLab and a graduate student in the College of Communication.
For the hunt, the team hid nine golden pints around Back Bay and had customers search for them in order to redeem the prizes.
The locations of the pints were posted as Google Maps screenshots on the store’s Instagram, and hints were released on the page’s story throughout the day, showing the pints hidden in trees or in the hand of a statue on the Boston Common.
“With Easter, [the idea] sort of came naturally doing the sort of Easter egg hunt and we knew we wanted to give away these free skip the line passes for Free Cone Day,” Zed said. “So, it all just kind of came together and the timing worked out pretty well.”
The skip the line passes are found beside the “#goldenpint” printed inside the lids of the hand-packed golden pints. Redeeming the pint also gave winners a free pint from the store.
No one is really aware that the store sells pints, said Sean Seltzer, general manager of the Newbury shop. Not only is Ben & Jerry’s trying to create publicity for Free Cone Day, but they’re also trying to make consumers more aware of all their in-store products.
“[Free Cone Day] really sells itself, but we’re there to help promote it online,” Zed said. “You don’t really need to convince people to get free ice cream.”
The PRLab has been working on this project primarily through Ben & Jerry’s social media. The Lab has partnered with the Ben & Jerry’s store on Newbury Street, and they control the advertising for the shop.
“For the social media accounts, we basically are just gonna promote the in-store traffic, because not enough people know Ben and Jerry’s has a store on Newbury,” said Ivy Chen, another Ben & Jerry’s account executive at BU’s PR Lab and graduate student in COM.
Their Instagram, Chen said, is geared toward interacting with customers and bringing them into Ben & Jerry’s store locations. PRLab has been working with Ben & Jerry’s Newbury this semester, and the company has been working with the Lab for a few years.
“They do a lot of really awesome work and it really shows,” Seltzer said.
PRLab has launched other promotional content for the ice cream brand, like a March Madness bracket, where they pitted different ice cream flavors against each other in a “Sweet 16” bracket. There’s a full calendar of events for the ice cream shop coming up in the last bit of the semester, a lot of which is building up to Free Cone Day, according to the PRLab.
“I think this is a great way, mostly for college kids and families, to have a reason to go out and celebrate spring,” Seltzer said. “The weather is nice now, and it’s nice to go out around the city and find [some pints].”
