In 1989, Magnum pioneered the world of ice-creams with the first premium adult ice cream on a stick. Since then, the unique pleasure of a Magnum has been conquering everyone’s hearts and guts – transforming Magnum into a global icon and the category leader.

But, in recent years, Magnum has been fighting a constantly growing threat: Private Labels own version of Magnum. With the cost-of-living crisis and people budgeting more often, these copycats have been impacting Magnum’s business, with almost 45% of volume loss attributed to people switching to private labels in the UK (Q2’2023)1.

As the category reference and the biggest ice cream brand in the world, Magnum needed to address this problem and remind consumers why indulging in a Magnum is not something copyable.

1 GMI Q3 2023

Based on the strategic insight, we created a bold campaign that reinforced why Magnum’s is the superior ice cream in a way never seen before in both Magnum’s history and in the category.

As this was Magnum’s first-time addressing competition directly, we needed to keep our elegance while not sounding arrogant; and the witty humorous approach consumers often use on social media was the answer.

Our centerpiece was an exaggerated melodramatic film about a woman that, after her partner buys fake Magnums, goes into a quest unveiling everything else that was fake in her relationship. As our protagonist discovers fake trophies, weights and even a fake moustache, she then runs away to buy the only real pleasure: a Magnum Classic.

Wrapped by the concept “Like Magnum is not Magnum, Stick to the Original” our campaign also had several social contents and gamification OOH exploring why Magnum is the superior pleasure.

To reignite the love for Magnum we needed to find a powerful human insight to reinforce our high quality.

So, we deep dived into the how consumers talk about the ice cream, and we noticed an organic and powerful truth kept showing up: when they talk about private label ice creams they refer to them as magnum-like or magnum-style – meaning that, for people Magnum is more than an ice cream brand, it’s a reference for this category.

We were the synonym for chocolate covered ice creams.

The brand coming up in consumers’ minds when seeing private labels.

And a truth only for the creator of this category: Magnum.

Which led us to a powerful insight: if the ice cream is like a Magnum, it’s not a Magnum.

This allowed us to address our business challenge in an unexpected way while reminding consumers of Magnum’s superior quality credentials.

“He bought a fake Magnum. What else has been fake in this relationship?”

In this funny melodramatic film, a woman discovers her partner bought knockoff Magnums and starts to question what else he might be lying about, embarking on a journey to uncover his lies one by one.

With Vivaldi's Concerto in G minor and a voiceover saying ‘fake, fake, fake’ growing on the background, we see her going through their home only to find fake sports trophies, edited photographs from alleged adventures, fake weights at their home gym and even a fake moustache.

As our protagonist discovers everything in her life was fake, she runs away to buy the only thing she knows is the real pleasure: a Magnum Classic. We end with her enjoying the original superior ice cream, wrapping up our story with the tagline “Like a Magnum is not Magnum. Stick to the Original”.

Despite the low seasonality and inflation peaking, the campaign was a success.

Magnum Classics value sales increased +66.3% and Total Magnum value sales increased +38.9%, meaning that our campaign not only reignited the love for our Classics, but also it had a halo effect on the whole brand.1

A +3.9 million units increase (RSV) for Magnum Classics compared to the same period last year, and +4.3 million units (RSV) for Total Magnum.1

But, more than great business results, our campaign achieved engagements never seen before in any Unilever campaign.

Fraud campaign’s Ad Recall was 3x higher (+10 p.p) than the benchmark (15.3% vs. 4.8% benchmark). 74% of people watched the ad until the end on YouTube, delivering the highest CTR on clickable devices of any Unilever Campaign, double the benchmark (10.9% vs 5% benchmark).2

1 Nielsen Ad Impact Study, 06/01/24 to 17/02/24

2 Google Brand Lift Study, 03/01/2024 to 19/02/2024