Will a more comfortable environment drive sales?

It’s about frequency. What’s most important to us is that they want to come back again sooner than they used to because it’s a nice place to be.

And what’s happening with the new frozen custard program?

Frozen custard is being rolled out as we either remodel or rebuild our stores. It’s a terrific, terrific product that has had a large regional following, particularly in the Midwest. It contains egg yolks and tends to be a real rich, dense, soft ice cream product.

“We can be the first national player offering a great product like our frozen custard, as well as world-class hard-packed ice cream.”

We have created some signature sundaes, waffle cones, and waffle bowls that are just wild. My current favorite is the Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich Sundae, which has bananas and hot peanut butter topping.

At the end of the day, there are a lot of people who eat soft ice cream. We can be the first national player offering a great product like our frozen custard, as well as world-class hard-packed ice cream. The frozen custard and hard-pack are comparably priced. It’s not a premium product. Suggested retail pricing is $2.69–$3.99. A topping is included in the price.

So, the line’s introduction is more about variety than upscaling?

That’s exactly right. It’s about variety and the ability to innovate around the platform.

What new treats might we see in the upcoming year?

There are many new treats attached to custard platform. We’re going to have two completely new product platforms between custard and Bold Breeze. We’ll have to ask you to stay tuned for innovations coming down the pipe. The problem isn’t whether we’ll have them; it’s how many we can fit into the pipeline and execute well.

How have employees responded to the changes?

One of the exciting things for us was to see how consumers felt the service experience had improved after we remodeled existing older stores to the new image. That speaks volumes about the fact that a new store and new contemporary, relevant environment makes employees proud to come in and work. It makes them excited.

At the start of this process, when we decided we were going to go into Las Vegas and remodel all the stores, we had a rally to kick off the process with all of the crewmembers from the 13 stores we were working with. It was at 8 on Saturday morning for kids aged 16–18. You know what we’re thinking: “Okay, will anybody show up? And what kind of attention span will they have?”

Well, they came into this rally, where we featured visuals of the new store image, the new custard product, and the new operating system. They were so jazzed. We got comments like, “This is going to be so cool,” “This is the kind of place my friends are going to come to.”

It’s a more fun place for our crew and our franchisees to engage our consumers.

How do partnerships like the one recently announced with Kraft play into the overall brand strategy at Baskin Robbins?

We have a group of folks here who are focused on strategic opportunities that make sense. Kraft makes sense because they are a terrific brand. They are taking advantage of the flavor equity that we have and doing it in an environment that doesn’t compete with our stores. [We] get brand presence in 50,000 grocery stores around the country every day. [We] get the opportunity to talk with consumers; we’ve put coupons on the pudding containers. We’re bringing in customers to the stores for our franchisees, so that’s very synergistic. Kraft is a great brand to align yourself with.

It doesn’t work all the time. You have to be sensitive to brand slap. You get a lot of requests. You want to make sure that [the ones you agree to] work strategically for both parties. Along with Kraft, there are others that we’ll see in the future that work equally well.

What would you say to those who caution against tinkering with an established brand?

You have to recognize that consumer culture and trends change. They’re going to continue to change.

If you’re naïve to that, you risk some dire consequences. Ignoring those changes presents greater risk to your brand than recognizing that consumer tastes change. You have to understand where your brand fits in and then make sure you’re delivering what the consumer wants within the context of your strategic heartbeat—whatever that might be.