At Sonic, each shake is hand-mixed with the chain’s Real Ice Cream and available in a variety of flavors beyond old favorites like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.
This summer, Sonic is offering 25 different shake flavors to choose from as part of the “Summer of Shakes.”
New flavors include the Peanut Butter & Bacon Shake, the Cherry Cheesecake Shake, the Coconut Cream Pie Shake, and other classic and creative options.
To sweeten the deal, Sonic shakes are half price after 8 p.m. all summer long.
“Our Real Ice Cream is what makes our shakes special—that and the fact that we have an incredible variety to choose from,” says Sonic chef Claes Petersson, vice president of product innovation.
“Our Real Ice Cream is made with fresh milk and cream and has a smoothness and rich vanilla flavor, unlike the soft serves you get from others,” he adds. “The difference in taste and texture gives our shakes a premium base for us to layer on different ingredients, resulting in the 25 different flavors. There’s a reason the other guys don’t mention Real Ice Cream—there is simply no comparison.”
The 25 Summer of Shakes flavors will be available in all 3,500-plus Sonic Drive-Ins nationwide. Sonic encourages guests to customize their order, creating shakes available nowhere else.
“The 25 shakes idea actually came from one of our franchisees, who got creative and tested many different shake flavors last summer,” says James O’Reilly, Sonic chief marketing officer. “He had so much success that we created Summer of Shakes for the entire Sonic system this year. It just goes to show that even in a large franchise organization like Sonic, we can partner with our franchisees to encourage innovation, and especially good ideas can be rolled out system-wide to delight customers in all of our markets.”
The integrated marketing launch of the Summer of Shakes includes national television ads featuring Sonic’s “Two Guys,” local radio and local print advertising, packaging, on-lot prominence, and social and digital marketing.
