Ice cream is very popular in Japan, and why not? It can get pretty darn hot there depending upon the location and time of year. I remember it being in the upper 90's°F in mid-September when I was in the Kobe/Kyoto/Osaka area a few years ago and ice cream and cold beer helped keep me functioning. Although not mixed in together. Talking about mix-ins, Cold Stone Creamery has been making a move on Japan. They now have eight+ stores and more all the time. They are trying to play catch-up with their competitors like Baskin-Robbins which has over 750 stores and who had 700,000 folks lined up last month when they spent two hours giving away free ice cream for Japans Ice Cream Day.

That's hard to beat, but Cold Stone Creamery has decided to leap right out of their competitor's market profile and seek to be the ice cream purveyor to the hip and cool. They are focusing on marketing to young urbanites; the makers, breakers, and trend-setters for Japans youth. I am sure you have seen or heard about them, especially the young women. They dress wildly creative, listen to cutting edge music, and are full of energy and vitality, constantly remaking themselves in their own concept of cool and hip. Their other target consumers are the uber fashion conscious "office ladies" as the young and single, female professionals are known.

Cold Stone Creamery is foregoing traditional marketing routes and instead going into the upscale department stores and shopping areas to give out free samples, hoping to appeal to the girls (and boys) who just wanta have fun. They are also grabbing locations near shops like Louis Vuitton to position themselves in the same strata and image.

They have found that some of the big and bold ice cream flavor and mix-in combinations that have made them number six in the US market don't go over as well in Japan, so they are focusing on what works. Ray Karam, Cold Stone Creamery's taste master and manager of R&D says that "From what I have seen here, Japanese like delicate flavors, not too sweet, fresh and fruity. They like flavors that blend well together. So once you have the basics, it's not difficult to come up with ideas. We do a lot of seasonal promotions, too, because it's important to give consumers something new to try." Flavor combinations like their Berry Berry Berry Good and Cookie Overload which were seen being enjoyed by a pair of Japanese girls at the Roppongi store recently, or Japans most popular flavor and biggest seller, Strawberry Shortcake Serenade.

The company plans to open 150 stores in Japan by 2010, a wildly aggressive expansion since they only have 1,300 shops worldwide. That's a company growth of around 12% in three years, and that's just one country. They also opened their first shop in Korea last July and plan on 105 stores in China in the next seven years. Well I wish them luck, I haven't tried their ice cream yet, I guess I'll have to stop by my local place the next time it warms up outside, maybe in six to seven months when next summer hits. Right now it's too cold outside.