Firstly I'd like to apologise for the title I couldn't resist! To celebrate the 30th birthday of Ben and Jerry's today, Cake PR have made great use of Facebook. They have created a free gift (as shown) for people to give to their friends.

In less than 24 hours it has 'sold out' which means that people have given all of the 250,000 gifts. As far as I'm aware I think it's the first time one of the free branded gifts has sold out on the day it was released. That's quite an achievement not least because it means that they have gained a minimum of 500,000 exposures in one day from people sending and receiving the gift. Not to mention all the people who have seen the gift on people's facebook profiles, newsfeeds and the homepage, and will continue to do so. I don't think gifts are ever removed from people's Facebook profiles.

The facebook application is a clever concept too. It's like some of the other applications in that it allows you to send free gifts to your friends. The difference with the Ben and Jerry's application is that it allows you to send pictures of the different flavours of ice cream. Like mini adverts for their products. Furthermore it's sparked discussion amongst fans of the company. People are waxing lyrical about their favourite flavours and making calls for Ben and Jerry's to bring back discontinued flavours. I hope they make great use of that feedback.

Giving away free Ice Cream in the Scoop Shops is a great idea too. I just wish I lived near to somewhere that was participating in it!

UPDATE: Presumably due to popular demand the availability of the free gift has been doubled from 250,000 to 500,000. I wonder how long it will take for all those gifts to run out.

UPDATE: All 500,000 free gifts have now sold out. A minimum of 1 million exposures globally isn't bad going in under 36 hours.

Labels: advertisements, application, ben jerrys, cake pr, facebook, formby, free cone day, gift, ice cream, matthew watson, scoop shops, viral campaign