The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024
Magnum sells ice cream in winter with 'Find Your Summer' sun-spotting photos
Magnum sold ice cream in European winter by photographing people catching real sunbeams — best January ever, +66.3% core sales.
Magnum · Unilever España
What it had to solve
Ice cream belongs to summer, and Magnum's sales followed the thermometer. With all the odds against enjoying ice cream in the cold, the brand set out to change the narrative and invite people to find their 'small summer' — a moment of pleasure exactly when they needed it.
How it works
Ice cream is a summer category, and Magnum's sales dropped with the temperature. In the middle of European winter, with snow and grey skies everywhere, the brand wanted to change the narrative and invite people out to find their 'small summer' — a moment of pleasure when they needed it most.
LOLA MullenLowe turned that invitation into precision craft. The team surveyed streets across Europe to identify the exact corners and minutes where winter sun would appear, then photographed people catching those real sunbeams with a Magnum, printing the precise time and place in the margin of each picture. A 90-second black-and-white film by Juan Cabral, digital posters fed by live weather data, and a real-time website completed the system.
For the first time Magnum won in winter: its best January ever, with value sales up 66.3% for the core range and 38.9% for total Magnum through a halo effect across other flavours and innovations. The campaign then swept the award circuit — the two Gran Ojos for Gráfica and Producción Gráfica at El Ojo 2024, the Cannes Lions Outdoor Grand Prix, and a Gold at the WARC Awards Europe 2025.
Why it lands
- Turns the category's weakest season into the creative territory instead of avoiding it
- Replaces discounting with proof: the sunbeam, the exact minute and place, is real and documented
- The precise data printed on each image makes every poster a small discovery, not just an ad
- Layered media — film, posters, weather-fed digital screens and a live map — makes the idea findable wherever the audience is
What it did
Magnum won in winter for the first time — its best January ever, with value sales up 66.3% for the core range (Classic, White Chocolate, Almond) and 38.9% for total Magnum through a halo effect. The campaign took the two Gran Ojos for Gráfica and Producción Gráfica at El Ojo 2024 and a Gold at the WARC Awards Europe 2025.
What you can take
The category convention — ice cream is for summer — can be a creative asset, not a constraint: attack the off-season with precision and craft, and the idea writes its own story.
Since then
Find Your Summer became one of the most awarded campaigns of 2024–2025: Cannes Lions Outdoor Grand Prix plus Golds in Outdoor and Print & Publishing, One Show Gold, two El Ojo Gran Ojos, and a WARC Awards Europe 2025 Gold for Channel Pioneer. It became the reference case for challenging category seasonality and led Magnum to repeat the winter-pleasure logic in later seasons.
Sources
- Find Your Summer, de Lola, conquista los Grandes Ojos de Gráfica y Producción Gráfica
- Magnum y LOLA MullenLowe ponen el toque español en los WARC Awards Europe 2025
- 2024戛纳创意节户外狮全场大奖：寻找你的夏天
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