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Schultz's Creamery Develops a National Brand

People choose the things they wear, eat and drink for a lot of reasons. They may like the way something tastes or how a shirt looks on them

But the new owner of Schultz's Creamery is betting it's really marketing. Former marketing executive Jim Odney is totally renovating Schultz's from the production line to the trucks driving to the store. Odney believes he can turn this local favorite into a national brand. And marketing firms across the country are scrambling to be a part of it.

"The problem with making a good ice cream and not marketing is you have limited sales, says Odney. " This company spent $216 on advertising last year. That buys you a couple of ads in a high school yearbook but it doesn't talk to the masses. We are going to talk to the masses."

Schultz's Creamery is now making ice cream for other companies. Odney's plan is to create a national brand, with a new name and new packaging. He would then license that brand and the products would be produced not only in Bismarck but also at dairies across the country.

"And then promoting that…telling people about it, getting people to experience our ice cream," Odney says. "I think we would be remiss not doing that. Our product is that good, we can compete with anybody and to not tell North Dakotans that we make a great product right here in North Dakota that we think is just as good as national products like Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's, we're doing our consumers a disservice."

Odney says they've done research and found that there is an opportunity to expand sales simply by changing the name. "And with a name change and a total package redesign, we think we're going to see some real success," Odney says.

After interviewing 20 firms, Jim chose a San Francisco brand identity-consulting firm, SBG, to do the package redesign. "They recently did the redesign for Diet Coke. We're going to work with a company and are working with a company that will give us the same type of marketing expertise that has gone into some of the best companies in the world for that matter. Some of their clients have included 3M, General Mills, Coca-Cola, and Apple Computer. These people know how to brand products, how to sell."

Jim asked SBG to come up with a name and a package design that would appeal to what he calls the tweens…nine to 12 year olds…while not turning off the gate-keeper, Mom.

Sorry, Odney has asked us not to show you the new design proposals yet, but he says he's thrilled with it. "The investment we've made in rebuilding the infrastructure while costly, the risk was really in the branding," Odney says. "To get all of the equipment right and to buy new trucks and to rebuild the creamery and have the brand not work, while not wasted dollars are certainly not the more effective use of our dollars, so a lot was at risk.

Schultz's creamery has been approached by advertising agencies from across the United States who are interested in creating this national brand. "We've had contact from advertising agencies from across the United States. Ogilvy and Mather out of New York called and said 'We'd really be interested in pitching you for this.' Why would a top five worldwide ad agency call Jim Odney to be the ad agency for a small creamery in Bismarck North Dakota? Because the concept is if we do this right, we can be a national brand and we can be right here in North Dakota. Doesn't matter where we're located.

They love the opportunity to get involved in building a brand from scratch. Marketing people don't get that opportunity very often."

SBG Enterprises Managing Partner Lawrence Roelling says they found the opportunity to create a national brand of milk the most challenging opportunity. "We think it's an opportunity to take something that is intrinsically good and give it just a unique spin and that made it really exciting," says Roelling. "The ice cream is logistically probably a very high priority item but as far as creating a statement, really creating a new wave in a category, theopportunity in milk is probably the more obvious one."

Schultz's creamery and SBG will be trying the name and design out on thousands of people to get their reaction before taking it to the street.