How Social Media Helped Sell Out Gelato Festivals On 2 Continents

The Client

Born in Florence in 2010, Gelato Festival is world’s only traveling gelato extravaganza, where the best gelatieri in each city compete against each other, with unique flavours created specifically for the events. We worked across 6 European countries and multiple US states.

Customers buy tickets, which enables them to taste all the flavours (unlimited scoops in the US!) and then vote for their favourite, with the winner of each stage going through to the Gelato Festival World Masters.

“Italy’s Gelato Festival is a seriously delicious competition.” The Washington Post 

“Gelato Festival America Returns With The World’s Largest Mobile Dessert Laboratory.” Forbes

 

What We Did

Challenges

The marketing challenges for Gelato Festival included ensuring consistency across each event, standardising deliverables for sponsors and chefs (as well as what they could expect from us) and reaching sales targets across multiple markets using a range of channels and local resources, often simultaneously across countries/continents.

The events needed a social media expert with the ability to coordinate multiple teams and develop great relationships with participants, partners and stakeholders.

Strategy

We used organic and paid social media to create build-up and buzz for each event, integrated with local influencer campaigns in each market.

Customer newsletters (where we had the data) encouraged previous visitors to return, with plenty of incentives to join us on social media and keep the momentum going.

During the events, flower walls and Instagrammable gelato presentation ensured customers posted non-stop throughout, and displaying our handles ensured thousands of customers tagging and sharing Gelato Festival content.

Results

Over the years I worked with Gelato Festival and Gelato Festival America, we sold out the majority of events including exceeding our London Gelato Festival target by over 100% in 2019. Our sales and profile across multiple countries and states meant we attracted the high quality chefs and sponsors, and built significant momentum each year.

Testimonial

Amy worked with Gelato Festival across the European and American events for 5 years, managing our content, social media and marketing, both for the brands as a whole and with local partners for each event.
Her attitude and enthusiasm meant she developed great relationships with our chefs, customers and suppliers, and she went above and beyond to make sure the events were well-attended and profitable, and to help the business grow.
Amy has been a valued member of the Gelato Festival team, and I’d recommend her to anyone looking for paid and organic social media sales strategies.
Gabriele Poli, Founder & President, Gelato Festival Europa & Gelato Festival America
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