How Strategic Communication and Digital Media Drove Off‑Season Growth

How Home City Ice Turned Contraseasonality into Measurable Growth

Background Information

Home City Ice, the largest family‑owned ice company in North America, faced a uniquely difficult communication challenge: ice is universally used, yet almost entirely invisible in consumers’ minds. Despite its century‑long history and national footprint across 160 locations in 25 states, the brand operates in a category that rarely earns attention, making it a quiet giant with a hidden value story.

Compared to refrigerator ice, a proprietary multi‑step purification and freezing process produces cleaner, better‑tasting, longer‑lasting ice. Yet these advantages were virtually invisible to consumers.

The core question became: could we increase offseason sales by redefining the value of Home City Ice bagged ice in consumers’ minds? To answer it, we needed to uncover what people truly value about ice, identify which benefits resonated most, and design an in‑market test capable of showing measurable and profitable impact.

Challenges

Despite strong brand equity, the work needed to overcome several challenges:

• Seasonal limitations, with the majority of their business occurring in warmer months. That offseason gap represented a significant untapped business opportunity.
• The need to prove marketing ROI.
• As a low-involvement category, there’s limited public knowledge on the benefit of professionally purified ice vs homemade refrigerator ice.
• Influence purchase behavior through education and perception shift.  
• Health‑focused messaging can be sensitive; without clear, responsible execution, it may cause concern or skepticism among some consumers.

Breaking through required a solid research-backed messaging strategy rooted in what consumers genuinely value, supported by a smart media strategy that moved the sales needle.

These challenges meant the communication approach needed to aim to redefine the category, not just advertise within it.

Objectives

The campaign aimed to deliver measurable business impact:

1. Increase off season bagged ice sales within targeted markets.
2. Validate whether paid media can generate a measurable, incremental lift in transactions, and revenue.
3. Identify the most compelling consumer message concept
4. Reach incremental households beyond current high frequency purchasers.

Methods and Strategies

Research Driven Message Development

A four phase research program including qualtative and quantative research guided strategy.

Research revealed a quiet but powerful realization: consumers already care deeply about the quality of the water they consume, yet rarely extend that thinking to the ice they use every day. When prompted, many connected the dots themselves:

“I’m careful about my water, but the ice never even crossed my mind.”

“If ice melts into my drink, I want to know it’s clean.”

This reframing—ice as part of the drink, not an afterthought—created the breakthrough moment that unlocked true consumer purchase intent. Multiple message territories were tested, and one clearly emerged as the most resonant with consumers that aligned the brand with feelings of safety, trust, and peace of mind.

Creative Strategy

The research translated into a focused messaging platform built around a powerful insight: consumers care deeply about health and wellness. By choosing language and visuals that emphasized purity and trust, we ensured the “better for your health” benefit took center stage in campaign creative.

The communication strategy was designed to shift the long‑held perception that “ice is all the same” to a new frame:

"The ice you choose matters and Home City Ice bagged ice is premium."

With booming test results, this was a category‑redefining communication effort.

Media Strategy & Targeting

To measure the impact of paid media on offseason sales, we activated a dual‑market test using retail media and digital display. Each channel was designed to play a specific role in the consumer journey:

Retail Media

• Used to drive incremental retail transactions by reaching shoppers at the point of decision.
• Selected test market for optimal closed‑loop ROI measurement, given its highest store density, 100% sales penetration, and eligibility for product listing ads. This enabled maximum qualified reach and real‑time, retailer‑verified sales attribution.
• Targeted high‑intent shoppers using retailer first‑party data and relevant behavioral/contextual signals such as beverage drinkers and beverage sub-commodities.
• Excluded existing Home City Ice buyers from the last 12 months to ensure sales were incremental.

Digital Display

• Used to build awareness and deliver educational messaging that reinforced the value of professionally purified ice.
• Selected a second test market which was identified to have the right balance of scale and measurability.
• Targeting based on research identifying this group as highly responsive to the messaging.
• Combined behavioral signals with contextual signals.
• Emphasized mobile placements to reach consumers on the go.

Throughout the campaign, we optimized creative, audiences, and ad placements to maximize performance.

Results

The digital media test confirmed that reframing value around health and quality drove consideration and increased offseason sales, showcasing that strategic communication can impact behavior, even in a category consumers don’t ‘shop’ and rarely think about.

Retail Media Test Market

• 7% increase in sales YOY
• Doubled YOY sales increase vs all other retailers (7% vs 3.5%)
• 1.3M impressions, $2.70 ROAS

Digital Display Test Market

• Held seasonal sales steady post-summer (4% through 10/29)
• 5M impressions, 8,403 clicks
• 0.15% CTR, outperforming the 0.10% industry benchmark

Conclusion

We proved that strategic communication and smart digital media targeting can reshape how consumers think about bagged ice and their willingness to buy it outside of the peak summer season.

As one consumer said during research, “Healthy Ice gives me peace of mind—if I care about my water, I should care about my ice.”

By grounding messaging in real consumer insights from research, reframing product value around health and quality, and deploying media intentionally, Home City Ice saw a measurable lift in offseason sales during the campaign, demonstrating how consumers responded to the data-driven communication approach.