I turn longing into a campaign.

Gunnar moves from Knorr to Eskimo. By the time we start working on the Tschisi comeback, people have been longing for the yellow ice cream for ages. There are already petitions, enquiries and activity on social media. We don’t have to create the demand.

On behalf of Eskimo, I develop a catalyst: a bet and the communications around it. The idea for the bet is mine. Peter Brandlmayr, my oldest friend from school, joins in. Through him I meet Marcel Schachinger. They’re both taking part for fun, without payment.

I lead the campaign, but Peter and Marcel have plenty of freedom to shape the bet and its communications. This still matters to me: when you bring multipliers, influencers or creators into a brand, you have to let them be themselves.

Even within Unilever, bringing the product back isn’t straightforward. The difficulties are real, and they’re communicated. The biggest problem is the factory manager’s handwritten recipe. First, it has to be found in piles of old files. Then we have to work out which recipe is actually the original.

The production line for the characteristic holes no longer exists either. Rebuilding a dedicated line for a small country would be expensive. The solution is the Brickerl production line. Tschisi comes back, but without the holes.

The comeback becomes one of Eskimo’s most successful product launches: in July 2013, Gunnar reports nearly eight million units sold since calendar week ten (HORIZONT).

With the launch, we win the entire Eskimo social media account. Before that, it was managed from Germany. Later, a journalist connects Peter, SPiNNWERK and me through check-ins. I go on to tell the case again and again in my lectures.