My Daythis week talks to Liz Finlayproduct group manager, HB ice cream
I GET IN TO the office at about 8.30am. Our office is in Citywest and I live in Drumcondra so it takes about an hour to get in each morning.
I look after the marketing of all the in-home ice-cream brands. We're actually doing okay this summer despite the rain. The first thing I do is turn on the computer and head over to the coffee dock for some green tea.
I'm pretty good about starting my day healthily - I have fruit for breakfast - and it's just as well because we have freezers full of ice cream on every floor here.
The first job of the day is a look at sales. We get figures updated weekly and have estimates daily. Ireland is the third-highest consumer of ice cream in Europe after Sweden and Denmark. It's funny that cold countries love it so much.
I normally get together with my two brand managers to go through whatever marketing programmes we're undertaking. Right now, we're finishing off our Ice Cream Parties for Down Syndrome Ireland.
We're also running an on-pack finger puppet promotion with Hazelbrook Farm. It helps increase sales because it gives people cause to pause. Our research shows that one of the problems with ice-cream sales in supermarkets is that the aisles are so cold people tend to run up and down them.
At some stage in the day we'll usually have a public relations or advertising agency in to update us on a campaign.
Agencies love coming in to us because we tend to sit around eating ice cream at meetings. Then again, it can be hard to take someone seriously when they're sucking one of our products.
After lunch, we have meetings about specific brands, which will include not just marketing people but everybody involved in the supply chain, from national account teams to customer merchandising teams to finance people to the people who do the planograms for stores.
Between us, we devise a promotional calendar for each brand. At the moment we're deep into 2009. We introduce around 15 new products a year, whether new ones or new varieties of existing ones.
HB is a great brand to work on because people feel really nostalgic towards it - it reminds them of their childhood.We have around 80 per cent market share.
Women are our main buyers but some of our products appeal to students and young professionals. Ice Burgers are a very male product, and one of our best sellers. We make a point of not targeting children but adults in our advertising, which I think is important.
After all those meetings I'm normally back at the desk sorting through the e-mail trail until around 6.30pm or so, which also means I miss the worst of the traffic on the way home.
It can be hard to switch off. When I'm in a supermarket I look at other brands' promotions, wondering if they'd work for us. Agencies love coming in to us because we tend to eat ice cream at meetings