Will Mr. Softee Melt China's Heart?

In a report that should contain a hometown disclaimer, The New York Times goes all soft describing the expansion of the Mister Softee "empire" in China. Sample line: "Mr. Softee or Mr. Soft Heart, the English translation of 'ruan xin xian sheng' — there is no Mandarin word for Softee — has been a hit, with sales doubling every year since the first truck started rolling three years ago." Forget for a moment that there is also no English word for "Softee." But will its Americana appeal translate to sales in China and beyond?

For those unfamiliar, Mr. Softee is a half century-year-old ice cream truck franchise from the U.S. east coast. Mr. Softee trucks are urban summer icons in places such as New York and Philadelphia. The brand is well known for the (often maddening) jingle broadcast by the trucks. Mr. Softee is so popular that it has fought, often very dramatically, many imitators. In New York its brand is so ubiquitous that Mr. Softee is sometimes wrongly credited for any one of a number of ice cream truck activities.

Now, the Mr. Softee brand operates six trucks in China. While the Chinese market is familiar with ice cream (Baskin-Robbins is heavily franchised; fast-food locations like McDonald's serve soft-serve cones), including street-vended ice cream, it has yet to be widely introduced to the American ice cream truck. The iconic standing the brand enjoys in the U.S. won't mean much in China though. Unlike other franchised brands which are well-known to Chinese consumers, the simple retro charm of the Mr. Softee ice cream truck from American culture does not exist in China. Mr. Softee will have to build its brand in China the old fashioned way, from the ground, or street, up.

To that end, Softee seems to be on the right track. Instead of just introducing the American menu translated, the brand has augmented its ice cream offerings to include regional flavors such as milk tea and the popular flavor of red bean. Mr. Softee is attempting to maintain brand consistency in some ways. The Times report notes that Mr. Softee uses imported milk: "Milk from the United States keeps our ice cream tasting as close and consistent as possible with our American product."

This last detail may be one of the major make-or-break factors for Mr. Softee's expansion in China, and then Asia, including its plans for Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Data varies widely on the levels of lactose intolerance within the Chinese population, but some figures put it as high as 30 percent. Yet, as Mr. Softee's China president notes, “In the end, kids are the same all over the world. They see an ice cream truck, they come running.”