Brand building has paid dividends for Unilever this summer as the Wall’s Magnum bar has single-handedly rescued flagging ice cream sales.

Poor British weather has had such a devastating effect on the ice cream industry that confectionery giants Nestle and Mars are remaining tight lipped about the specifics of their performance so far this year.

Able to report a 7% increase in overall sales volumes, Unilever is more willing to comment. Sales rose from 57 million litres for the first half of 1999 to 60 million litres to June 2000, but the company concedes that this is surprising.

Unilever uses a neural network system to analyse average sunshine hours, temperature and rainfall data together with sales figures. Statistics are then compared with averages over the last 40 years. From this weather index each month is given a score to help the manufacturer gauge conditions for sales. An average rating is 100, but June’s was said to be just 93.9. “It’s never been as low at the half year, ever,” said general marketing manager, Simon Stevens.

The previous half year low was 95.7 last year, but July 1999 was rated at 110.4, while in July this year the figure sank below 90.

However, a massive increase in sales of Magnum ice cream bars has more than made up for the shortfall in sales of other lines – and fully justified a huge hike in promotional expenditure, which went from £2.5 million (r4m) in 1999 to r11.2 million this year. It is estimated that around 150 million Magnum bars will be sold in the UK this year, compared with 88 million units last year.

Nestle’s advertising spend is said to be r12 million, but this is divided between its ‘super seven’ brands – including Rowntree’s fruit pastil lolly and Kit Kat Chunky. According to market research firm Nielsen, Nestle enjoyed 1% growth in the impulse market last year, while Unilever and Mars suffered declines of 5% and 7% respectively. Nestle also saw growth in the take-home sector, and the company’s estimates put its own-freezer turnover equal to Wall’s and 38% ahead of Mars.

Geoffrey Molloy, chairman of the Ice Cream Federation, said: “This year was not catastrophically bad, nor fantastically good. Even when the weather wasn’t good in June, there was an unusually favourable weather pattern in that the good weather fell at the weekends.

“My feeling from talking to our members is that they were not too despondent at the beginning of July, but then we had more bad weather, and of course the summer isn’t over yet.

“What is happening is that lead times are much shorter. Customers are wary about carrying stock and surges in demand come instantly. The trick for manufacturers is to manage this challenge successfully.”