I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

When Jonathan Beer of Woodmere celebrated “Free Cone Day” at the Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop in Cedarhurst, he saw a poster advertising a contest on Facebook to become the brand’s first-ever flavor ambassador and decided to enter.

The night before the contest deadline, Beer made a video that tells of his first Häagen-Dazs memory, why he is the ice cream brand’s biggest fan, what his favorite flavor is, what the best part of his experience on “Free Cone Day” was, and why he should be the next flavor ambassador.

“Tell us what makes you the biggest Häagen-Dazs fan … well I like their ice cream as you can probably tell, I have too much of it,” Beer said in his entry video holding two pints of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. “I have 12 more in my freezer and 24 more upstairs. I need to stop!”

After entering his video on Facebook for the contest, he and his parents spread the word for friends and family to vote for his video entry. On June 3, Beer received an email informing him he was one of five finalists and just 13 days later, he got another email, then a phone call from Häagen-Dazs President Dawn Uremovich telling him he won.

“At first I thought someone was joking,” Beer said. “I was sitting in Starbucks when I got the call and probably scared people because I started yelling, ‘yes!’”

As a flavor ambassador, Beer will receive free ice cream for a year and can try new flavors before they are released to the general public.

Häagen-Dazs conceived of the idea for a flavor ambassador in a brainstorming session, according to Uremovich. She said they were looking for someone who is passionate about the brand. “We thought he was a character,” she said about Beer. “We felt that he was in a big Häagen-Dazs area geographically and that he could continue the momentum and excitement by interacting with shops, consumers and future owners.”

Beer will receive his free ice cream through a gift card that can be reloaded each month. He will also be getting white pints, which are sample pints of new flavors, mailed to his home so he can try them and give the company his feedback. “We create the samples and he’s going to get the white pints at the same time we do,” Uremovich said.