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A marketing strategy that could be crudely summarised as "hope for a hot summer" had served The Ice Co perfectly well for decades. But in a market with informed and discerning consumers, sitting back and relying on a nationwide distribution strategy that got identical 2kg bags containing identical cubes in front of more shoppers than anyone else in the market was not going to be enough.
一種可以粗略概括為“炎熱夏天的希望”的營銷策略幾十年來一直很適合The Ice Co。但是，在一個消費者信息靈通、眼光敏銳的市場上，僅僅依靠全國范圍內的分銷策略——將裝著相同方塊的2公斤袋裝冰塊送到市場上更多的顧客面前——是不夠的。
Keeping tabs on what the market wants isn't always a hardship for The Ice Co, as Polly Metcalfe admitted: "We're quite a young group – we all enjoy drinking." The enjoyment of an occasional drink – and the ice within it – flows through the culture of The Ice Co. Unlimited free ice is a perk granted to all employees, a reminder that abundant ice is the best kind of ice. Employees have been known to quiz bartenders on where they get their ice ("none of us have pulled this way", admitted Ginny Woolhouse, the company's head of marketing). It is not unusual for team members on holiday to send photos of their drinks to the group WhatsApp, soliciting feedback on ice purity, quality, size.
對The Ice Co來說掌握市場的需求并不總是一件難事，正如波莉·梅特卡夫所承認的那樣：“我們是一個相當年輕的群體——我們都喜歡喝酒。”偶爾喝一杯酒的樂趣——還有里面的冰塊——都體現了The Ice Co公司的文化。所有員工都可以享受無限免費冰塊的福利，這提醒人們豐富的冰才是最好的冰。眾所周知員工會向調酒師詢問冰塊從哪里來(該公司的營銷主管金妮·伍爾豪斯承認：“我們并沒有要求員工這樣做”)。團隊成員常常會在度假時將他們的飲料照片發到WhatsApp群里，征求對冰塊純度、質量、大小的反饋意見。
The ice from most holiday destinations visited by the team in the early 2010s looked more or less like Ice Co ice: domed cylinders, a little jagged at the edges, with a hole at the centre. The ice from Spain, though, was different – "supersized cubes, really premium, like nothing we'd ever seen before", recalled Woolhouse.
2010年代初，團隊訪問的大多數度假地的冰塊看起來或多或少都像Ice Co的冰塊：圓筒狀，邊緣有點鋸齒狀，中間有個洞。然而，來自西班牙的冰卻不同——“超大尺寸的冰塊，真的很珍貴，我們從未見過這樣的冰塊，”伍爾豪斯回憶說。
Mass-market packaged ice (the stuff that goes into Party Ice bags) is formed in supercooled cylinders that are then broken down into smaller chunks; a high-speed, high-yield process that prioritises quantity over quality. But The Ice Co also already possessed a small number of Italian-made Scotsman machines, which worked in a totally different fashion, by spraying water upwards into an inverted mould. In a Scotsman, gravity ensures that any sediment or impurities in the water fall out of the finished cube, resulting in a noticeably superior product. By passing pure spring water into a Scotsman, The Ice Co hoped it could produce a dead ringer for the cubes served in Spain. The result was glassy, massy and dense. They called it the Super Cube.
大眾市場上的包裝冰(裝入“冰之狂歡”袋子里的東西)是在極冷的圓柱體中形成的，然后被分解成更小的塊狀，一種高速、高產量的加工過程，注重數量而不注重質量。但是The Ice Co公司已經擁有了一小批意大利制造的斯科茨曼機器，它們的工作方式完全不同，將水向上噴射到倒置的模具中。在斯科茨曼機器中，重力可以確保水中的任何沉淀物或雜質從成品立方體中脫落，從而產生明顯優越的產品。通過將純凈的泉水注入斯科茨曼機器內，The Ice Co希望能夠生產出與西班牙的冰塊完全相同的產品，結果造出了呈玻璃狀、塊頭大、密度高的冰塊。他們稱之為超級立方體。
The Super Cube is aptly named: it is an absolute unit, at least three times larger than a conventional cube. And the ebullient explosion of the Spanish-style gin-tonic, served in a copa glass the size of a goldfish bowl filled to the brim with ice, represented a clear opportunity. The Super Cube was a natural companion to the tsunami of premium gins and tonics hitting the market as a trend became a craze in the 2010s. Today, The Ice Co is the official partner of both The Gin to My Tonic (the UK's largest gin-centric events business, with dozens of festivals in cities across the UK per year) and Craft Gin Club, the UK's No 1 gin subscription service, which sends its 75,000 members a bottle of craft gin plus tonic, garnishes and snacks every month (ice is not included, though the Super Cube's distinctive profile is everywhere on their website).
超級立方體的名字很貼切：它是一個絕對單位，至少比傳統的立方體要大三倍。西班牙風格的杜松子酒爆發力十足，盛在金魚缸大小、滿溢冰塊的長腳酒杯里，這顯然是一個好機會。21世紀10年代，優質杜松子酒和奎寧水風靡市場，成為一種潮流，超級立方體是這股潮流的自然伴生。如今，The Ice Co是The Gin to My Tonic(英國最大的以杜松子酒為中心的活動企業，每年在英國各地的城市舉辦幾十個節日)和克拉夫特杜松子酒俱樂部的官方合作伙伴，克拉夫特杜松子酒俱樂部是英國排名第一的杜松子酒訂閱服務，它每個月都會給它的75000名會員送一瓶手工金酒加奎寧水，還有配菜和零食（冰塊不包括在內，盡管超級立方體的獨特外形在他們的網站上隨處可見）。
