Squeezy Freezy (Slushy Drink Maker) – A Marketing Review
The summer heat is raging and the kids are whining.
Just the other day we reached 95° F and nearly 100% humidity. The kids need some sort of cool relief besides sitting inside of an air-conditioned house and playing video games on a large screen high-definition television set. Perhaps something different to entertain them as well. Those video games tend to get rather boring after playing them all day long.
Slushes are great summertime treats, but it’s hard to make them. Not only do you have to combine a drink AND some ice into a blender, but you also need to know how to use the blender correctly. As anybody with a kitchen is aware, it’s nearly impossible to hold a lid onto a blender while pressing the correct operating buttons. Just last week I heard of somebody losing two fingers in a bloody massacre that was labeled in the newspaper as a “blender malfunction.”
Yikes!
But what if there was an easier way to make slushes? What if kids could make their own slushie drink without complicated machinery involving spinning blades?
Squeezy Freezy website — www.GetSqueezyFreezy.com
What’s this? The Squeezy Freezy? Am I to understand that making a slush no longer requires a blender, a Master’s degree in culinary arts, or even adult supervision?
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial — NOTE: The price at the end of the commercial is incorrect.
Let’s take a closer look at the Squeezy Freezy advertisement and see how it’s being sold to the general public.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Can’t you tell how much we love the Squeezy Freezy?
As we can see, the Squeezy Freezy television commercial jumps right into the heart of the matter by having a bunch of kids showing us their love affair with Squeezy Freezy. Whether they’re thrilled to be making a slush drink with the product, to be enjoying said slush drink, or because they’re in a TV commercial, for whatever reason, these children are happy.
Are your kids this happy right now? Or are your little minions miserable because they’re NOT making and enjoying slush drinks?
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – We’re the hippest parents in town.
It’s not just kids who might enjoy making and drinking slushes with the Squeeze Freezy. Here we have two “parents” joining their “kids” in some ridiculously bad dance moves while drinking their icy cold drinks. Aren’t these parents just so hip and cool? Don’t you wish that you could be one big happy family that’s so easily amused with such a simple concept?
On a side note, notice how the colors of the Squeezy Freezy cups all clash with the color of each person’s shirt? This was all designed to help grab your attention so you’d pay better attention to the action on the screen. The clash of colors between fashion and the product happens in pretty much every scene in the commercial. Welcome to marketing, folks.
So what does it take to actually make a slush drink with the Squeezy Freezy?
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – It’s so cold in there!
That questioned is answered next in the advertisement. After a yeti (a pretty cool character, BTW) hands a kid an empty Squeezy Freezy container and tells him to freeze it. The first step is to place the cup into the freezer and freeze it. There’s no mention as to how long it takes to freeze the Squeezy Freezy.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Stay on target!
Step two requires some hand-eye coordination as you pour your favorite drink into the ice cold Squeezy Freezy cup.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze!
The final step is to screw the lid onto the cup and then begin squeezing your Squeezy Freezy. Keep squeezing the flexible cup until the drink partially freezes and becomes a slush. Again, there’s no indication as to how long you’ll need to keep squeezing the cup until you’ll have a slush. One could look at this and say that you’ll strengthen your hands and work off the calories in the drink before enjoying it.
And that’s it. One your drink is slushy then it’s time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Or more likely the fruits of mom’s labor. This product does involve some work, and we all know how today’s overprotective, helicopter parents wouldn’t dare have their precious little snowflakes actually exert some effort in order to have a snack. I bet your kids would love drinking the cold slush while you, the overprotective parent, carry their backpack home from the school bus stop. That is, those of you who actually walk instead of driving the kids to and from the bus stop as many incredibly lame parents do these days.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – It freezes BELOW FREEZING if you can believe that.
What’s the secret to the Squeezy Freezy? How is such a device able to make slushes?
Don’t expect anything technical here. All the commercial states is that the “polar chambers” freeze below freezing. Oddly enough, so do ice cubes and popsicles. Anyway, that’s uhhh, well, that’s it as far as discussing how the Squeezy Freezy actually works. This advertisement makes it seem like it’s some sort of magic trick to use a freezing cold item (the sides of the cup in this case) and using that to partially freeze a beverage, making it into a slush.
The key thing here is that the interior of the Squeezy Freezy cup has a large amount of freezing cold surface area that’s going to touch the liquid drink. As you squeeze the cup the liquid will rapidly cool and, in theory, reach a slushy state within a few moments. This transition from liquid to semi-solid will occur even faster if you pour a cold drink from the refrigerator into the Squeezy Freezy.
Take note that you probably shouldn’t use hot beverages, such as coffee or hot chocolate, with the Squeezy Freezy. A) It’ll eventually ruin the freezing power of the Squeezy Freezy, and B) It probably won’t work anyway. A slushy “hot” chocolate does sound interesting though. I wonder if people will try to do that with a glass of chocolate milk. Then again, that would probably taste better as a milkshake.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Never underestimate the power of a slushy drink.
Here we have a girl enjoying her slush. I do wonder what flavor of drink she’s enjoying because the slush actually looks really bland in this scene. Remember that as the water freezes and expands, the color of the beverage is going to become more and more diluted through the transition from liquid to solid.
So what sort of beverages could be more fun and entertaining if they were slushy?
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Why does orange juice have to be so f*cking boring?
Our first example is a girl turning her incredibly lame and even more boring orange juice into a slushy version of orange juice. When vacationing in Florida, one of my favorite drinks is a slushy orange juice. I can picture myself enjoying a frozen orange slush while walking through an adventurous themed area, heading to the old west or even a more futuristic land. Ah, now those are the days.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Ecto Cooler my ass!
Up next we have a kid who is clearly no longer amused by his lime beverage. He’s too young to add vodka to it. So what’s the next best thing? How about converting that boring lime drink into a slush? Yeah, that’ll do the trick.
Or maybe not. Perhaps the kid just needs a new flavor to drink. If a drink’s flavor is disgusting, converting it to a slush is going to keep the taste just as nasty.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – I swear, if mom makes *one* more pitcher of this horrible drink, I’m going to hurl onto the kitchen floor!
Last is perhaps the lamest of all drinks . . . pink lemonade. Ordinary artificial lemonade is one thing, but you’ve reached the ultimate of lows by coloring the drink pink. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when the kids are bored with the pink lemonade.
According to the advertisement, the solution here is to convert the pink lemonade beverage into a slush. Apparently that’s going to give the kids lots of entertainment and forget that they’re tired of drinking the lame ass drink. As pointed out in the previous example, the better solution could be as simple as changing flavors. You can pick up packets of artificially flavored drinks for like eighteen or twenty cents each at Walmart. Add some sugar, pour in some water, and then stir until the powder and sugar are both dissolved. Bam! The kids now have a new drink in the fridge. You’re welcome.
On a side note, did you notice that these three examples with different kids were all filmed in the same kitchen?
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Just say NO! to blenders.
Can you tell me again why we’re not just using a blender to make slushes?
Oh, that’s right. Blenders are highly complicated machines that require a four-year college degree to operate. Not a liberal arts degree, either. You’ll definitely need something in the realm of a Bachelors of Science degree if you want to be able to handle using a blender without creating a mess or chopping off part of your fingers.
Remember that blenders are loud and scary machines. They also throw food all over the kitchen and create huge messes. In addition to the machine being made of pure evil, using a blender to make a slush might require some math skills when dealing with a ratio of liquid drink to ice cubes. I doubt there’s an application on your iPhone to help you with that problem. To play it safe just stay as far from those machines as possible. Don’t even look at them in the store.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Because the yeti says so.
Are you going to invalidate a yeti’s claims? I think not.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Mixing drinks can be a horrifying experience.
Just when you thought that you knew everything there was to know about converting ordinary drinks into slushes, along comes this concept of MIXING drinks and creating new experiences. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!
What’s next? Taking a cup to a soda fountain and using all of the flavors, making a “suicide?” Do they still call those mixed drinks “suicides,” or was that term phased out through political correctness?
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – Just rinse and freeze the germs.
So what does it take to clean the Squeezy Freezy? Are they dishwasher safe?
Wait a second. We’re just supposed to rinse the cup and then stick it back into the freezer? What about the germs and bacteria from the previous person? Shouldn’t we at least use some soap with the water?
It’s been noted that freezer cups (similar cups that are frozen before usage) are not dishwasher safe. Nor is it good to use hot water as the drastic change in temperature can lead to cracking and the inability to freeze as well. Unless it’s specifically stated, one would like to believe that similar cleaning concepts exist for something like the Squeezy Freezy.
Squeezy Freezy TV commercial – It’s available in one of four bright colors.
Right before we’re ready to whip out the credit card and order the Squeezy Freezy, the advertisers want to tease us one last time. Here we see that the Squeezy Freezy cups come in our of four bright colors: Outrageous Red, Arctic Blue, Sunshine Yellow and Neon Green.
Like before with the colors of the cups and the people’s shirts, notice this time how all of the slushes strongly contrast with the color of the cups. It’s all designed to capture your attention and make the product look like fun. Naturally, the color of the cup has no effect on the color of your slush.
The ending of the television commercial has the big promotion. For just $19.99 we’ll receive two of the Squeezy Freezy cups, two of the spoon straws, and two drink recipe books. NOTE – The TV commercial I streamed in the beginning of this article is a slightly older commercial, and the price on the website is slightly higher. Everything else is identical to the current commercial streaming on the product’s website.
Remember that you’ll be receiving two Squeezy Freezy cups OF THE SAME COLOR. If you select one cup in one color and a second in a different color, you WILL BE CHARGED for TWO SETS of cups. If you have two kids and each of them wants a cup in a different color, you’ll be best off waiting to find this as-seen-on-TV product in a drug store or Walmart. They almost always appear in those places. It’s just a matter of time.
Sometimes an as-seen-on-TV product will be so cheap and craptastic and a complete waste of money that it’ll actually appear in dollar stores. That is rare though and I’ve only seen it happen only a couple of times.
Squeezy Freezy website – order checkout page
The TOTAL PRICE of the promotion is $29.98 ($19.99 + $8.99 S&H + $1.00 Web Service Fee). I sh*t you not. This company is adding an extra dollar to the total price just because you’re ordering it through the company’s website.
Sure, it’s only a dollar, but it’s an excuse for them to advertise a slightly lower price. Would you be as motivated to purchase the product if they advertised a $9.99 S&H fee instead of it being $8.99? How about if the product itself was being sold as $20.99 instead of $19.99? That doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Web service fees are just an excuse for the companies to squeeze an extra dollar or two from you in the end. Yes, the fee is mentioned at the very bottom of the website, but most people will not see it there. They’ll be finalizing their order screen and then notice the fee at the end. I bet you that most people who see the fee at that point will still proceed with ordering the product. They’re already spending $29 for the product. What’s an extra dollar?
This practice reminds me of the exorbitant service fees that some hotels will add to your total bill. They’ll advertise a nice and low rate to get you to stay at the resort only to turn around and add an extra $10-20 per night in fees just because they can. It’s a sleazy way to advertise a lower price and appear to be competitive. It’s just an illusion. That’s all.
FINAL THOUGHTS
When stepping back at looking at the product, the Squeezy Freezy looks like a different, possibly fun, way to make slushy drinks. Kids will probably enjoy using the frozen cup to make their own slushy drinks.
To me, the Squeezy Freezy looks like a freezer cup but with flexible, squeezable sides. Freezer cups are special cups that you freeze before using them. The inner liner has a fluid that freezes which keeps your drink very cold without the need for ice. It’s perfect for people who don’t like it when ice melts and waters down their drinks. Freezer cups have been around for at least fifteen years.
The advertising for the Squeezy Freezy is hokey and fairly obnoxious at times, but we have to remember that this is geared towards children. The children will see the commercial and then bug their parents for the product. That’s how it works most of the time. The advertisers are hoping that you’ll view the commercial and then act on impulse, pulling out the credit card and ordering the product.
Kudos to the advertisers credit for including the yeti. That’s a great character and I keep laughing whenever I see it on TV. Plus a yeti is a fantastic mascot for selling a cold drink, just like Icee using a polar bear.
As a whole, I like the concept behind the Squeezy Freezy. I just question its effectiveness and ability to be cleaned between uses. This does give kids a chance to do something else in the kitchen and be creative when mixing their own drink recipes.
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All of the Squeezy Freezy commercial images were screenshots of a TV commercial currently available on YouTube and the product’s website. For more product information, please visit the company’s website at www.GetSqueezyFreezy.com.
RellimZone.com is not affiliated with Squeezy Freezy.
Long live the Yeti!