From storytelling with Iris Apfel to purpose-led cacao sourcing in the Ivory Coast, Magnum’s global brand director Tugce Aksoy shares how passion, community and sensory branding power the grown-up ice-cream brand.
You’ve had a diverse career across journalism, pharma and personal care, and spent the last decade in Unilever’s ice cream division, including seven years with Magnum. Can you walk us through your career journey and key milestones?
My first job was writing in a magazine when I was only 16 years old. I was just transcribing interviews with celebrities. One day, I handed them a piece I had written. The editor really loved it and they published it.
I started writing essays, mostly sarcastic observations of my generation. The magazine sold 25,000 copies monthly. I was still at school at the time and seeing the magazine on the shelf was a big moment for me. I was so proud to know what I wrote would be read by people who do not know me.
At university, I went in different direction and studied engineering because I’m from a family where everyone is an engineer and it was almost a rule that you had to be one. While studying, I realized that engineering was killing my soul – although it contributed lot to my thinking. I switched to doing a double major in engineering and business administration, where I discovered my passion for ideas and how to present them.
While I was still studying, I started my internship at Unilever. I thought marketing might be for me because it’s analytical, but at the same time, you have the chance to create ideas and products that you’re proud of and you have the chance to do storytelling for crowds – so it aligned with many of my passions. I worked across customer marketing in personal care, local brand building for ketchup, mayonnaise, margarine – but I was always secretly jealous of the people that were working on ice-cream.
I managed to join the Magnum team, and have enjoyed every moment for the last seven years. It’s a brand that people really love. There are fans, superstars, influencers, content creators, artists that want to work with you because they love Magnum.
The Lead Network is a parallel track to my Magnum work. My mum really struggled after having a career break to get back on to the job market, so I started doing interviews with women that have interesting stories. My mum was first, then another woman approached me asking if I could write up her experience. I had the opportunity to host my blog in the Lead Network platform, doing fireside chats for them too. Lately, I have also brought this focus on female empowerment to my role at Magnum too with our Awa program.
For those who may not know, what is Magnum?
We call Magnum ‘the first adult ice-cream’ in the world. Before Magnum, which launched in 1989, the ice-cream market was more about child-oriented flavors with bright, colorful ice-creams. Magnum was created as an ice-cream that is for adults: we stand for elevated pleasure, crafted with high-quality ingredients such as thick cracking Belgian chocolate and velvety vanilla ice-cream.
[Magnum] is positioned far away from ‘the kiddie popsicle.’ It has become a lifestyle brand. So it’s not only a great and indulgent product, but it comes with the promise that a ‘day without pleasure is a day lost.’ We believe that you need small pleasures in your life to make yourself fulfilled and happy.
Unilever performed more strongly than expected in the third quarter, and ice-cream performed particularly well. What does this mean for you and your team in 2025?
Magnum has such strong brand equity that our fans are interested in trying different formats – different ice-cream products and different propositions. This year, for example, we had a our first mood-inspired flavors in our new Pleasure Express range. We had a product called Euphoria and a product called Chill, which was vegan, presenting customers with different options.
We try different ingredients, different textures and new formats. 2024 saw the launch of our small bites format: super indulgent, textured Magnum bites called the Magnum Bonbons. It’s going really well.
We have learned that our customers like to eat Magnums at different occasions: sometimes with their friends, sometimes with their family, and sometimes alone when they’re having a moment to themselves. The results show that there is still much room for the brand to grow.
But above all, we’ll keep embracing what makes a Magnum ice cream unique. We’ll listen to our community and look out for opportunities to tap into where people might want to have a Magnum on a different occasion or in a different flavor.
The 2025 Magnum campaign heroes the “sound like no other” – the Magnum ‘crack’.
How is your marketing team structured?
We are a very lean team. We have regional teams and local teams, like every other brand. I’m the global brand director. We also have a global brand VP who acts like a compass to the brand and helps us with creating the vision and sticking to it, understanding cultural nuances and being very connected to our business objectives in the different regions.
Within my team, we have people who are working on big projects across innovation and communication, and we have a small team that is very much focused on driving fame for the brand with partnerships and experiences. The latter is super-important, and each year we continue to develop this – working with celebrities or Cannes Film Festival, Pleasure experiences, or media partnerships.
And then we have a digital/social team as well, which is very much integrated with the partnerships team. Our social team is in-house, so we feel we are very close to our consumers.
It used to be that we would use social to amplify a big TV campaign. Now it is the opposite: we get the insights from social and we design the campaigns and assets with social-first in mind, and then we share it with the fans and have a two-way dialog in social. We do social ‘through the line’ – rather than it being an end channel for us.
Appealing to the legions of magnum fans, the team use Tiktok to share Magnum recipes.
Drawing on your leadership expertise, what has your career taught you that you think helps make a great marketing team?
I think it’s all about finding people’s passions. Here’s an example: a couple of years ago, we wanted to do something about gaming. Some people in the team are extremely talented, but gaming is not their passion. This one guy in our team is extremely interested in gaming.
Giving him responsibility for that project unlocked so many partnerships for our ice-cream business. Now Magnum is one of the first brands that comes to mind when you think about gaming platforms linked with delivery platforms. If you can find a team member with a passion and you give them the responsibility, then his work becomes his hobby and they will make the most out of it.
Some people say that you don’t need to like everything you do in your job. I believe the complete opposite. Rather than circling yourself like a wheel, it’s better to sharpen your edges like a sword. Give the right person responsibility and end-to-end ownership and empowerment and that person will shine and then your business will shine too.
For me, to get the best out of your team you need to find their passion and lean in to it.
Interior designer, Iris Apfel. Became the figurehead for Magnum aged 97.
What’s your first memory of a marketing success that you were part of, where you felt: this is the role for me.
There have been many great memories but one moment where I felt very strongly was in 2019 when we started working with Iris Apfel. She was, at the time, 97 years old. She was a fashion icon that became most famous after the 1990s. She was known for her instantly recognizable thick-frame glasses. She occasionally modeled and would often be photographed in the front row leading fashion shows. However, she had a fascinating background.
She was an interior designer, and among other projects, she had designed parts of the White House on multiple occasions. She had a business with her husband and worked her whole life. They traveled around the world buying textiles and working on design briefs.
After her husband died, the Metropolitan Museum in New York made an entire exhibition about her. As she described it, she rediscovered herself. She was busy every day – being interviewed, being consulted, offering design advice. She was working full-time until she died aged 102.
For me, shooting with her in Miami was a moment when I felt ‘This is the job for me.’ Before her, we always worked with very big household names, but our agency, Lola, brought us the idea to work with her.
They proposed that if we wanted to tell a story about ‘enjoying pleasure every day’, then she would be perfect. The campaign was called “Never stop playing,” and the agency said Iris would be the ultimate expression of this. At first we were not sure that enough people knew who she was.
And then they explained that the idea revolved around her approach to life. Again we were hesitant – it seemed really risky. But the idea was presented to Iris and she loved it, and she wrote the script herself. Working with someone close to 100 years of age was a completely different experience. And she was doing the storytelling.
It was the most amazing example of authentic storytelling. The way she wrote was like she was representing the Magnum brand. Magnum was around 30 years old and she was almost 100 at the time. But the story was a perfect match of values and message. I felt ‘the magic.’ It’s not always about the reach or fame of people. It’s not always about the scale. Sometimes, if you just get the storytelling right then people ‘get it.’
It was one of our most successful campaigns and it delivered great results. Images and film of her eating a Magnum were polarizing on social media. Some people were saying cruel things but at the same time, the majority were defending her. The campaign’s notoriety fueled itself.
You might say that you shouldn’t work with someone that 1% of your audience knows, or maybe in an ice-cream ad you shouldn’t work with someone who is almost 100 years old, and instead you should only work with younger people to appeal to a younger audience. Both assumptions were wrong. And the result was magic.
The AWA programme run by Magnum supports and mentors cacao workers in the Ivory Coast.
Earlier, you mentioned ethical cacao production and empowering the women involved. Could you tell us a bit more about that, please?
Within the Cacao industry, there’s so much work to do. It’s a far from perfect supply chain. Since 2012 at Magnum we’ve been on a journey. We have a Rainforest Alliance certificate that ensures our cocoa is reliably sourced. We have a number of initiatives around reforestation and increasing income for people working in our supply chain.
But we wanted to go further. We brought together our creatives, our cocoa experts and people from the Ivory Coast, which is where most of our cocoa comes from, into a room. We explored the biggest challenges in the industry. We observed that women in the cocoa supply chain do a lot of the work, but they often don’t get a fair share because they haven’t had financial education and empowerment.
To address this, we started this program called “Awa,” because it’s a very common female name, in the Ivory Coast. We offer mentorship and advice on finance, land, working rights and education. We partnered with Rebecca Zorro, a fashion designer whose designs are worn by Beyoncé. She became the mentor.
We also began to understand the passions of women who are involved and launched our our financial support program with an organization called 100 Weeks. Using mobile phone banking, they support women on this program to help fund their own businesses through financial education, funding and mentoring. In turn this allows women on the program to develop business ideas: farming chicken or crafts like knitting and making bracelets.
We ran this program for three years. As of today, more than 4,000 women have benefited. We have also run initiatives to educate men. At first, many husbands were not sure about the independence their wives now had. Now they are proud of the work their wives do, because together they have a better life.
Magnum present: Golden Toffee, Pink Lemonade and Blueberry Cookie ice creams.
Tell us about a customer research discovery you made that you found surprising.
One of the very interesting things that we discovered was how much people value the sound of the brand. I don’t know if you feel or see the moment you bite into a Magnum.
The ‘Magnum Crack’?
Yes. Our Magnum fans love this ‘crack’ sound. It has been something that as a brand, we have consistently played with for the last 35 years. In every Magnum ad, someone bites into a Magnum and at that moment, only the experience of eating the Magnum matters.
This Magnum sound is something we realized our fans and customers really connect with. Some claim it is their ‘favorite sound in the world’. We posted about it on social media, and a whole trend began where people compare sounds they have heard to the sound made by biting into a Magnum. For example, someone might say they just cracked a stone while walking on the beach and it sounded just like when they eat a Magnum. We’ve explored this further and it inspired a whole campaign for 2025.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=l0i0_Ju9ASY%3Fenablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%3A
2025’s Magnum campaign celebrates the effects of the magnum ‘crack’.
What myth about marketing would you most like to bust?
The myth I would like to bust is that ‘product doesn’t matter: you can sell anything with good marketing.’ It is not true. If the product is not great, people won’t keep buying it, no matter how great the marketing is. Here at Magnum, if a product is not great, we don’t launch it because it won’t fit with our brand. If it’s not great, it’s not Magnum.
What advice would you give your younger self if you could go back in time?
Firstly, give yourself time to connect the dots. Try different roles. Even if a role may not initially sound super-interesting, you will still learn from it. The worst thing you can do is to sit and wait for opportunities to come to you. Give everything a try. The dots will ultimately connect. A second principle that has really helped me was: make small decisions with your brain and big decisions with your heart.
What question would you like me to ask the next senior marketer that I interview?
What’s the biggest failure you experienced in your career, and what did you learn from it?
Your question from a senior marketer: if you were not doing marketing, what would you be doing?
I would love to be a writer. I’d love to talk to a lot of people, to hear their stories, and then write them up.
Do you have plans to write a book, or are you thinking of a more journalistic application?
I love journalism. I’d like to be an essayist. My strength is observing things and then integrating them with some humor or reflections about my personal lifestyle that engage with an audience.
If there’s one thing you know about marketing, it is:
The power of communities: friends and fans for your brand. We used to only focus on globally recognized celebrity brand representatives. Then we worked with influencer and content creators. Now we acknowledge a broader spectrum of fans and the communities that exist around our products and recognize their value.
Whatever your definition of community around your brand – the friends and fans matter. The people you associate your brand with, the people you grow with, the people who talk about you or have you at their hand: they matter. If people are talking about your brand, then your work is done.
You might die tomorrow so make it worth your while. Worth Your While is an independent creative agency helping brands do spectacular stuff people like to talk about. wyw.agency.
This interview has already appeared in The Drum. Discover the best campaigns, industry insights and interviews from world-leading marketers, creatives and more.
