StartupCity Des Moines’ Danyelle Crowell (left) and startup founder Matthew Smith (far right) enjoy ice cream from 2nd St. Creamery’s stop at the space on Tuesday.
This summer, Omaha ad agency The New BLK has teamed up with Wells Enterprises—the Le Mars, Iowa-based makers of Blue Bunny and 2nd St. Creamery ice creams—to showcase some of the Silicon Prairie’s most passionate individuals.
Throughout the summer, The New BLK team has been traveling with 2nd St. Creamery across the Midwest to showcase people who are turning their dreams into realities as part of the brand’s “Flavor of the Scene” project.
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“It’s all part of flyover country and that’s where you’ll find some great material for interesting, unexpected stories,” The New BLK’s creative director Shawn Bainbridge told Silicon Prairie News. He also noted that the Midwest, along with New England, is the strongest market for 2nd St. Creamery ice creams, helping further solidify the choice to focus on the area.
Recently the project stopped in Des Moines, where organizers interviewed entrepreneurs at StartupCity Des Moines and members of Dwolla‘s Iowa-based team.
“What Des Moines has going for it is its a bit of a hidden gem,” Bainbridge said. “It’s a very livable, likable city but it often falls under the radar. It’s a city full of pleasant surprises—from a great, emergent technology and entrepreneurial community to a pretty well-established but also growing arts scene as well.”
Other Des Moines installments featured RAYGUN founder Mike Draper, local artist Van Holmgren and the owners of East Village’s Hill Vintage & Knits.
At the end of July, the team toured Omaha, stopping by the Mastercraft building where SPN’s headquarters are located, and creating similar video features for a number of local movers and shakers. “Omaha is pretty similar to Des Moines, eerily similar in some ways,” Bainbridge said. “A lot of the same trends in technology, entrepreneurship, music, art, fashion we’re seeing happening at this moment in both cities.”
Finally, from September 4-15 the team will complete its street tour with a visit to Kansas City, which Bainbridge says is “a little different” from the first two cities in that it has a bigger market and is a little more established.
As far as continuing the project, Bainbridge says this summer’s tour was just a trial run.
“As long as there are great stories to tell, we hope to keep telling them,” he said. “And ice cream, particularly really good ice cream like 2nd St., is just such a natural complement to summer. Everything you do in the summer, no matter how old you are, seems a little better with an ice cream cone.”
Watch Dwolla and StartupCity Des Moines’ “Daily Scoop” installments:
Credits: Photo from 2nd St. Creamery. Videos from YouTube.
