Dippin' Dots' CEO says that the brand's feud with 'villain' Sean Spicer grew sales and provided the marketing boost of '50 Super Bowl ads'

Flickr / Joel Kramer

• Dippin' Dots sales and franchisee inquiries soared after a public feud with Sean Spicer.
• The company's CEO, Scott Fischer, told Business Insider that the feud had the impact of "50 Super Bowl ads."
• "I think people have to have a hero and a villain," Fischer said. "We may not be the hero, but Spicer was definitely the villain."

Dippin' Dots' sales soared after a public feud with then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

Amusement park sales and inquiries about becoming a Dippin' Dots franchisee increased after Spicer's five-year Twitter battle with the ice cream brand came to light in January, CEO Scott Fischer told Business Insider

"I think people have to have a hero and a villain," Fischer said. "We may not be the hero, but Spicer was definitely the villain."

In January, Fischer publicly responded to Spicer's complaints soon after they came to light over Inauguration weekend.

Spicer had been slamming Dippin' Dots online for years, tweeting things such as: "Dippin dots is NOT the ice cream of the future."

Twitter seanspicer

"We've seen your tweets and would like to be friends rather than foes," Fischer wrote in an open letter in January. "After all, we believe in connecting the dots."

In the letter, Fischer said that Dippin' Dots are made in Kentucky and that the company has experienced double-digit sales growth for the past three years. He offered to "treat the White House and press corps to an ice cream social."

"Instead of being confrontational or anything else, I was like, let's just have fun with it," Fischer told Business Insider. "So, it was kind of a layup."

He continued: "It snowballed because we had fun with it, and became viral. I think they said it reached over a billion people or more than 50 Super Bowl ads. As far as free press, you can't beat it."

Fischer acquired Dippin' Dots in 2012 after the company's high-profile bankruptcy, expanding sales outside of franchising to channels such as convenience chains, grocery stores, and school cafeterias. The brand reported that it reached a record $300 million in retail sales in 2017.