Mister Softee On The Offensive

In an attempt to preserve that high level of quality one has come to expect from Mister Softee, the company is going on the offensive to root out impostors:

The black sport utility vehicle blended in perfectly with the row of cars parked along a Queens street on Saturday, but behind its tinted windows, three private investigators huddled inside, staking out their suspect.

There were staccato commands, the rapid snapping of long-lens cameras and the recording of license plate numbers in extensive dossiers.

“Is that him?” one investigator murmured. “O.K., now don’t lose him. All right, we got him.”

It was a surveillance job that would lead to car chases through side-street labyrinths. But the chases were all at very low speeds. After all, the target this day was not some elusive spy, desperate fugitive or stealthy adulterer, but rather a lumbering white truck stopping to sell soft-serve ice cream to sugar-crazed children, all while blaring the repetitive Mister Softee jingle.

“We’re lucky,” whispered one investigator named Joe, who, like his colleagues, would give only his first name because in his line of work, he makes a lot of enemies. “It’s a good ice cream day.”

He opened a leather portfolio and began scribbling notes in a packet titled, “Mister Softee Surveillance, Queens Location.”

What, you scoff, does the company care if someone else tries to evoke a Platonic Mister Softee-ness? After all, Mister Softee is synonymous with a down-market mobile ice cream experience. Alas, it’s more complicated than that — the brand is important to the company, and faux Softees go to great lengths to copy the look and feel of the trucks, even going as far as tape recording the theme to replay on their phony Softee vehicles:

Official Mister Softee operators must pay a franchise fee, work in designated areas and serve only Mister Softee ice cream. But Mister Softee officials say hundreds of other operators buy used trucks and slap on a blue and white paint job, create identical or similar menu boards and logos, including the famous cone-head trademark, and bootleg the famous jingle copyrighted to the Mister Softee company.

They wind up effectively posing as Mister Softee, company officials say, while avoiding the fees and standards.

In addition to depriving 10-year-olds of the true taste of Mister Softee, the practice means missed profits for the Mister Softee company and the independent contractors who drive its trucks, said James Conway Jr., 49, vice president of Mister Softee. Mr. Conway says he is determined to track down the entrepreneurs who operate look-alike trucks.

Mr. Conway said that the Mister Softee look, sound, taste and reputation had taken five decades to perfect, adding that the ice cream used on his New York-area trucks is made at a dairy in Long Island City according to a longstanding company formula. Now, he said, opportunistic ice cream vendors are unfairly cashing in on this by deceiving customers into thinking they are buying the real deal.