The Messina Brand: How Gelato Went Cult
What hospitality brands can learn from Australia’s most addictive scoop.
What started as a single gelato store in Darlinghurst has grown into something much bigger: an Australian institution with lines out the door, limited-edition flavours selling out in minutes, and a cult following that treats a scoop of Gelato Messina like a ticket to the in-crowd.
Messina is proof that in hospitality, the product is only half the story. Plenty of shops make excellent gelato. Few make people feel this level of attachment..
It’s Not Just the Gelato
Yes, their flavours are creative. Yes, their ingredients are top-tier. Yes, they’re obsessive enough to make their own chocolate and run their own dairy farm. But craft alone doesn’t create a cult.
The real alchemy lies in how Messina wraps the product in a complete brand world. One that’s playful, obsessive, and distinctly its own.
The Full-Sensory Set
Walking into a Messina store isn’t a transactional moment, it’s an entry point into their universe. Retro-inspired colours pulse against cheeky chalkboard flavour names. Quirky illustrated wallpaper lines the walls. Neon signs glow like a wink from across the room. The music feels intentional, just cool enough to notice, but not trying too hard.
Even the way staff hand over your cone feels like part of the choreography.
Every detail is considered because every detail is a brand signal. And those signals, layered over time, build the kind of emotional connection most businesses would kill for.
Branding That Winks at You
Messina’s flavour names aren’t just cute they’re branding shorthand. Dr. Evil’s Magic Mushroom. Robert Brownie Jr. Pavlova the Great. Each one taps into nostalgia, pop culture, or humour. You’re not just ordering gelato you’re part of an inside joke.
And this is the genius: it’s not fluff. Behind the playful exterior is serious integrity. Messina doesn’t cut corners, and they make their process visible. That transparency turns customers into advocates. They’re not just fans of the taste they’re fans of the ethos.
Lessons Other Brands Should Steal
For brands in hospitality, Messina is a masterclass:
1. Keep Them Guessing
Limited-time drops, unpredictable collaborations (HBO’s True Blood, Uber’s Ice Cream on Demand) and seasonal menus mean you never know exactly what’s next but you know you don’t want to miss it.
2. Design the Experience, Not Just the Logo
Messina’s identity doesn’t stop at the sign out front. It’s in the packaging, the playlist, the banter at the counter. All of it shapes the memory.
3. Show Your Work
Messina owns its craft and shares it openly. They don’t just tell you they care they prove it in everything from their dairy to their chocolate-making.
4. Use Social Media as a Narrative
Their Instagram isn’t a gallery, it’s an unfolding story. Every flavour drop is a plot twist. Every behind-the-scenes moment makes you feel closer to the brand.
From Scoop to Icon
What Messina has built is more than a gelato brand: it’s a movement. You don’t just buy from them; you belong with them. You’re part of their inside jokes, their seasonal rituals, their hype cycles. And that belonging? That’s the real currency of modern branding.
Because the truth is, the best brands aren’t about the product alone. They’re about the world you build around it a world people want to enter, explore, and return to, again and again. It’s why someone will queue in the rain for a scoop, book a table months in advance, or cross the city for “their” place.
So next time you think about your own brand, zoom out for a moment. Are you just serving the thing you sell… or are you creating the experience people want to keep living in?
And here’s the twist: that experience doesn’t have to be loud, or quirky, or even “fun” in the way Messina is. It just has to be unmistakably yours. It has to feel like stepping into a space or an idea that only you could have made.
Because the best brands live beyond the moment.
You carry them with you, and they pull you back for more.
À bientôt,
Mary