Good Humor Truck Gets All Grown Up This Summer

— -- Ice cream trucks are so last century -- which is exactly what Good Humor and its distributors are trying to change.

Rolling out this summer in the Northeast are two new takes on the classic ice cream truck that roves suburban neighborhoods looking for susceptibly hungry children.

“We wanted to engage the community this summer in a fun and stylish way,” Carnival Ice Cream director of marketing and development Brittany Palillo told ABC News. “We wanted to change the image of ice cream to something trendy, different and modern.”

That includes iPads for ordering, with nutritional information, as well as swapping out the classic jingle for pop hits, updated uniforms and a colorful truck design.

“They’re bright, summer-y and easy to spot. They’re a fun change,” Palillo said. “People think they’re cool and fun and have been loving them.”

She’s not kidding -- Carnival’s (a distributor for Good Humor) sales have already doubled this season. Six trucks have deployed in Nassau County in Long Island, New York, with more coming soon.

Another updated truck coming soon will be featured on a promotional tour by Good Humor's parent company, Unilever. The truck will start its Northeast tour on June 25, popping up to surprise consumers at work and other unexpected places with free ice cream.

“The Good Humor truck has been the icon of summertime fun and joy,” Unilever's director of ice cream, Nick Soukas, told ABC News. “We’re getting ready to launch the ice cream truck of the future and reintroduce the joy of the ice cream truck through a modernized truck of the future.”

Unilever’s so-called modernized truck of the future -- still only a rendering, at this point -- will keep the classic shape, jingle and colors, but will feature digital television screens, social media capabilities and updated freezers that will allow people to see and interact with the product.

“It’s going to be the epitome of what we think the ice cream truck of the future should be, and we think it will really redefine the experience that consumers have. The joy they expect from an ice cream truck will really be reignited with this program,” Soukas said. “Some ice cream trucks are great when you experience them. Others don’t look so good and are stuck in the past. This is our first step toward saying, ‘Hey, we want to be known as the ice cream truck brand,’ because that’s our heritage, and that means taking the next step into the future.”