TV viewers who grew up in the mid-Atlantic region—I count myself among them—may cherish fond memories of the commercials featuring Tom Carvelas, founder of the Carvel retail soft-serve chain.

Actually, I don’t recall Carvel showing up often in the ads, which usually featured real workers and franchisees self-consciously making ice cream specialties for the camera. Carvel’s contribution to the spots was primarily as voiceover. But what a voice. It’s been described as “gravelly”; in fact, it sounded like he’d been gargling lugnuts.

Carvel’s vocal shortcomings helped give the chain he started in 1936 the homely, authentic feel of neighborhood businesses. It wasn’t elegant eating, but it was good ice cream and a lot of fun, and the commercials have achieved cult status. A collection of old Carvel spots on YouTube highlights cake favorites like Dumpy the Pumpkin, Fudgie the Whale, Cookie Puss and Wicky the Witch and has gotten about 30,000 views.

But Carvel sold the chain in 1989, a year before his death, and the brand’s new owners have been faced with the problem of how to re-forge that identity with customers, both in their 500+ stores and for the new division that sells Carvel cakes in about 8,500 supermarkets in 40 states.

The ice cream business has also gotten more competitive since Carvel’s day and more reliant on product innovations. So the company was also looking for a way to get customers to try its new menu items—particularly young customers.

The answer, Carvel hopes, is giving a new Web 2.0 life to an icon from the old Tom Carvel days: Fudgie the Whale himself.

Last year the company, now owned by Focus Brands, named Fudgie its official “spokeswhale”, gave him his own MySpace page and began featuring him in TV spots.

“He’s really a natural because he’s well known from our key signature cake,” says Lori Peterson, marketing director for Carvel. “He’s a very nice transition into what the brand stands for. He’s a little irreverent, almost like a kid, and we can have some fun with him.”

Fudgie also figures into a new summer promotion and sweepstakes Carvel is running to introduce its Arctic Blender drinks. Added to the chain’s menu in early April, the three new Blender beverages are made with Carvel ice cream in Cookie Dough, Peanut Butter and Fried Ice Cream flavors. They were joined by three coffee-flavored Freeze blended drinks.

Carvel launched the new Arctic Blender and Freeze beverages with a “happy hour” promotion on May 1 in which many of its 500 franchised stores gave away free eight-ounce tastings from 4 to 6 p.m. Peterson says the company estimates it gave away more than 92,000 samples of the new items in that window.

And to keep that momentum going, Carvel is putting Fudgie at the head of a mobile coupon campaign. Cell phone users who text “FUDGIE” to short code 78247 will get a coupon for a dollar off one of the Arctic Blender drinks. The coupon messages can be forwarded to a friend, letting the sampling promotion go viral.

Consumers who text in before July 31 will also be directed to www.carvel.com, where they can enter the “Carvel Arctic Summer Sweepstakes” and win one of two 50-inch TVs and home theater systems by playing an online matching game.

“Brandmovers came to us with the text option for driving sweepstakes entries,” says Peterson. “We felt it was a good fit for our target audience for this product line, as well as appealing to a younger, tech-savvy crowd.” That’s the consumer base for the new blended drinks, according to product testing Carvel did last summer.

“The text option includes a call to action to go online and enter, and the response includes an instant-win overlay that gives people another chance to win prizes,” says Hector Pages, chief operating officer with promotional agency Brandmovers.

Pages says his firm has been getting increasing requests to build mobile options into the online games it designs for its clients. “Mobile’s been hot for many years in Europe, but until two years ago we didn’t get many requests here in the States. Now I think we’re starting to see it catch on here as a promotional method.”

From the Carvel side, Peterson says a lot of the prep work occasioned by the mobile promotion involved getting the word out to franchisees, who know operate all the stores, on how to handle the mobile coupons.

“That involved a very interesting dynamic,” she says wryly. “We explained that this was a text thing, gave the reasons for doing it in terms of that younger crowd, and told them they had to let their employees know that they’d be receiving a coupon via cell phones.”

But the franchisees were generally so supporting of the promotion that it went out live without a test, Peterson says. “We didn’t have any pushback from franchisees, and they’re reporting that they’re seeing the coupons come in. They know it’s a new medium for us, and they’re excited about it.”

Nor are they overly worried about the authenticity of coupon presentment. “Our biggest aim was to push the frequency and the trial use of the new product,” she says. “We’re also very interested in the viral component of the promotion, so our owners will honor the discount regardless of how it comes into the store and how often.”

Peterson adds that the mobile database of opt-ins Carvel hopes to build during the summer promotion should be useful for future campaigns. The company already runs a “Fudgie Fanatics” customer club online that lets fans sign up for e-mail blasts about new promotions.

Even without the company’s help, Carvel’s products have penetrated further into the popular culture than you might expect a largely East Coast ice cream cult to go. The Beastie Boys titled a 1983 song after Cookie Puss. More recently, Carvel has also crept into the gags on TV comedies “Family Guy” and “The Office”.

And both Fudgie and Cookie Puss were mentioned in a punchline on one of the highly-viewed episodes of the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” that featured guest appearances by Britney Spears.