Ice cream on demand: All scream for Uber ice cream!

Starting today, a new ice cream cone icon will appear in the Uber app, which lets users summon an ice cream truck to their location. Uber, the startup behind the app that lets users hire cars from their phone, is putting ice cream trucks on the road as part of National Ice Cream Month in America.

It costs US$12 for a bundle of five ice creams — types are location specific — and the app will give you an estimation of how long the ice cream truck will take to arrive.

When the truck pulls up, Uber users can also expect to pick up some swag that includes Uber branded tank tops, t-shirts, aprons and stickers in the cities of Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington DC.

Michael Pao, a general manager at Uber, tells the New York Times that Uber’s ice cream service will start as an experiment. Uber and the ice cream truck owners will gauge how often to offer on-demand ice cream in each city depending on demand.

“We’re offering a new way to experience ice cream similar to transportation. Opening your app and tapping a button and having something show up is magical when it comes to transportation. We feel it will be magical for other things too,” says Pao.

In what looks to be a brilliant advertising campaign, Uber users are encouraged to tweet, upload YouTube videos and tag Uber on Facebook about their experiences. The best social shout-outs will be rewarded with Uber weekend passes of up to US$200.