Ben & Jerry’s Masterclass: A look under the hood at Ben… — Transcript

Explore Ben & Jerry's unique corporate activism model blending social mission with business success, led by Chris Miller.

Key Takeaways

Corporate activism can be successfully integrated into a global business model.
A strong mission and values drive both social impact and business growth.
Consumers value and financially support brands committed to social justice and environmental issues.
Effective activism combines advocacy with marketing expertise and strategic content.
Transparency and stakeholder engagement are crucial for sustaining activism within a company.

Summary

Chris Miller, head of global activism strategy at Ben & Jerry's, explains the company's unique model of corporate activism.
Ben & Jerry's was founded in 1978 by two counterculture friends in Burlington, Vermont, focusing on values beyond profit.
The company’s three-part mission integrates product quality, economic success, and social mission equally.
Ben & Jerry's activism is rooted in advancing human rights, social and economic justice, and environmental protection.
The brand combines traditional marketing with issue advocacy to engage consumers and drive progressive social change.
Consumers increasingly support brands that actively help solve societal problems, often willing to pay more for such products.
The company leverages content and campaigns to activate activism and build impact aligned with its core values.
Examples include campaigns on marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform, and climate change.
Ben & Jerry's maintains transparency with stakeholders to avoid surprises and manage internal and external resistance.
The presentation includes a Q&A and highlights the importance of strategic messaging over branding in activism.

Chapters

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Thanks, guys. Listen, thank you, Tom. Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everybody. Apologies for not bringing ice cream for breakfast. Uh, so I'm Chris Miller, head of global activism strategy at Ben & Jerry's. It's a bit of a mouthful. It is a pretty unusual position.

Speaker A

I uh I'm essentially a campaigner that sits inside a global ice cream company um and I want to talk a little bit today about our model of corporate activism some of you may have seen my colleague and I speak on the uh main stage

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I, uh, I'm essentially a campaigner that sits inside a global ice cream company. Um, and I want to talk a little bit today about our model of corporate activism. Some of you may have seen my colleague and I speak on the, uh, main stage

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incredibly loyal uh consumers for the brand so I want to sort of give you just a little bit of a snapshot of the history of the company talk a little bit about the mission and the values of the

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yesterday and talk a little bit about how this approach to corporate activism, sort of building work in campaigns at the company that are rooted in the company's values, not only drive impact in the world but also help create

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which we talked about uh yesterday I want to try and keep this to about 35 minutes so we've got some time for questions at the end uh so with that let's get into it this has been and this

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incredibly loyal, uh, consumers for the brand. So I want to sort of give you just a little bit of a snapshot of the history of the company, talk a little bit about the mission and the values of the

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they like to eat uh and they didn't know what else to do so they started the ice cream company in Burlington Vermont uh they went back and forth between a bagel shop or an ice cream shop it turns out

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of the brand, our model of corporate activism. I want to talk about how content is a key part of how we activate the activism at Ben & Jerry's, give you an example or two, and then I'll close with the kind of four rules of taking a stand,

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like to hang out they like to eat and they were these Counter Culture guys the one thing they didn't want to become were business people it turns out however that the ice cream shop in Burlington was incredibly successful

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which we talked about, uh, yesterday. I want to try and keep this to about 35 minutes so we've got some time for questions at the end. Uh, so with that, let's get into it. This has been, and this

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and Jerry were spending less time behind the dip case uh scooping ice cream for customers making ice cream and more time hiring firing Distributing product around the state and so they nearly sold the company to a retired Mars executive and Ben had a

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is Jerry. There are two real guys. They founded the company in a dilapidated petrol station in 1978. Uh, they were two counterculture hippies. Uh, they were very good friends, uh, and they decided to start a business because they liked to hang out together.

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becoming everything that they kind of loathed which was these kind of business people and Maurice sort of helped Ben find the aha moment in the business Maurice said to Ben essentially if you've become a business person and you don't like the way businesses are

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They liked to eat, uh, and they didn't know what else to do, so they started the ice cream company in Burlington, Vermont. Uh, they went back and forth between a bagel shop or an ice cream shop. It turns out

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and it led ultimately to the creation of what is termed Ben and Jerry's three-part Mission and then eventually uh the values of the company now when I show this to you today this isn't that extraordinary right this idea of a

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that the investment needed to make ice cream was significantly less than the equipment needed to make bagels, so ice cream it was. About three years into running the company, the guys almost sold the business. They started the company because they

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something other than focus on maximizing profits and shareholder return and you'll see that the idea is that the the product economic and social Mission are meant to operate sort of equally uh and together and then ultimately about a

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liked to hang out, they liked to eat, and they were these counterculture guys. The one thing they didn't want to become were business people. It turns out, however, that the ice cream shop in Burlington was incredibly successful,

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summary is is our core values you know we want to use the day-to-day operations of a business and the company's connection with culture and our consumer base to advance human rights and dignity social and economic Justice and Environmental Protection and restoration

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despite being in a place where, uh, half the year it's freezing cold and dark and miserable. Um, as the shop grew, they ended up packaging ice cream, distributing ice cream to mom and pop shops all around Vermont, and Ben

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change company we're a company that tries to use our business to advance these larger values so that means we really are a company that are driven by these values and those values inform how we activate both the social Mission and

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and Jerry were spending less time behind the dip case, uh, scooping ice cream for customers, making ice cream, and more time hiring, firing, distributing product around the state. And so they nearly sold the company to a retired Mars executive, and Ben had a

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Canada and climate change in Australia but at its core what we really try and do is Advance movements for Progressive social change we'll talk a little bit more about the model and and how we build strategies but I want to start by sort of touching

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mentor who was a restaurateur that operated a business in southern Vermont. Ben told his friend Maurice that he and Jerry were going to sell the business because they just weren't having fun anymore, and they were sort of

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companies and businesses in many cases are drivers of many of the problems that we face and so consumers are increasingly looking for companies and Brands to be more a more productive part of helping Society solve some of these

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becoming everything that they kind of loathed, which was these kind of business people. And Maurice sort of helped Ben find the aha moment in the business. Maurice said to Ben essentially, if you've become a business person and you don't like the way businesses are

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times more likely to support your company or brand and in fact they're willing to pay more for Products that come from companies and brands that they feel are a part of working to solve these problems that Society wrestles

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run, change the way you run your business. And I think that was sort of the moment at which Ben went, right, I don't have to do things the way everybody else does things, and that really changed and altered the trajectory of the business,

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used to harness uh and sell ideas right the idea that climate change is an existential threat to humanity the idea that racism can be a function not of individuals but of systems and structures that perpetuate different outcomes for different kinds of people

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and it led ultimately to the creation of what is termed Ben & Jerry's three-part mission and then eventually, uh, the values of the company. Now, when I show this to you today, this isn't that extraordinary, right? This idea of a

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are but but really marrying the the store the Strategic function of campaigners with the world-class marketing and sales talent that exists at Ben Jerry's and so we combine issue advocacy strategies with our traditional marketing techniques we have frankly budgets that many ngos would

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triple bottom line approach to business: people, planet, profit. It's become in many ways a far more mainstream. What's unique about this is that this was written in 1985, and at that time it was kind of a radical idea that business would do

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managers in 10 of our largest markets we're in roughly 40 countries around the world but in our 10 top markets six in Europe uh the United States Canada Brazil and Australia represent probably 80 to 85 percent of our consumer base so

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something other than focus on maximizing profits and shareholder return. And you'll see that the idea is that the product, economic, and social mission are meant to operate sort of equally, uh, and together. And then ultimately, about a

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working for a guy called Bernie Sanders and let me give you a little snapshot this is our latest activism manager hired um just a few weeks ago and polica comes from an organization uh that called the eighth amendment project so she spent

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year later, uh, the company put together what is our progressive value statement, uh, really giving life to what exactly the social mission is. And I won't bore you with the details of the progressive value statement, but a sort of nice

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company and pairing that up with our world-class marketing team we showed this slide yesterday but I want to reinforce it again what most companies and brands do and I'm not placing any value judgment on any of this I think would fit into this kind of

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summary is our core values. You know, we want to use the day-to-day operations of a business and the company's connection with culture and our consumer base to advance human rights and dignity, social and economic justice, and environmental protection and restoration.

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communication often starts with who are my consumers what is my Brand's value proposition product or service and how do I how do I emotionally connect with my consumers around an issue that's important to them and that is typically related to the product or

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So those are our core values. Those values drive everything we do, and we're not a brand with a purpose, right? We're not a company that's one thing. We're not the water clean water company. We're not the fight climate

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your consumer and then you build an emotionally compelling campaign that connects uh uh with your consumer base around a cause or a value at Ben and Jerry's our approach is is quite different um in many cases the output can look the

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change company. We're a company that tries to use our business to advance these larger values. So that means we really are a company that is driven by these values, and those values inform how we activate both the social mission and

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using all of our creative tools and emotionally engaging compelling campaign but the focus in most cases is on providing ways for people to take action become part of the movements that we work with in order to advance Progressive social change

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the company. So we don't have a singular purpose. We work on issues of refugee and asylum seeker rights in Europe, work on issues of racial justice and criminal justice reform in the U.S., work on issues related to indigenous communities in

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more loyal than those who think we just sell ice cream now again there are no value judgments here but to sort of highlight the difference two Brands one on the left that I will not reveal one on the right that I will

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Canada and climate change in Australia. But at its core, what we really try and do is advance movements for progressive social change. We'll talk a little bit more about the model and how we build strategies, but I want to start by sort of touching

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drive brand equity and growth for the brand our approach is really different again in many cases creative can look similar but what we're focused on is helping our fan base which in the U.S over indexes white to understand the

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on, um, something that we referenced yesterday from the main stage: expectations around corporate citizenship are shifting. More and more people are looking for companies and brands to be a part of solving problems that our society is facing. I mean, let's be honest,

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how do we drive change in the system and that does have an impact on the strategies that you create this is not necessarily about scale and reach this is about being smart and strategic about what are the levers one needs to pull to

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companies and businesses in many cases are drivers of many of the problems that we face, and so consumers are increasingly looking for companies and brands to be more, a more productive part of helping society solve some of these

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political power on policy makers and leaders we make change in the world it's not to say that the individual decisions that we make as consumers or people aren't important they are uh but so many of the problems that we face in the

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problems. And we touched yesterday again on particularly on Gen Z. Gen Z is really looking for companies to take a stand on issues related to climate, racial justice, and for those companies and brands that are willing to do that, Gen Z is four

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I don't we don't pretend to be experts on the best way to solve racism in the criminal justice system in America but we know who who who those people are we work with a constellation of activists allies in groups that are impacted that

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times more likely to support your company or brand. And in fact, they're willing to pay more for products that come from companies and brands that they feel are a part of working to solve these problems that society wrestles

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ground doing the work we we sort of maintain part of the activism manager's job is to maintain a pretty wide network of groups and organizations that come to us to ensure that we're supporting their work and ensure that we're doing the things that

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with. So let me talk about the model of activism at Ben & Jerry's. The truth is the same tools that we use to convince you all to buy a tub of chocolate fudge brownie are the same tools that can be

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at Ben Jerry's we're unabashedly political we're not partisan we're not personal but we are political these issues that we work on in society are political by Nature the worst thing that can happen when you engage in this kind of work when you

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used to harness, uh, and sell ideas, right? The idea that climate change is an existential threat to humanity, the idea that racism can be a function not of individuals but of systems and structures that perpetuate different outcomes for different kinds of people.

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Advocates campaigners that you're aligned with and so we always Ensure to the pest of our ability that we're in lockstep with our partners and allies we know some people will disagree with us but the worst thing would be to be

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And so the magic of Ben & Jerry's happens by marrying people that have the skill set that I have. I am not a trained business person. I am not a marketing expert, although some of my best friends

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movement for black lives into the room it's something that typically doesn't happen and I would encourage more companies and Brands to do that to be open to hearing from those who are on the front lines of these issues who are

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are, but really marrying the, the strategic function of campaigners with the world-class marketing and sales talent that exists at Ben & Jerry's. And so we combine issue advocacy strategies with our traditional marketing techniques. We have, frankly, budgets that many NGOs would

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work looks like but the strategies are created in consultation and in partnership with our partners and allies some of the groups that you saw in the last slide execution is owned by our marketing team I don't have the budgets or the tools to the keys

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only dream of. We have access to consumer insights, creative talent that we put in service of the partners and allies that we work with. And as I said, we have a team of campaigners, uh, we have what we call activism

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my marketing colleagues and and and tell them what we're trying to do and who we're trying to reach and they help us operationalize the plan across all of the marketing channels that we have it could be a special limited batch of ice

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managers in 10 of our largest markets. We're in roughly 40 countries around the world, but in our 10 top markets, six in Europe, uh, the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Australia represent probably 80 to 85 percent of our consumer base. So

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these strategies again with the partners at the center of the strategy and it works I mean what's remarkable what I like about this slide is you know this is not these are not left leaning uh Publications here um you know it's not the guardian it's

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all of these activism managers are campaigners. They come from civil society organizations. Uh, I spent probably half of my...

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uh Fast Company magazine and it wasn't for all of our really cool Innovative flavors like topped and Sundays and chunks and Swirls and all of that it was for our our corporate approach to activism so it is a it is a model and a

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and a way of engaging in the world that has um a really important impact on the brand and you know for those that we work with I I you know this is what I would want our partners and allies to say about the

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work that we do right that that we have this big megaphone and we're not afraid to use it we understand that not everyone will agree with what we do what our point of view is and the work that

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we're doing and we're really comfortable with that um some of you may have seen we had uh a post in the U.S that generated um a bit of controversy just a couple of days ago it was covered in some media

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here in the UK as well and I'm happy to talk about that um during the Q a session but we're we're not afraid to use this megaphone that we have to put it in service of our partners and allies and and one of the

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things that we really some one of the ways in which we add value to our partner and allies is that we speak to a really different audience you know when I when I was running the climate change campaign at Greenpeace U.S

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supporters a Greenpeace by definition sort of give a about the environment right in in some ways we're often preaching to the choir people love Ben and Jerry's because they like chunky monkey and chocolate chip cookie dough and we get to play a bit of

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bait and switch right we bring them in with our fun our connection to culture uh our great flavors we're able to engage them on these issues and so we're able to help our partners reach audiences that they might

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otherwise not reach so let me talk a little bit about um our content model because we have created what is essentially an in-house publishing operation in order to engage our consumer base and citizens in the work that we do

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um so in the old days at Ben Jerry's and I I remember these days I grew up in Vermont where the company was started um when Ben came up sort of began to explore the idea of this model of

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corporate activism we would pop up at festivals and you would get a a free scoop of ice cream if you were willing to sign a postcard that Ben would Stamp and send to members of Congress on at that time working on issues around

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childhood education and health care so on a good day at a festival maybe we'd get two or three thousand postcards addressed to policy makers today through the digital and social channels we've got a we've got a Ben Jerry's podcast we

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have the ability to literally reach millions of people in minutes and so our our ability to scale this work is exponentially more powerful than was the case in the early days of the company and so engaging our consumers and

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citizens through digital and social channels is super important and in fact when you look at the most engaged age posts on our social channels uh the most shared posts on our social channels you will see uh that I believe

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there is just one post that is Flavor related this was a limited batch uh flavor for a Netflix show um but all of the others and this is all or these are organic posts these are not paid all of the posts are kind of values

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advocacy related posts they just our social and digital channels are multi-faceted we're not one thing you may have seen some of you this slide we put up yesterday in the ice cream category uh in the U.S we're roughly 18

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of social media posts and we're 64 of the engagement it's because we're like a person we're multifaceted my Instagram uh handle is not the same picture of me in this weird colored hoodie every day uh it's multifaceted the way I am

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so uh we produce a lot of content so this was 22 over a thousand pieces of content across these channels and and roughly a quarter of the content is values or advocacy related so we are an ice cream company you know about three

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quarters of the content is fun ice cream stuff uh but a quarter of the content we create is uh rooted in our values and again the top performing content is almost always consistently activism related content so for 2022 our top performing

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piece of content in terms of Engagement was related to uh the high Court's decision in the U.S to overturn a constitutional right to abortion and in terms of conversion so getting people to take an action and contact a

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policy maker our top performing post was around cannabis justice so as states around the U.S legalize marijuana there are still tens and tens of thousands of people who are paying the price of conviction um for marijuana crimes and so as states

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legalize it we are working with a coalition of groups uh to to Institute um uh absolving charges for marijuana convictions so that Justice goes along with legalization let me give you a sort of a little bit of a case study

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I think part of the way we operationalize this activism model is we have a very broad reach on digital and social channels as a national brand but at the end of the day sort of change happens at the local

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Grassroots level this is work again in the U.S in the city of St Louis Missouri we've been working on issues of Criminal Justice Reform for probably four or five years it is a system and structure in the U.S

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that has an incredibly negative impact on people of color people of color are 11 times more likely to be in the system black men in America one in three black men in America will spend time in the criminal justice system during their

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lifetimes we lock up more people in the U.S per capita than any other Nation on the planet China Russia any other planet by far the city of St Louis we want to work in places where we can find examples

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that we can use as a model to highlight the broader National problem in the city of St Louis there was a prison where more than 90 percent of the people were being held for lack of cash bail so in the U.S when you are

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charged with a crime you are often forced to put up a cash bond in order to secure your release so that you will come back for the trial but it is a system that profoundly and disproportionately impacts poor folks

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right wealthy folks who have wealth who have a home are able to post bail and folks who don't have access to those resources aren't so this prison called the workhouse in St Louis held people who didn't have money to post their bond

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they had not been convicted of anything they were simply being held because they were poor on average they would spend 320 days in the prison before their case was adjudicated and in most cases these were low-level minor offenses they

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literally were being held because they were poor the city of St Louis is about 50 percent black the population in the workhouse was 96 percent black so it was a prison that was having a a massive and disproportionate impact on black folks

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in the city of St Louis and in many ways it broke what Americans are taught about our criminal justice system that you are innocent until proven guilty in this case you are assumed guilty you are locked up uh and you are held until your

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trial so we brought our unique set of tools to this to this work it was a scrappy uh group of Grassroots groups that had come together with a vision to close this prison 17 million dollars a year is spent on locking people up the

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vision was to close this prison to end cash bail and take the 17 million dollars a year that's allocated to operate the prison and put it into the kinds of programs and services that create healthier safer communities things like housing job training Access

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to Health Care Act access to substance use disorder treatment the kinds of things that have been shown and proven to work so we brought things that the Coalition didn't have what the Coalition had was a a great plan to close this

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prison they knew who the key decision makers are they knew how to organize in the communities to put pressure on policy makers and we brought the scale we brought the ability to Target those communities on digital and social

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platforms with messaging we were able to publicize events all over the city through our marketing budgets we ran city-wide uh campaigns with outdoor advertising mobile Billboards you know it's kind of funny but it's true Ben and Jerry are kind of b-level celebrities

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when you drop them into a relatively small market like the city of St Louis they generate a lot of Buzz and media attention and so we were able to kind of throw the full accompaniment of events we put an ice cream truck into the

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market for almost a year and gave the campaign an ice cream truck and as much ice cream as they could give away you show up at a neighborhood park on a Saturday with an ice cream truck open it

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up and start giving away ice cream you have an instant crowd to engage in these issues um and so we you know it is a unique set of campaign tools but when put in service of people on the ground doing

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work it can be incredibly uh effective so two years we supported this work um and in the end moving from a municipal legislature that was opposed to this idea two years of work supporting the coalition the council voted unanimously to close

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the prison the mayor signed the legislation and the city is now on track to permanently close the prison and the 17 there's there's a community process that's been started to determine how to reallocate the 17 million dollars and

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this is maybe it may be easier to read um from where you're sitting but what was remarkable was that in the coalition's announcement of success they thank all of these Community Partners and talk about all the work that was done and you know

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to include you know a large Global multinational corporation owned by an even larger Global multinational corporation uh in this kind of Grassroots work is pretty remarkable um I'm going to quickly run through uh one additional case study elections in

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the U.S are really messed up um and they're really important and not unlike elections here they're increasingly being decided by razor thin margins Georgia is a swing state um in the United States and uh it is one of a handful of states that both decide

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the outcome of our Congress as well as national elections so we did some work in the in the last midterms last November to activate low propensity voters of color we did it in partnership with an organization called black voters

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matter similar idea right we have the same similar set of tools Grassroots group that don't necessarily have the scale and reach um that that we can add so this is some of the creative that we uh used we had

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aerial banners is the first time I've ever used aerial banners uh over an American football game we had a Statewide bus tour we did Outdoor Advertising we did digital advertising all using the access to our team's super sophisticated and strategic approach to

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Consumer targeting but in this case we're talking voter targeting so black voters matter tells us who are the voters they are trying to reach to activate uh in support of voter turnout and we use the tools and access that we

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have to reach those voters digital creative right so we're looking for Creative that really hooks the specific low propensity voters of color that we're looking to activate that might not otherwise participate in in the election and uh this kind of gives you a little

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bit of an example you know I mean you'll see that while these pieces are posted on Ben and Jerry's Corporate social handles you know there's no ice cream here there's no well this is kind of an ice cream cone but there's no you know

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there's no branding this is not about promoting ice cream and branding it's very much strategically focused on the kinds of messaging that is likely to increase um uh voter turnout so and you know here we're kind of the results a quick sketch

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up top of some of the tactics so Billboards kiosks buses traveling the state the sky banners over the football games we ran radio spots in six key markets full page advertisements in local newspapers and targeted communities 44 uh in-person events that

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we were able to promote on our digital and social channels right this is a scale that our partners would not have been able to achieve absent our resources and we had 119 million impressions we had a half a million uh clicks through

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to our voter Resource Center uh and we had 19 sorry 16 000 low propensity voters who pledged to vote on our platform that we were then able to to retarget and message in the run-up to the election this election was decided

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by something like 22 000 votes so this idea of deep targeting 16 000 voter pledges following up you know is not without impact in a state that's in critically important Georgia is responsible for keeping control of the United States Senate for the

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Democrats uh so I'm going to close now with the four rules uh that we had yesterday uh in the presentation from the main stage around feeling comfortable taking a stand things to think about um marketers and brands are told that it's

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time to get off the sidelines I would suggest that there are no longer Sidelines that you got to pick a side that generally it's better to be talked about than not talked about this work that we do drives a lot of Buzz it's uh

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it can be controversial but it keeps us relevant to the culture and society and the issues that culture and Society are wrestling with you know we feel really strongly our job is not to say what's popular it's to

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help make popular the things that need to be said and that in the end we're fully comfortable with the idea that not everybody is going to like what we do and they are really we're happy to have them enjoy a tuba Haagen-Dazs

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um you know it's better to be loved intensely by some than in offensive uh to everyone uh so with that uh I thank you for your attention and I'm happy to take any questions comments thoughts that uh anyone may have thank you

Speaker A

ah yes thank you thank you for an insightful presentation and we've got some I assume some serious questions but I have I have to ask about the shoes oh these Ben and Jerry's Nikes yeah these are these are can you hold them up

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yeah um these are chunky donkeys this was a collab that we did with Nike um you know this is one of the fun things that we do they are kind of Highly sought after there were only 5 000 pairs made

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um and I kept him in my closet for a long time because people pay a lot of money for them and then I thought I'm just gonna die and there's gonna be a new pair of chunky donkeys in my closet so

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now I just wear them and they're pretty fun so slightly different question um I was reading an article in the Performance Marketing world that says that uh the internet and the advertising within it is responsible for more carbon

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emissions than the airline industry and the airline industry is the kind of the poster child for carbon emissions right so um there's there's so that's attention for all of us that's uncomfortable right we're complicit in the problem so how

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does Ben and Jerry's approach that conundrum you know it's a good question one I will say we're an ice cream company we have a big carbon footprint too we have a a team of people whose job it is to work

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day in and day out to make our company and its operations as kind on the planet as it can be what I would say is is that companies that that ultimately I alluded to it in my comment about shopping our

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way out of climate change we need policies at the economy-wide level that speed the transition to a low-carbon economy we can't fight and win the battle against climate change going Company by company so yes technology the internet is powered by energy that too

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often is created by fossil fuels the answer is not to post West on Twitter the answer is to compel our leaders to take action to decarbonize the Energy System we and we have been strong advocates for the need to do that

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do we have any questions from the room let's see where you're from Chloe thanks so much for sharing I've everything that you did it was really insightful um I think your colleagues spoke yesterday about the it was the article

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with pretty Patel yes and she spoke about how for most brands that would be seen as a crisis in Germany do you ever come up against any resistance internally and how do you kind of navigate that yeah it's it's not

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what what I like to say is this is not the easiest way to sell ice cream this is the most impactful way to sell ice cream so the post I alluded to earlier we put up a post um two days ago July 4th Independence

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Day in the U.S talking about Mount Rushmore so some of you may know Mount Rushmore in the U.S is that weird iconic Mountain that we blew up and put the faces of Four American presidents on that is sacred

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land to the Lakota tribe the indigenous Community from that area and we put up a post that suggested that now was the time to give this land back to the Lakota people um it generated a lot of a lot of pushback

Speaker A

from the right in the U.S a lot of conservative media Outlets um you know played a little bit of what about ISM with us well so I assume that means you're going to give back the land your ice cream factories on

Speaker A

um and we honestly didn't expect it to generate a lot of Buzz So my poor colleagues who had just come back from the long four-day bank holiday weekend for Independence Day literally fielded hundreds and hundreds of calls yesterday

Speaker A

from people screaming at them um so you know there's not pushback I think our people internally feel like wow to generate that kind of response we've probably done something that has a bit of meaning to it um but everything's a balance right but

Speaker A

I think um we have systems and processes generally to prepare people um I think people are aligned that this is not always easy it's hard but I think people take pride uh in doing it do you have any other questions from the

Speaker A

room hi I'm Kat from um I just wanted to know in terms of how you decide which campaigns and causes to support and how much of that is pre-planned versus reactive yeah it's a good question there's a question we

Speaker A

probably get asked most I mean the quick answer is you know work like we've done here in the UK and in Europe around the refugee and Asylum Seeker sort of Crisis we've been working on those issues for five six plus years here that will

Speaker A

continue to be the focus of our work here that issue is is a defining issue for for the for politics and Society in Europe right it's it's it's driving elections it drove brexit it's like it's at the heart of so we want to continue

Speaker A

to stay focused on that and that'll be 70 80 percent of what we do and that work happens in consultation with Partners but we do want to be nimble enough to respond to issues that are related to our values when things happen

Speaker A

and we really look to our partners to bring those moments to us and say it's really important to have your voice at this time and so you know it's kind of a 70 80 20 mix of planned ongoing work versus

Speaker A

reactionally I think we had another question down the front well gone um I'm Dallas I was interested because you talk a lot about the messaging I guess that goes to Consumers and to politicians and Ben and Jerry's has

Speaker A

always been that sort of speaking truth to power I wanted to ask about uh the sort of ownership structure with Unilever and how that's kind of reconciled with your mission because obviously there are a lot of things that

Speaker A

go on in that space it's powerful it's a powerful cooperation with many many Brands under it that don't have the kind of stance that you guys do so I wonder if there's anything that you do sort of facing in that direction and to your

Speaker A

peers in that sort of environment yes uh as you noted uh we are owned by Unilever the company was purchased Ben Jerry's was purchased in in in 2000 by Unilever and at the time our co-founders and the leadership at Unilever negotiated this

Speaker A

very unique acquisition agreement I'm not aware of an acquisition agreement like this existing anywhere else in the corporate space we are a wholly owned autonomous subsidiary the Ben and Jerry's board of directors that existed when we were a

Speaker A

publicly traded company in the U.S was retained when we were acquired by Unilever and that company board has legal authority over the company's social Mission and what's deemed essential brand integrity and so we have a level of Independence and autonomy to

Speaker A

pursue the work that we do independent of Unilever now we don't speak on behalf of Unilever Unilever doesn't speak on behalf of us and we have an incredibly close working relationship with Unilever we ensure to the best of our ability

Speaker A

that they are updated on everything that we're doing that they're not caught off guard or surprised by the things that we do that their consumer Carolines have the Q and A's that they need to respond when angry Ben and Jerry's customers

Speaker A

call the dove care line um but I think you know at the end of the day we have been an incredibly successful brand this company has grown year over year for 45 years we're one of I believe 14 Unilever brands that are a

Speaker A

billion Euro or more in turnover out of more than 200 and some odd brands at the end of the day Unilever wants Ben and Jerry's to be Ben and Jerry's because when we're Ben and Jerry's we're building the business and so uh you know

Speaker A

it's not to say that there aren't bumps in the road it it you know it's a unique governance structure um but I think the proof is in the pudding Christopher thank you so much Master vulnerable please for some wonderful

Speaker A

insights and great presentation everyone

Topics:Ben & Jerry'scorporate activismsocial missionChris Millerprogressive social changebrand activismmarketing strategyenvironmental protectionhuman rightscriminal justice reform

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Ben & Jerry's approach to corporate activism?

Ben & Jerry's integrates activism into its business model by aligning its social mission with product quality and economic success, using campaigns and marketing to advance human rights, social justice, and environmental protection.

How does Ben & Jerry's engage consumers in its activism?

The company combines traditional marketing with issue advocacy, creating content and campaigns that resonate with consumers who increasingly support brands addressing societal problems.

What are some examples of Ben & Jerry's activism campaigns?

Examples include efforts to legalize marijuana with justice reforms, criminal justice system changes, and raising awareness about climate change, all strategically designed to drive social impact.

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