Substance Webinar, Jay Curley Ben and Jerrys — Transcript

Brian Kramer here at Pure Matter. I'm actually in Orlando, so coming to you live here in Orlando and excited for another webinar with some very exciting stuff. I know no one likes ice cream, so that'll be, you know, you guys will have to endure the rest of this. And we're here, and it's exciting to be here. We're talking about creating authentic experiences with Jay Curley, Senior Global Marketing Manager at Ben & Jerry's. We had a chance, Jay and I, to meet at an event at Pivot in New York, I think it was almost a year ago, just around there, and we were on stage together and had just a blast talking about that. He had some great points, and after hearing and seeing some of the stuff that he was sharing, I knew we had to collaborate on something else, and he was nice enough to show back up for another Pure Matter substance here. So Jay, I think everyone can see you there on the video. Go ahead and wave and say hi, and we'll double-check your sound and make sure everyone can hear you okay.

have to endure the rest of this um and we're here and it's exciting to be here we're talking about creating authentic experiences with jay curly senior global marketing manager at ben jerry's we had a chance uh jay and i to meet at um

Hi everyone. It's great to be here. Thank you, Brian, and Pure Matter for inviting me.

and seeing some of the stuff that he was sharing i knew we had to collaborate on something else and he was nice enough to show back up for another pure matter substance here so jay i think everyone can see you there

You got it, you got it. Well, let's get started. The first thing I want to do, let's see, the first thing that I want to do is make sure that they do a proper introduction. Jay, you have all kinds of experience, I mean, dating back to being an account manager and HR coordinator, and then on into marketing. You worked on both the, I think, the agency side and the client side, and you've been an integrated marketing manager, and now you lead, I guess I understand you lead the development and execution of consumer marketing activities in the United States and global strategy. These integrated programs bring Ben & Jerry's progressive three-part mission to life in traditional advertising, innovative social media and digital engagements, retail shops, social activism, and live consumer experiences. Say all that 10 times. That is a lot to do.

inviting me you got it you got it well um let's uh let's get started um the first thing i want to do um let's see the first thing that i want to do is make sure that they do a proper

Well, I have a great team that really does a lot of the work, and I'll talk a little bit about that, but we're good. Why don't I just let everyone know real quick, we are having a live tweet chat. It's at PM Substance. You can reach Jay throughout this as well, and I'm sure he won't be tweeting while he's giving the presentation, but what he will be doing is tweeting, following, and so you can reach him at J Curley, J-A-Y-C-U-R-L-E-Y, or you can obviously CC Ben & Jerry's, and I'm at Brian Kramer. That's pretty easy, B-R-Y-A-N K-R-A-M-E-R. That said, we will take questions throughout. Please go ahead and tweet, and I may ask a few during the course of the webinar, but definitely at the end, we'll have some time for Q&A. So with that said, Jay, you're on.

been an integrated marketing manager and now you lead i guess i understand you lead the development and execution of consumer marketing activities in the united states and global strategy these integrated programs bring ben and jerry's progressive three-part mission

Thank you. Thanks so much, Brian. I just reiterate, thank you for the experience and for inviting me. I will say that I don't usually do webinars like this. I'm probably more comfortable up on a stage in front of people than I am sitting at my desk staring at my webcam, but I will do my best to try to kind of tell you a little bit about our story and how we approach, you know, marketing if you will. I mean, for us, marketing is really about expressing ourselves as people and connecting with people who have shared values and shared experiences. That, to us, is what marketing is, and that's how we have, over the years, built the Ben & Jerry's brand and, you know, try our best to really kind of cultivate the fan base that we have and deliver amazing experiences for them. You know, so that's ultimately what it's about for us. It's trying to kind of treat our fans, you know, the right way, as if they truly are our friends because they are, whether it's at an event, in a scoop shop that you walk into, or in an online community, whatever it might be. So we try to create really authentic and outrageous experiences for people, and we try to bring the full expression of our company to life to do that. So that's, you know, thinking about our fans themselves, the flavors we make, the values that the company stands for and believes in, and the fun that we have as a company and a culture. So that's kind of the basic approach. In doing that, we really try our best to understand and embrace new communities as they develop and empower our fans really to tell our story through their own words and images and expressions. So that's kind of what I'm going to talk about here. I'm going to talk about a little bit about who we are, what our approach is, and then, you know, kind of give you some examples of how that actually comes to life. I'll start with one that I think is fun, which is just a one-off tweet that we did at the beginning of this year, and you can kind of read it here. It was the day after the state of Colorado legalized marijuana for recreational use. So for us, Ben & Jerry's, we don't really think about kind of real-time marketing, if you will, at least in the way that I see a lot of the industry doing it. You know, we could care less about the Super Bowl or the Oscars or moments like that, but we are a group of real people that really do kind of, you know, want to engage and respond to things that our fans care about and things that connect with our values. Sometimes that's around supporting bigger issues like marriage equality, and sometimes it's just having a little bit of fun, like when Colorado legalized marijuana. So we'll kind of start there, and now I'll kind of back out and tell you kind of how we're set up to be able to understand what makes sense for us and actually execute it. So I have to start first kind of back about 25 years. We're somewhat of a unique company, especially back in the '80s, where we have a three-part mission. Excuse me. One aspect of that is the product, to make the best ice cream in the world. One is the economic mission, which is to give a fair return to our shareholders, and we are a for-profit company, and we succeed in that. And the third piece, which is a very innovative piece, especially at the time, was really a social mission that's embedded in the way the company operates. So what we want to do is we want to use the power of the business itself to initiate ways to improve the quality of life for people around the world or really in all the communities we touch, which is now around the world. If you're reading up at the top there, there's this concept that we call linked prosperity. What linked prosperity really means is that as the company succeeds, everyone that the company kind of touches should succeed equally. So instead of looking at a supply chain and figuring out how are we going to extract as much value as possible, we look at a supply chain and figure out how can we use the business to put as much value back into those communities. So that starts with mainly where we get our ingredients from, you know, the dairy farms here in Vermont. We source most of our commodities like cocoa and sugar and vanilla and coffee through Fair Trade Certified cooperatives. So it's really about giving back to those communities. Then we think about really where we live and work and how can we give back to communities like that. And then lastly, where we sell our products, which now is 30-plus countries. And that's where it's really interesting when we look at a community like a city. So, you know, take Boston, L.A., Stockholm, Singapore, or whatever it might be. We want to understand what that community is so we can provide value. We do the same thing when we look at emerging social communities. So when we look at Instagram, we think, you know, what is this community value? How can we, as Ben & Jerry's, you know, how are we uniquely positioned to provide value to that community? So we apply that same business model approach of linked prosperity to our approach to marketing. So what that really looks like, and this is right around the corner, right outside my office here, this is on our wall, and it

and i'll talk a little bit about that but we're good um why don't i um just let everyone know real quick we are having a live tweet chat it's at pm substance you can reach jay throughout this as well and i'm sure he

won't be tweeting while he's giving the presentation but what he will be doing is um tweeting following and so you can reach him at j curly j-a-y-c-u-r-l-e-y or um you can obviously cc ben and jerry's and i'm at brian cramer that's

pretty easy b-r-y-a-n-k-r-a-m-e-r that said uh we will take questions throughout please go ahead and tweet um and i may ask a few during the course of the webinar but definitely at the end um we'll have some time for q a so

uh with that said jay you're on thank you thanks so much brian i just reiterate thank you for uh for the experience and and for inviting me uh i will say that i don't usually do webinars like this i'm probably more

comfortable up on a stage in front of people than i am sitting at my desk staring at my webcam but i will uh i'll do my best to uh to try to kind of tell you a little bit

about our story and how we approach you know marketing if you will i mean for us marketing is really about expressing ourselves as people uh and connecting with people who have shared values and shared experiences that to us is what what marketing is

and that's how we have over the years built the ben and jerry's brand and you know try our best to really kind of cultivate the fan base that we have uh and deliver amazing experiences for them you know so

that's ultimately what it's about for us is it's trying to kind of treat our fans you know the right way as if they truly are our friends because they are um whether it's at an event in a scoop shop

that you walk into uh or in an online community whatever it might be so we try to create really authentic and outrageous experiences for people and we try to bring the full expression of our company to life to do that uh so

that's you know thinking about our fans themselves the flavors we make the values that uh that the company stands for and believes in and the fun that we have as a company and a culture uh so that's that's kind of the basic

approach in doing that we really try our best to understand and embrace new communities as they as they develop and empower our fans really to tell our story through their own words and images and expressions um so that's kind of what i'm going to talk

about here i'm going to talk about a little bit about who we are what our approach is uh and then you know kind of give you some examples of how that actually comes to life i'll start with one that i think is fun

uh which is uh just a one-off tweet that we did at the beginning of this year and you can kind of read it here it was the day after uh the state of colorado marijuana for recreational use uh so for us

ben and jerry's we don't really think about kind of real-time marketing if you will uh at least in the way that i see a lot of the industry doing it you know we could care less about the super bowl or

the oscars or moments like that um but we are a group of real people that really do kind of you know want to engage and respond to things that our fans care about and things that connect with our

values sometimes that's around supporting you know bigger issues like marriage equality and sometimes it's just having a little bit of fun uh like when colorado uh legalized marijuana so we'll kind of start there and and now i'll kind of back out and and tell you

kind of how we're set up to be able to to to a understand what makes sense for us uh and and actually execute it so i have to start first kind of back about 25 years are somewhat of a unique company

especially back in the 80s where we have a three-part mission uh excuse me one aspect of that is the product to make the best ice cream in the world one is the economic mission which is to give a fair

return to our shareholders and we are a for-profit company and and we succeed in that uh and the third piece which is a very innovative piece especially at the time was really a social mission that's embedded in the way the company operates

so what we want to do is we want to use the power of the business itself um to initiate uh ways to improve the quality of life for people around the world or really in all the communities we touch which is now around the world

uh if you're reading up at the top there um there's this concept that we call linked prosperity what linked prosperity really means is that as the company succeeds everyone that the company kind of kind of touches should succeed equally

so instead of looking at a supply chain and figuring out how are we going to extract as much value as possible we look at a supply chain and figure out how can we put use the business to put

as much value back into those communities so that starts with mainly where we get our ingredients from you know the dairy farms here in vermont we source most of our commodities like cocoa and sugar and vanilla and coffee

through fair trade certified cooperatives so it's really about giving back to those communities then we think about really where we live and work and how can we give back to communities like that and then lastly where we sell our

products which now is 30 plus countries and that's where we it's really interesting when we look at a community like a city uh so you know take boston l.a stockholm uh singapore or whatever it might be we we want to understand what that

community is so we can provide value we do the same thing when we look at emerging social communities um so when we look at instagram we think you know what is this community value how can we as ben jerry's you know how

are we uniquely positioned to provide value to that community so we we apply that same business model approach of link prosperity to our approach to marketing so what that really looks like and this is right around the corner right outside my

office here this is on our wall and it's something we wrote out to really kind of uh bring to life what our thinking is how we approach marketing and it's made up of a couple parts the first is really creating

outrageously authentic experiences um but it's it's really it's through two things it's really connecting with our fans and telling our unique story so when we do those two things uh connect with our fans and tell our story we're really able to kind of create

those experiences but it needs to happen with a foundation of the right people in place in the right consideration of where we're connecting with people um so that's kind of the way that we approach marketing i think for us it's a little bit different um

than a typical cpg uh cpg company uh because we don't see ourselves that way we see ourselves as a values-led business that has a unique lifestyle associated with it and really that's where we start um and so therefore our marketing our pr

our design our product innovation all that comes from a different place uh and for us it has to do with our point of view on the world and what our values are and the heritage you know really how we've gotten here

um so one of the things that we talk a lot about here at ben and jerry's is authenticity you know is what were the experiences we're creating are they authentic to ben and jerry's and so there's a couple different ways that we

think that that we kind of evaluate whether an opportunity is you know authentic to us um and that's certainly a buzzword that's kind of going around right now that is probably a little bit overused which all the more reason that we like to try to

define it for ourselves at least how how we think about it so starting with the context does the context make sense for our company to be engaging with people around you know so a lot of that has to

do with does it align with our with our personality uh and our values and the other thing is you know is this something that any other brands could be doing because if the answer there is yes then it may not be right for us

we don't always live up to that bar but that's the bar that we set the next is does this experience or give an opportunity for us to express ourselves the way we are you know is it give us an opportunity to

talk about our tone our look our feel who we are um we've done some work one of the challenges about being a kind of values-led lifestyle company versus a cpg brand um is we stand for a lot of things we're very

at least at our best we're very dynamic we're we're a multi-layered company and we're not just about the best ice cream in in the world um we like to think that we make that but that's you know that's

not the sum of our existence and for us we've really kind of laid out some different areas that we that we operate in and that's those are the content pillars that help us kind of evaluate that i'll share those in a little bit but it

really has to do with our flavors our values our the fun that we have as a culture and the community that we have as fans and then the last piece is is this context that we're going to kind

of create this experience in is it something that that people care about is there an opportunity that you know people would want to share it that is their opportunity for it to be amplified so that's you know the quick approach on how we

approach uh authenticity of ben and jerry's the right context fitting our brand tone look and feel the content pillars and lastly an opportunity for it to be become amplified so that's a little bit about who we are you

know i didn't get too deep into we're an ice cream company um i think most folks are aware of of our ice cream out there and if not i'm happy to kind of take those questions after but now i want to go through

kind of remember that period pyramid excuse me you know the top there about the authentic experiences what i just shared is how we evaluate that now is the kind of the two aspects of how we bring it to life connecting with people

and telling our story so the first example i'll share is one where we really thought about a community and tried to connect with people that way so ben and jerry's joined um john joined instagram and i think it was

early 2011. i have my timing right and like a lot of ways it happened organically a few of the folks here had joined and were using it and um really realized okay this is an opportunity for us to connect with people an opportunity

for us to tell our story and so we started sharing photos and what we realized quickly was that people loved sharing their photos with us and after you know a couple years on the on as members of the community we realized

we need to do something to thank this community and so that's where the kind of link prosperity approach comes in we thought about what does this community really value and how how can we as ben and jerry's uniquely

you know bring that value to the community so at least at the time and i think this was fall of 2012.

i have my timing right we we we devised a program that did two things for people uh it recognized amazing photography which is something that you know was very important to the community and it gave people an opportunity to be

recognized for their for their photography so what we did is we created a campaign called capture euphoria and what we asked is we asked all of our fans to to ultimately basically share their euphoric moments with us and

these moments weren't all about ice cream it was really whatever kind of euphoria meant to the individual members of the community and what we did was we created one-off advertisements in their local communities that featured their username and their photo and

really thank them for kind of sharing the experience um we did this for about 40 people in eight different countries around the world and you can kind of see just quickly uh the types of photos that we shared

they were or that we chose they were really uniquely fork moments for these people i think maybe two or three of them have ice cream in them but that wasn't really the point the idea was around you know

what people felt was was authentic to them and we then had the opportunity to kind of give back to them into the community at large so we did you know billboards all over the world we did old fashioned newspaper ads

in i think it was chattanooga tennessee we were looking for media opportunities we couldn't find anything great but we realized that the photographer spent a lot of time in a few a couple different bars and so we we had special coasters

made um actually i realized there's a webcam i can maybe show you so in all the bars uh in chattanooga there are these special uh coasters made for at gina 420.

nice handle too so um that that's an example of really thinking about the community uh and developing a program you know around them that's really about them and yes it's very much hosted brought to you by ben jerry's but it's not an ice cream

thing another thing that kind of is about i guess listening to our fans and understanding our community is an opportunity that we realized existed uh and we we capitalized on it a couple years ago or really is that on

valentine's day there's a lot of people out there who um spend their night with just two guys ben and jerry and they really like to talk about that they really like to um to kind of share the experience that hey

i'm home alone but it's uh i'm here with my two best friends or my dates ben and jerry and so we um in 2013 what we did is we decided all right there's literally thousands of people out there that are

talking to us on this day and they're kind of lonely why don't we connect with every single one of them through twitter and so what we did the first year was we created one-off valentine cards for pretty much

everyone who mentioned ben and jerry's on valentine's day and they were created uniquely for each person in each experience and kind of see the the the photo uh up there as there was just about 10 of our employees who sat

in a room for about 12 hours our husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends weren't too excited about that but but they understand and then this year we actually took it a step further and we delivered about 60

ice cream cakes to individuals uh in in four cities in san francisco new york boston and london uh so we we kind of broke that barrier and it wasn't just a personalized tweet it was an actual cake delivery for about

60 people so again a really great way for us to listen to our community and connect with people uh when they're thinking about us and lastly is you know really something that this company has been built on which is good

old-fashioned sampling um back in the 80s ben and jerry did not have big ad budgets to be you know doing television commercials and that kind of stuff the way the company has built our brand is by getting people to try our ice cream

because at least we think it is really delicious and a step above most other ice cream that's out there it's rich it's dense there's really unique flavors in terms of the chunks and the swirls and the flavor combinations so we need to get people to

try it and once they get that once they try it they become fans so for the last you know the first 30 years of our history that was a big part of our approach um and it was a great experience uh

but it was really a very much a one-on-one experience it was about us giving someone a sample them enjoying it and and that was great and we still do that a ton of that but it was hard to really scale that to

get more and more people excited excuse me about the company uh as we're sampling and i think it was back in 2009 we took a very traditional sampling tour and we evolved it and so even even at that point we had been

using social media to tell people hey we're we're at you know bryant park or union square or x grocery store come down and get a sample and that works we got a few more people out but it still didn't scale um

and wasn't that special for people what we did back in 2009 and we now do in about 20 countries around the world is we flipped the model we asked our fans via twitter all right we have an ice cream truck

full of ice cream where do you want us to go and then based on people's responses via twitter that's actually where we go so this this program is being run right now so for the us audience we're in dc

and we're in uh orange county we're heading to portland oregon next in new york next you can tweet us at ben jerry's truck on the east coast and at ben jerry's west on the west coast um but it's a great way for us to

to deliver that experience for people in a more really even more individual experience but one that is shared by way more people so that's a lot of the examples about kind of connecting with people the other kind of pillar

is about telling our own story about our point of view about our heritage uh and i will uh i'll be honest in the sense that i i feel lucky and blessed uh to be charged with telling the ben

and jerry story because it is a truly unique story and we have a real clear understanding of who we are and what our point of view is and so that is very liberating um it sets a high bar for us but it's it's

a really great way for us to be able to um uh express ourselves so what we start with uh are the basics it's either the story we're trying to tell or the information we're trying to convey uh sometimes those stories can be

complex like you know what fair trade certification of a coffee bean really means and how it contributes to cooperatives economic development fair wage labor practices and sustainability see i'm already starting to lose some of you guys so it can be complex

stories like that it can be basic information like what are the ingredients in cherry garcia and what is this closest scoop shop to me so you know we start with those stories and information and from there we build

content for the online and digital world and we build experiences for the real real life world whether that's sitting on your couch or the truck showing up to you or you coming into one of our shops so that's kind of the model of how we

think about it i think probably is fairly straightforward and not uh not a revelation to anyone but it's starting with those the stories and information building content and experiences around that and then really thinking about the connection points

uh so just a real timely example of how we bring that to life uh in april in australia uh you know ben and jerry's we have a uh we have a deep rooted belief that in this in the in a future that is more

sustainable and we're not heading down the right path as a society right now and there's lots of things that we can do as a company and that you know as communities we can do together and that we see that as our role

to let our fans know what some of these issues are and give them an opportunity to to to be a part of movements so in australia um they're they're basically we're looking to dig up dredge out uh coral

reefs in order to uh to build new shipping lanes um mainly to be used to export coal out of australia and so for a number of reasons this does not line up to our vision of a more sustainable future so we worked with the

world wildlife uh foundation uh to to create a you know fight for the reef campaign and um you know we we did just that we built content to tell people what the issue was through social we got you know got in the scoop truck

drove around to all the communities gave out ice cream and told people what the issue was um and in kind of by telling those stories about this is this is what we believe in this is how you can get involved we're able to tell

people more about who we are you know in this particular case the um the min the local government minister actually called for a boycott of of ben and jerry's uh but ultimately that got more and more people to to understand what was happening and

drew even more uh attention to the issue so for us that was uh that was a win because we were able to really create more attention this was not our goal at all but if you can see from this poll from a local

newspaper the end result is people are more likely to buy ben and jerry's uh as a result again that's not our goal but it's a great uh unintended consequence you know a similar example uh is our stance on marriage equality and i am

so overjoyed by the fact that so many more brands are are part of this movement now and really helping to mainstream it back in the late 80s ben and jerry's was one of the first companies in the u.s to

extend benefits to same-sex partners and it really it just goes back to our deep rooted belief in social justice this is an equality issue for us but again we have an opportunity to kind of tell our story about how we feel

about social justice get more people involved in the movement itself and you know use the power that we have and the voice that we have to get more people excited so back in 2009 when the state of vermont

uh legalized uh same-sex marriage we symbolically renamed chubby hubby to hubby hubby uh and you know create a lot of excitement help to really celebrate the huge milestone that that created the first state in the u.s to through state legislature legalize full

marriage uh for same-sex couples uh and since then we've done similar programs around the world uh including in australia the say i do campaign uh a campaign in italy one in ireland and one in uh in the uk

and it's it's really just again a great way for yep um you may you may get into this but we had a question from tanya who asked what kind of response you've had from this campaign yep that's a that's a great question um

so when we first did the hubby hubby campaign in 2009 i would say that the majority of the response of negativity and hate pointed our way as well we were boycotted by a number of of groups that didn't believe in our in

our approach uh to to justice and marriage equality for all um that's fine with us not everyone has to love ben and jerry's uh and especially when it comes to our values uh we believe what we believe not because it's in vogue and not

because of some um focus group but because those are the core values that this company has has been built on um and so to this day uh i think we we continue to support marriage equality here in the us and around the world uh

and we're often met with resistance and met with uh and to be honest a lot of hate uh and i think it gets unfortunate but it tells us that you know we do have a point of view kind

of rooted in our values and we're not gonna back back away from that so i don't know hopefully that answers the question that's great that's great um cool so those are those are some of the stories if you will about how we tell our story

um in order to to try to live up to this approach that we that we've mapped out um you know we we need to have and we need to be able to operationalize it and for us that has

to do with the right people in place uh the right processes so we can um you know be somewhat consistent and uh and share these practices around the world and a real understanding for uh the touch points that make the most

sense for us so kind of take you guys through this quickly uh first is the people themselves uh so this is a just a part of actually a lot of these guys are on my team a lot of them are

just the extended group here at ben and jerry's and they're just a portion of it but this is how we do community management at ben and jerry's it's a large group of people none of these people's full-time job is

community management but all of them are involved in it and through that kind of collective we're able to kind of stay involved and we're we're able to manage the communities without having to either outsource it or have it just be drilled down into one

person who is the only one kind of uh connecting with people and so you know you can kind of just see quickly we have different people working in different communities uh two of the folks up here are based just outside of

london and are managing a lot of our european community uh but that's that's really the approach and we do while we definitely work with with outside agencies uh to help us in various ways the vast majority of community

management content development is all done in-house by our teams uh so those those are some of the people and i you know just kind of looking at the photos quickly a lot of these these folks have been working at ben and jerry's for you know

five ten fifteen plus years uh we're for better for worse we're the kind of company that when you come here you really join the community and you become kind of members of the family and uh and so there's a there's a lot of

institutional knowledge if you will just kind of inherent in the group you're seeing here the next piece is the the process and i'm not going to spend too much time on this but just to say that we really consider

how we sound what we look like and what we talk about and so to do that we've really mapped out what our tone is what our photo style is uh and the areas uh that we that we focus on you know our fans the fun we

have as a culture our flavors and our values those are really what we really try to talk about uh you know as we're developing experiences as we're developing content and then the last piece is you know again i feel fortunate because

ben and jerry's in a lot of ways was a social brand before social media existed we were built you know through ben and jerry get thing in the truck and driving around giving people samples we were built through pr through word of mouth uh not

through you know kind of above the line tv commercials and that kind of stuff and we may dabble in some of that here and there these days but for the most part we operate in our scoop shops or in pop culture or at

events in your news feed um or you know actually on on the packaging it's a great way for us to tell our story as well so that's really what we think about when we're thinking about how we're connecting with people in the

places in which we want to do that uh so that is pretty much what i have to share um so i think i yeah i think i left plenty of time for for questions and whatnot um so i

will uh i'll kind of leave it with that again if you kind of i'll jump back out to to the little pyramid i created here uh recreated here i should say um but that's really how we the structure that we're thinking about

jay that was fantastic thank you so much and the questions are rolling in so i will uh i'm gonna attempt to get through them here um i think we have enough time um so let's get let's get going

let me start with one here this one is from stephanie um interesting how ben jerry's doesn't have a dedicated community manager but a collective would love to learn more about how you do this how do you organize that

so we we have people that are running point on each community um so you know facebook in the us it's actually you know two people doing community management uh and then two other people really thinking about content development and

creating that kind of stuff and that's uh probably our biggest community we basically have a i think collective is a great way to put it uh of about eight or so people based here and a few people are in charge of

strategy a few people are in charge of content development and then other people are handling community management we all get together it sounds very basic and very simple we have an hour-long meeting once a week where we all talk

about what's happening in each community and that's not just the digital and the social teams the entire kind of organization is represented the scoop shops the social mission consumer affairs pr we're all kind of connected in that meeting uh to

really talk about what's happening in the different spaces again what what were you know priorities in terms of communication for us and that model i think you know helps us to first of all spread around the organization uh

what matters or what it's like to really be connected to the people in all the different communities and it also you know alleviates the pressure of responding to every single post from one person which after a while i'm sure there's community

managers out there listening you know that can be can lose its luster after a while so great um and we all you should name an ice cream after losing your luster do you ever just feel like every time you say something that could

be the name of an ice cream and that's a question yeah yeah you think in ice cream names or in hashtag sadly enough me personally it's probably more hashtags than ice cream names but um but no i you know what is fun is in a

similar way okay like the names of our ice creams are created in very similar ways where we're taking suggestions from fans where we have kind of brainstorms where everyone from the i.t guide to the finance guy to the

brand team to the flavor developers are all kind of sitting and just throwing out ideas and sometimes it works great sometimes it doesn't but you know it's fun i want to be on that team we have a question here from brian

waxman he asked um or actually first he said that ben jerry's has been very successful on instagram as you pointed out in your presentation what factors led you to be an early adopter of promoted posts uh i think i mean i think overall

some of the success we've had in instagram uh again came from early understanding of what the community valued uh no one's probably gonna do this but if you went through our you know thousand plus photos that we've posted

you'll see the beginning the photos of the beginning weren't that great they were mostly me taking bad photos with my iphone and uh most of the credit goes to mike hayes who's on our team who realized you know

people really value good photography here and he started to to you know play around with that and take some great photos and it we started to have a lot of success so as the community grew and grew uh and

we ran programs like capture euphoria that i talked about uh the opportunity came to kind of be in that first beta group with promoted post and i think for us uh two things uh it was i mean it's a

great community that we wanted to be a part of and from a business perspective we saw it as a good opportunity to kind of get our our our content in front of more people um i also think that we felt the

responsibility to the community uh to and i don't know if we lived up to this but uh but to kind of use the understanding and the experience that we had in the community to hopefully create some really good

content that people would enjoy and wouldn't feel like it was uh you know they were getting bombarded by ads and you know i i know that i'm sure there's plenty of people who did feel like they were gonna

get bombarded by ads and and still felt that way but i i do know we know that a lot of people really enjoyed them so i think overall is a really good experience for us and who doesn't like seeing ice cream in

an ad next to other ads that have nothing to do with what you do like um which is something that i think everyone is having a problem with especially on facebook and hopefully you know as we both know they're you're

trying to make it um a little more customized personalized but there's a lot of people out there that are targeting ads to people that have nothing to do with the product you know i there's no way i'm gonna buy

um you know ladies hosiery for myself um right or something you know like that and yet it's targeted to me and i'm like who did this how did this get yeah i think that's great now ice cream i think it's a real

challenge across the board you know it's a real challenge i think for marketers in general i think as we think we know more and more about our audience based on on inputs that we're getting uh you know a perfect example for me is um i don't

have cable so i've been watching uh the world cup on univision on my ipad and now i'm getting a lot of sponsored uh stories and sponsored tweets in spanish and i do not speak spanish uh so you know someone there is

taking one data point about usage and thinking that i'm someone that i'm not and i think that's a real challenge for marketers i'm sure as ben and jerry's we kind of you know i'm sure we make mistakes like that

sometimes as well um but i think the good news is overall we do know more about our audience and therefore we can be delivering you know value to them in their news feed you know so it's everyone's heard kind of

stories like this but it really is about providing value to people and not uh just getting in their way and interrupting them right well we have a question here from daniel green he said how far out do you build a

content calendar and how flexible is it uh we build it at the top level annually we go down a level quarterly we go down another level monthly we go down another level weekly and then it's very flexible from there

uh is is the short short answer uh you know we really think about um you know what aspects of our story do we want to be telling this year what are just general kind of jobs to be done as

a brand what do we need to be communicating about new stories um and then on a global level we do quarterly content development on a country level we do it monthly and then like i said we have that kind of weekly meeting where

we connect with people uh and there's a lot of flexibility when things come up in that in that manner and i think that's because a lot of the community management and content development that we're doing is done in-house so it's sometimes like

that the colorado tweet i i shared at the beginning was developed in about an hour uh and it was just kind of the team saying oh here's an opportunity i'm just getting it done that's great um so i i guess i have a question just before

i ask this question from joey lopez um you guys obviously are a collaborative um atmosphere you're taking a very collaborative approach which is fantastic it's part of what we're you know all about as well um but i'm curious how do you collab

what do you use to collaborate is it good old-fashioned you know email and text or what how do you is there a collaborative system that you're using so there's a couple actually cool ideas faster yeah uh no and if anyone has any good

ideas for what those are let me know um no we we do it the old-fashioned way for the most part where we're um where we have a core team here that is walking over to each other's desks and

talking about ideas uh we have a couple agency partners that we definitely rely on and um and connect with but it's you know it's more that kind of for better for worse typical relationship where it's you know weekly calls and emails

coming back and forth uh in the similar relationship that we have with our international teams where we are uh you know we have our our check-ins and we have our emails that we bounce around you know i think we're our my

inbox probably looks as bad if not it's worse than most people so so joey lopez he asked um uh ben and jerry's ta has tackled same-sex marriage and saving the reef what's next on the radar yep that's a wonderful question um well

two things one is same-sex marriage and saving the environment are still on the radar they don't go away uh but right now our in the u.s we have a really big effort going towards trying to get gmo labeling passed uh nationwide uh

and vermont was actually the first state to pass a law that requires gmos to be labeled in in foods and um last week two weeks ago we were sued by a bunch of food manufacturers uh associations organizations and so we

actually are working to help uh the state of vermont promote a fund that they've set up to actually help defend them against the lawsuit so it was actually last week jerry greenfield one of our co-founders and governor shumlin of vermont met at

our at our burlington scoop shop and we un unveiled a uh ceremonial or honorary renaming of chocolate fudge brownie to food fight fudge brownie uh so right now we're we're really focused on trying to get gmos labeled in the us and

for us it's really an issue about transparency um we're we're not sure if gmos are right for the future right for us or not uh we're not saying that we are but we we do think that people have a right to

know what's in their food uh so that's a that's a big most developed countries already require gmo labeling um uh but i think really what's next and we're is kind of coming back to an issue that's been a core at the core of who we are and

what we've been trying to to accomplish as a business but is really to combat climate change and really you know i think the the world has woken up to the the issue but we need real solutions global solutions and i think that we're

gonna put a lot of focus towards that in the future we had a big campaign back in 2002 and 2003 with the dave matthews band we called lic global warming um so it's time for us to uh to kind of

actively re-engage in that uh in that issue um okay so i got uh some really great questions coming in here you're you're you're you've got some active people so great great uh conversation here going on um tell us

this is from courtney um smith tell us about a situation when you launched a flavor that didn't catch on so well how did uh ben jerry's handle it and move forward um we there's plenty of times i think that

we don't a live up to our own kind of model that we've put out uh plenty of times and there's also plenty of times where we think we've done everything right and we haven't uh you know i'm not i don't have a great specific

example but i will say that you know as we launch a new flavor or a new product not all of them succeed certainly not all of them succeed if anyone's ever been to our factory in in waterbury you've gone to our we actually have a

graveyard it's called the flavor graveyard it's an actual graveyard where when flavors get discontinued they get buried they get a tombstone um but that's a way for us to in essence celebrate our our failures um of which we have plenty uh but you know i think

for us when we evaluate why something didn't succeed we you know we looked at was it the right was it the wrong flavor was it the wrong time uh or did we launch it the wrong way uh and i think we try to evaluate all those

different uh aspects and um you know try to learn from those experiences and move forward i think just like any organization that uh that kind of that values if you will um their failures as an opportunity great all right this next one's from uh ryan

campbell what's the most exciting trend for ben jerry's in social that you see right now that is a great question um you know i think i don't have a i don't have a bull's-eye answer for it i think when i

look around um i'm mostly trying to focus on and you know there are all sorts of emerging platforms and platforms that have been around for a while that are growing and we don't operate in all of them but

we do look at each one and we try to evaluate does it make sense for us to move into snapchat uh we haven't yet because we haven't been able to really figure out how can we bring unique value to that space i think once

we do we would potentially go there um i think for brands the biggest challenge is okay and this is this is not different than it was a couple years ago but it changes slightly every year it's still about

how are you going to break through how are you going to um have your story be relevant to the right people so that's that's what we're working on every day if you will and um and i i still see that as the the

big question for brands you know so okay the algorithm got turned down on us on facebook how are we going to respond to that all right you know and i think i know that there'll be a ton of changes

like that over the next six months over the next six years so fundamentally it comes back to the overarching question about how are we going to make our story relevant to people right um yeah great great um let's see here that there was another

question that just came in that was a two-part question from rachel allen um the do you have certain compliance regulations you have to follow at ben and jerry's and uh and how do you measure analytics two very big um

yeah yeah i mean we have we operate under kind of the same you know macro rules that any company does in terms of compliance and regulation uh and we you know have when we're going into areas that we know are are sticky um in

a lot of our social mission uh is is that space uh then we you know we we really work with our legal and communication teams to make sure that what we're talking about uh makes sense for us and you know we're

not taking unnecessary risk so we kind of go through a similar process like everyone else there as far as analytics go you know we we look at numbers globally on a monthly basis and on a quarterly basis and

you know we're we're looking at a lot of the same measures that other people are the quantitative measures around reach and engagement and qualitatively we're not so much you know reading sediment and that kind of stuff but we are trying to understand

what's landing what's working what isn't so it's a combination of both the you know the hard numbers and kind of the the context that they're happening in you probably heard that in the background somebody wants me to ask the

um an snl question here on uh saturday night live um let me pull that up this is a personal request from one of our people here um what is the story behind the new snl flavor ice cream so

that one was really fun um it's we're we're coming up this september will be the 40th anniversary of saturday live uh and we have a good relationship with with them in general we've had a lot of partnerships with snl alum over the

years and so it just it seemed like a really great opportunity for us to help them celebrate this big milestone uh and again do it in a way that's we we think a lot of fun uh which for us has to do with creating a series

of flavors that really pay homage to some really fun snl sketches so i think i think what's really special about these flavors um is that you have to go into a ben jerry's scoop shop to get them you know these aren't going to be

in every grocery store in every corner store the way a lot of our flavors are so it's really about kind of getting into one of the stores um so we just last week launched the first two uh in what will be a series of

flavors um and you know just i think two really fun flavors delicious flavors as well but but you know i think kind of going back to is this an authentic space for ben and jerry's uh i think we're lucky in the

sense that we one thing that we think is authentic to us and has been a part of our culture since day one has been just having fun uh you know the very first free cone day that we had back in 1979

ben and jerry created some posters to promote free connect and they put a quote from each of them on the uh on the poster and the quote from jerry was if it's not fun why do it and i think if

you're looking for an overarching strategy around why we created snl flavors i think if it's not fun while i do it uh what is the strategy i love that that's you know what our mantra pure matter is serious fun so um

you know to actually uh hear that there's other companies out there um operating with that as as part of their mantra our mission is right in line with what we're believing um what um one of the questions here that we had

um from tracy blackman is how has your background in hr helped to make you a better marketer uh wow that's a question i wasn't expecting um well i'll take you guys away that's a good one yeah it's a good one tracy um

so uh this is probably a little more personal history about jay curly than anyone wanted um but just so it's between the two of us it's all good it's all good uh no i mean i started my i started my undergrad um

as a psychology major and really thinking that i was gonna you know go on to be a psychologist you know how does how does that make you feel and go help people in that way and uh towards my end of my undergrad i

took a management organizational behavior course that was kind of a blend of business theory and uh organizational development from a psychology perspective and i just fell in love with it i absolutely loved it and i it was my first kind of

exposure to to business in that way uh and so i that summer summer between my junior and senior year i did an internship in hr at burton snowboards and it was a great experience and that's really what i decided i wanted to do

with my life was get into hr and help help business by helping people uh and i did that for a couple years at an agency uh jdk design here in burlington vermont and i did that and it was it was great but i kind of hit a

ceiling and i had to decide was i going to stay at jdk which is a place that i absolutely loved or was i going to move on elsewhere in hr and i was offered an account management role at jdk that was

kind of moved into more marketing and strategy around design and i and i stayed and i did that i think and you know kind of has led me to where i am now but the foundation around kind of

understanding people and uh having uh trying my best to be empathetic uh has i think helped me as as a marketer again really to just try to understand people to make sure i'm providing value for them and being at a company like ben and jerry's

aligns well with my personal values so i'm able to kind of you know i would um let's see i would imagine that they also don't uh never saw you coming when a marketer is asking them all kinds of details on

their health plan um actually did happen see yeah that's they're kind of screwed but hey that's part of the deal so um final question and then we gotta we gotta let you go because we're at the top of the

hour um this is from april parcher how has the internet of things um i'm sure you've heard of the internet of things or the internet of everything at this point the physical to digital world influenced your brand or how do you see

it influencing ben and jerry's in the future well i think the the short answer if i look back over the last couple years the internet of things per se hasn't but really trying to blend online and offline experiences is core

to what we try to do and some of the examples i shared earlier capture euphoria valentine's day with the cake delivery that you know tweet will actually bring you ice cream i think all of those are examples of how we really

try to do that moving forward as i look forward um you know there's in the very short term next year or so i don't see major disruptions to our business if i look out over a decade and you know things like

uh grocery delivery smart refrigerators and freezers when those have really you know hit a point where and i do believe they will where they're very mainstream that is definitely going to change the way we connect with people and the way that we

tell our story because it's going to probably change the way we sell our ice cream that's great well you know i know that you're not a uh fortune teller and neither am i so there's there's probably a lot as well

that that's to come that you know is going to be invented that you know as marketers we're always uh you know excited to hear what's actually happening we're not the uh the inventors of it so um that's a tough question in

the answer but but thanks for thanks for um for doing that um one of the um one of the things i wanted to make sure is just you know just to thank you for your time this has been excellent and i

know that the questions were rolling here so um you know obviously uh you're you're working for a good place with the with a with a fun uh attitude and um you know just excited to have the hour with you so thank you on behalf of

everybody that's been watching thank you and and for everyone who's been tweeting and listening thank you for your time um i i really appreciate it i'll definitely try to get to i'd say all the questions on twitter over the next 24

hours so yeah and thank you brian and the pure matter team for for inviting me to be a part of this it's been fun you got it man you got it we'll talk soon and to everyone out there thank you

so much and again this is going to be this was recorded it's going to be um sent out within the next 24 to 48 hours and we will announce our next webinar which it runs on a monthly basis right

now we'll we'll send that out uh very soon letting know who that is but for now thank you jay and thank you everyone out there for um uh joining us here today and we will see you thank soon