Ben and Jerry’s have used advertising throughout the years to promote themselves. In all the examples I have below, Ben and Jerry’s have advertised themselves with a political twist from gay marriage to small farm owners. As well as promoting their ice cream, the company is also showing Americans their political views and that they are concerned with the issues of America and not just making money.
Through October and November of 2005, Ben and Jerry’s launched an ad campaign toward the disappearance of small farms. The main character of the ad, Mike Eastman, owned a dairy farm in Vermont and said, “America loses 330 farms every week due in large part to the proliferation of industrial agriculture, encroaching urban development, and other economic shifts in agriculture.” The ad urged viewers to log on to www.benjerrys.com to find out how they could help these small farms. The options included writing to Congress members to pass the 2007 Farm Bill, which “protect[ed] small and mid-sized farms while slowing the expansion of industrial farming.” Also the letters were supposed to urge support for the Milk Income Loss Contract, and two days after the television ad was launched, the agriculture committee extended the Contract for two more years, which shows the campaign was effective (www.allbusiness.com).
Serving the world's largest baked alaska at the Capitol
In 2005, the U.S. Senate voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development. In response, Ben and Jerry’s crated the largest Baked Alaska dessert that was over 600 pounds. They paraded in front of the U.S. Capitol with the dessert to make their point. Ben and Jerry’s employees, Greenpeace, the Alaska Wilderness League, and over 1,000 people attended the event. Throughout the country Ben and Jerry’s shops offered a Baked Alaska Sundae and advertised Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) signs in the shops. The whole campaign was eventually successful; Congress ended up not authorizing drilling in Alaska (www.benjerry.com).
Same-sex marriage became legal in the state of Vermont on September 1, 2009. Ben and Jerry decided to celebrate the day because they were allied with Freedom to Marry. To rejoice over the legal matter, Ben and Jerry’s sold “Hubby Hubby” sundaes during the month of September, which was a spin-off of one of their ice creams named Chubby Hubby. They even released a mock label for Hubby Hubby for the pint sized ice cream containers, but it takes 18 months to revise a product label,” so that obviously would not allow enough time to celebrate gay marriage in Vermont (www.slashfood.com).
The mock ice cream pint label
All of these advertising campaigns are unique in their own way, and some of them have had an effect on the politics they addressed. Drilling for oil in Alaska was dropped and Congress extended a contract from the small farming campaign. Ben and Jerry’s have grown to be a huge company that obviously has political influence in the world. They aren’t corrupt about it, though. They are using their influence for the better.
