Harvard case study methodology and analysis

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Case Study

Ben & Jerry's: Preserving Mission and Brand within Unilever Case Study

Ben & Jerry's business model from the beginning was one of the most unique in the history of business, in that it successfully integrated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), commitment to product, economic and social initiatives that successfully balanced both product quality and concern for the environment while attaining profitability. In many respects, Ben & Jerry's egalitarian roots in one of the most liberally-mind states, Vermont, would eventually permeate the company during its rapid growth period and be tested as the growing pains of the company began to become apparent. As Ben & Jerry's gradually became a global premium brand due to the successful balance of product, economic and social factors that operated as its ethical and philosophical foundation, the company ran into supply chain, logistics, and governance problems common to rapidly growing global companies. The premium brand Ben & Jerry had created was supported by this triad (product, economic and social factors) eventually began to attract unsolicited acquisition bids. The acquiring companies however needed to realize that brands are complex and involve so much more than just a name and a logo (Kotler, 2001).

Of several unsolicited bids, Unilever had the most attractive in terms of cultural fit. The challenge of any acquiring company however was in replicating the foundation that the triad (product, economic and social factors) provided. Unilever attempted to use extensive governance board participation, commitments to Ben & Jerry's employees of employment for at least two years after the acquisition, and an entire series of commitments to fulfill the intent of the many CSR programs that were in place prior to the acquisition. The Unilever code of ethics foreshadowed however the strength of culture over even the most sincerest of governance intentions and in the end, the larger company's culture would begin to dominate Ben & Jerry's organization due to the need for operational efficiencies including improvements to the company's supply chain, the need to improve its e-business strategies, and also more efficiently manage its production centers. All of these strategic areas are eventually redesigned by Unilever, with major implications on the culture, ethics, and morale of the Ben & Jerry's culture and branding.

Defining Product, Economic and Social Mission at Ben & Jerry's

According to the case study written by Austin, J, & Quinn, J (2007), the triad of Product Mission, Economic Mission and Social Mission form the ethical foundation of the company. The founders believes that keeping these three aspects of the ethical and philosophical foundation of the company in synchronization with each other while being reciprocal to both internal and external stakeholders, the company could continue to prosper while being a company exhibiting best practices in CSR.

From the case study (Austin & Quinn 2007), the three elements of this triad have been defined as follows:

Product Mission: To make, distribute & sell the finest quality all natural ice cream & euphoric concoctions with a continued commitment to incorporating wholesome, natural ingredients and promoting business practices that respect the Earth and the Environment.

Economic Mission: To operate the Company on a sustainable financial basis of profitable growth, in-creasing value for our stakeholders & expanding opportunities for development and career growth for our employees.

Social Mission: To operate the company in a way that actively recognizes the central role that business plays in society by initiating innovative ways to improve the quality of life locally, nationally & internationally."

The ethical aspects of how reciprocal each of these missions is reinforce the ethical structure and cultural systems of the company. These three missions interacting with each other and with both internal and external stakeholders create an ethics ecosystem that Ben & Jerry's successfully relied on as the company grew from its regional to national size. The reciprocity, transparency, and accountability to external and internal stakeholders in effect created by the product, economic, and social missions working together also served to create a very high level of trust. External stakeholders including suppliers, distributors, and consumers and internal stakeholders including employees, contractors, and management had immediate accessibility to the information and people needed to do their jobs and accomplish their goals with respect to these broader missions. Trust then was created throughout all stakeholder groups. Ben & Jerry's found that the greater the adherence to their triad of missions, the greater the level of trust was achieved. This cycle of trust was reinforced with each objective accomplished that required the synchronization of each of these three missions. Ben & Jerry's ethics ecosystem eventually became a "trust engine" so to speak that generated credibility over time and maintained it by showing through example how aligned their strategies, tactics and decisions were to the triad of missions. In essence, their ability to execute as a business and get things done with outside stakeholders was a direct reflection of how aligned they were to their triad of missions. For Ben & Jerry's once this ethics ecosystem was in motion, they had to stay true to it and fulfill the many commitments it implied both internally and externally. The triad of missions, balanced in their implementation per the founders' requirements, became their culture over time. While this ethics ecosystem reinforced the cultural values of the founders and also created a set of ongoing expectations of ethical decision making and action both inside and outside the company, it also permeated the company's brand. Ben & Jerry's began to see its brand reflect the triad of missions and its identity in the market, and while many companies rely on their brand to at least partially define who they are, Ben & Jerry's used their triad of missions define their brand. This practice alone was highly unique, specifically in the highly competitive consumer packaged goods industry.

The practice of creating a brand based on the social responsible strategies of companies rather than just a company's product attributes or benefits is called values-based marketing, and often has little if anything to do with the actual product themselves. Values-based marketing and branding is instead focused on the socially responsible values and strategies of a company (Cohen and Greenfield, 1997). For Ben & Jerry's their entire identity is defined by their influence of their triad missions and the ethical ecosystem that was created as a result. The role of informal cultural systems in defining the identity of Ben & Jerry's is so inextricably linked to the brand that they are indistinguishable.

In addition, values-led marketing is about connecting social issues with marketing campaigns. Since marketing is such a powerful tool to give an opinion, the promotion of the products is often linked to social messages (Roddick 2000) and for many companies the message and the ethics of their companies become the same, which has been the deliberate goal of Ben & Jerry's approach to defining their brand. The triad of missions serving as the foundation of the brand attracted consumers who shared the same social values as the missions, further underscoring Ben & Jerry's unique market position. From an ethical perspective, values-based marketing of Ben & Jerry's brand grew out of the daily interactions both within and outside the company, where decisions were made to fulfill the missions' purposes. As a result of literally thousands of decisions and events contributing to the brand, Ben & Jerry's created a high level of trust with those customers who shared their values. Trust then became an essential part of their brand. This entire dynamic of how the triad missions fueled the daily decision making, in turn creating an ecosystem of ethics, all contributed to the brand. For Unilever, the challenges of continuing the authenticity of the brand were many, as the use of governance as a means of complying and eventually replacing Ben & Jerry's original triad of missions would eventually face tough challenges both inside and outside the company.

Lesson for Unilever: You Can Buy a Brand but You Can't Buy Trust

Whether intentional or not, Unilever's strategy of supplanting and eventually replacing the original philosophical and ethical foundation of Ben & Jerry's triad of product, economic and social factors with governance did not work. The use of governance to ensure higher levels of transparency thereby keeping the previous ethical infrastructure in place did not work, even with potentially punitive costs for Unilever to underscore the seriousness of the company to adhering to governance guidelines. Substituting governance for the triad of the product, economic and social factors failed to capture the reciprocal of these factors working in conjunction with one another, and the highly reciprocal nature they exemplified within the broader environment.

This case excellently shows that governance and compliance cannot enforce ethics to the point that it permeates an organization; the ethics and values need to be inherent in an organizations' structure to be consistently exhibited and most importantly, adhered to in the many interactions with the outside world. The lack of ethical foundations in many organizations and the resulting impact on internal and external stakeholders has caused literally billions of dollars in losses and an erosion of trust in both corporations and the capital markets they use to create and sustain capital. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) (2002) was passed into law specifically for this reason. Unlike Unilever attempting to use governance to supplant and eventually replace the triad missions of Ben & Jerry's, many corporations including Enron, MCI, Tyco and many others did not have an ethical foundation to begin with at all. The use of SOX to legislate compliance to ethical standards is in effect trying to enforce ethical ecosystems into place through massive amounts of accounting and finance audits, controls and processes. When one considers the simplicity of the triad missions and how they permeate the brand at Ben & Jerry's, it becomes abundantly clear that good ethics is good business and saves literally billions of dollars across the global economy every year. Ben & Jerry's brand success had more to do with the accomplishment of those balanced objectives in the triad mission and the furthering of their ethical stance on using wealth to better the lives and serve others. The altruistic and highly egalitarian nature of the Ben & Jerry's brand was the result of these mission factors working in a synchronized fashion with each other to create a catalyst of ethics highly unique to the company.

Unilevers' governance strategy for ensuring the ethical and egalitarian nature of the Ben & Jerry's culture stays constant is used to stabilize the brand despite its being rolled up into the entire Unilever product family. While perfectly ethical, the challenge of managing brands that have a highly unique value-based identity is formidable. Corporate branding has two aspects, one is diversification and the one is belonging. A strong corporate brand can offer its members and stakeholders a way of expressing their values (Kotler 2001). For Unilever the ethical infrastructure of the governance board and many efforts to replace the triad missions does not take into account how deeply permeated these missions were in the company. There was recognition of the triad missions being important, yet governance could not replace the daily decision making results that looked to underscore each missions' objectives. The bottom line was that the continual and incessant pressure from the Unilever culture can't help but impact the Ben & Jerry's organization, processes, people and eventually the product and brand.

Corporate Social Responsibility Assessment

Inherent in Unilever was the need to show a return on investment (ROI) on the acquisition of Ben & Jerry's. The ability to generate greater profits while keeping aligned with then eventually replacing the triad missions with a series of governance processes and a governance board posted dilemmas in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as well. Davis and Blomstrom (1975) have defined social responsibility as the obligation of decision makers to take actions which protect and improve the welfare of society as a whole along with their own interests. Conversely Carroll and Buchholtz (2003) argue that CSR is not the responsibility of business people; their responsibility is purely to maximize profits for owners and shareholders. Further, theorists contend that the role of business is to attract and retain employees while adding significant value to customers' products.