This paper presents a comprehensive strategic marketing plan for Ben & Jerry's, the internationally recognized Vermont-based ice cream brand now operating as a subsidiary of Unilever, Ltd. The analysis covers the company's historical development, its unique social mission framework, and its tri-partite objectives encompassing product quality, economic growth, and social responsibility. Key sections include a situational analysis tracing the brand's evolution from a Burlington gas station to a global franchise, a SWOT and PESTLE evaluation, an examination of the Values-Led Sourcing and Fair Trade supplier programs, and a review of the Ben & Jerry's Foundation's philanthropic activities. The paper also addresses marketing strategy, budgetary transparency challenges, and identity management issues that emerged following the Unilever acquisition.
The paper demonstrates applied strategic analysis by layering multiple evaluation tools — SWOT and PESTLE — in sequence. Rather than treating these frameworks in isolation, the author shows how PESTLE functions as a follow-on instrument to SWOT, drilling into the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental pressure points that the SWOT matrix surfaces. This two-stage analytical structure is a useful model for business and marketing students.
The paper follows a formal marketing plan structure: an executive summary establishes context, a situation analysis provides company history and financial overview, SWOT and PESTLE analyses assess competitive position, an objectives section maps the three-part mission, a marketing strategy section addresses channels and campaigns, and a budget section addresses fiscal constraints and Foundation allocations. Appendices supply the full PESTLE instrument template for reference.
Ben & Jerry's, the international leader in handcrafted ice cream with a social conscience, is analyzed in this strategic marketing report. Developed on an integrated public-private business prospectus, the company set the tone for trailblazing product and brand identity configurations with an ethic of social responsibility and global sustainability long before such approaches were customary. Although now a subsidiary of the products and services giant Unilever, Ltd., Ben & Jerry's retains its Vermont beginnings in both grassroots image and Americana flavor. Well-known for instigating social change through commercial planning, a situation analysis of the company's early and unique marketing platform — prior to the proliferation of new market concepts in cause-related branding — is long overdue.
Acquired by British conglomerate Unilever, Ltd. in 2000, U.S.-based Ben & Jerry's operates as a boutique product line within the novelty food segment of the umbrella company's global business retail sector. Known for flavor names such as Chunky Monkey, Phish Food, and Cherry Garcia, the ice cream corporation was founded in 1978 in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont. Ben & Jerry's now strategizes contiguous marketing interests with its acquisition partner while maintaining continuity with the origin of its high-profile brand.
Often called the "merry pranksters" of the food industry, the company has carved out a niche position on the international ice cream market through activist public relations intended to follow the original ideological impetus behind the product and its founders. Early to the environmental and social responsibility platforms now standard within the tertiary activities deemed "core competencies" of corporate strategic plans, reinvention at Ben & Jerry's is met through innovation and quality in support of the company's mission and values. This is pursued through a tri-partite framework of objectives directed at the realization of product, economic, and social goals.
Even prior to the acquisition by Unilever, the company promoted its product through retail experience stores, franchising approximately 750 Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops worldwide (Hoovers, 2010). Philanthropic expansion created a seamless brand vision as revenues generated a portfolio of at least $1.1 million in pretax profits, earmarked annually through the entity's charitable organization, the Ben & Jerry's Foundation. The company also "sponsors PartnerShops, which are Ben & Jerry's outlets independently owned and operated by nonprofit organizations, such as Goodwill Industries" (Hoovers, 2010). Macro to micro interests are approached according to trend analysis, and personal concerns serve to inform decisions on causes ranging from global warming to the preservation of family-owned and operated agricultural firms.
Fostered by tales of Cohen and Greenfield packing ice cream pints for sale in local grocery stores in the early 1980s, the emergence of the company as a small franchise chain coincided with Time magazine hailing the product as "the best ice cream in the world." Just one year later, Ben & Jerry's Homemade went public in a Vermont-only stock offering in 1984 (Hoovers, 2010). Five years after the first commercial cream, the company churned over $4 million in annual sales. By 1986, they had signed a national distribution agreement with Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, reaching customers in 18 states and Canada. Twelve years into that relationship, however, relations soured, and in a surprise move the company entered into an offer with Häagen-Dazs — a formerly adverse entity that had been party to a pre-litigation settlement with Ben & Jerry's over a distribution dispute with the larger ice cream corporation in the 1980s.
Product innovation at Ben & Jerry's has been flavor-centric, yet narrow and slow in terms of universal market response. Research and development in response to the explosion of fat-free ice cream alternatives in the early 1990s led to the introduction of a frozen yogurt product in 1992, yet a nonfat frozen yogurt brand was not identified until 1995. Just prior to that release, Ben & Jerry's suffered its first period loss, and co-founder Cohen responded by resigning as CEO of the corporation.
The transition to deeper integration with Unilever was driven by the entrance of Jostein Solheim, a 14-year Unilever veteran, in 2010. Solheim brought expertise from running Unilever's ice cream division operations in five countries and was central to a new strategic plan for the partnership's North American operations, focused on the rollout of new products (Hoovers, 2010). Co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who launched the start-up in the 1970s, embraced this move with the belief that the life cycle of the former enterprise could only be regenerated with his exceptional market insight. Ben & Jerry's currently retails product to regional markets in Asia, Europe, and North America, including the countries listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Countries of Operation, Ben & Jerry's (Hoovers, 2010).
Aruba, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, UK, US.
When Unilever purchased Ben & Jerry's in 2000 for approximately $326 million, the deal was structured to allow the ice cream maker to continue its brand identity marketing strategy based on social missions and to retain the involvement of both co-founders, who offer oversight and lend their personal image to the product. Unilever's market position at that time is reflected in the financial overview in Table 2.
Table 2. Unilever Financial Overview, 2009 (Hoovers, 2010).
Fiscal Year-End: December | 2009 Sales: $2,814.7 million | 1-Year Sales Growth: (13.2%) | 2009 Net Income: $220.0 million | 1-Year Net Income Growth: 3.0%.
Despite the influx of investment and strategic leverage in logistics and visibility promoted by the Unilever relationship, as the company disaggregated, control over activities became less coherent. Identity management issues plagued the company image in the latter half of the decade. In 2006, the Chief Financial Officer was convicted of embezzling $300,000 from the company during his tenure from May 2000 to May 2004 (Hoovers, 2010). Poor partnership control also emerged, and that same year marked the end of the Michael Foods egg supplier relationship in response to public pressure over the inhumane treatment of its chickens.
Resource operations management is guided by Ben & Jerry's "Values-Led Sourcing" (VLS) program. The initiative involves ingredient supplier stakeholders in support of ethical management of natural resources and economic opportunities for disadvantaged workers. Key outcomes of the VLS program included the following measures:
Table 3. Outcomes of the Ben & Jerry's Values-Led Sourcing Program, 2009 (Ben & Jerry's, 2010).
The company began the transition of its United States pint packaging to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paperboard. It added Chocolate Macadamia, a new flavor with Fair Trade ingredients, to its global lineup. All European dairy purchasing was brought into the Caring Dairy program. The transition to using only cage-free eggs in the U.S. supply chain was accelerated. The company also made several commitments to grow existing VLS programs over the following years, including a plan to move to Fair Trade sourcing for all eligible ingredients across its global portfolio by 2013, and a plan to expand its Caring Dairy program in Vermont.
Reporting on program figures indicates that 40% of raw materials (ingredients, dairy, and packaging) for North American production went to Values-Led Sourcing initiatives, up from 38% in 2008. In Europe, the figure rose from 42% to 53% in the same period (Ben & Jerry's, 2010). Completion of the company's full scale-up of its Caring Dairy program in 2009 concluded the strategy to accelerate VLS across the EU. Continued growth in VLS spending holds significant import for the strategic marketing plan, as the ambitious scale-up of further VLS initiatives will fulfil press release and advertising goals.
Fair Trade suppliers are given priority where small-scale farmers from developing countries are involved in offering the highest-quality ingredients. A global marketplace perspective within the company's business strategy translates to a voice of social justice in support of partners and the sustainable growth of the company's long-term stakes in planetary wellbeing. Marketing of this message is achieved through articulation of alignment with small entities vested in fair trade activities, and through brand identification with the company's Fair Trade logo — assurance that farmers who grow key ingredients are paid a fair market price in support of their sustained participation in organized democratic work cooperatives pursuing environmentally sound farming practices (Ben & Jerry's, 2010). The company's Fair Trade supplier partnerships and the ingredients they cover are summarized in Table 4.
Table 4. Ben & Jerry's Fair Trade Product Storyboard (Ben & Jerry's, 2010).
The coffee extract used in U.S. coffee flavors (Coffee, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, Coffee Buzz Buzz) is Fair Trade Certified and comes from the Huatusco Cooperative in Veracruz, Mexico. The vanilla extract in Ben & Jerry's Smooth Vanilla and Chocolate Macadamia ice cream produced globally is made with Fair Trade vanilla beans from farmers in India, Indonesia, Uganda, and elsewhere. Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream produced for the European market is made with Ecuadorian-grown Fairtrade bananas from the El Guabo Cooperative. The cocoa powder in Ben & Jerry's Smooth Chocolate ice cream in the U.S. and Chocolate Macadamia ice cream globally — and in the chunks and coatings for European flavors Chunky Monkey and Vanilla Toffee Crunch — is Fair Trade Certified, sourced from cooperatives in the Dominican Republic and West Africa. All Ben & Jerry's Fairtrade flavors produced for the European market are made with Fairtrade sugar grown in the Manduvira Cooperative in Paraguay. In 2009, these flavors included Vanilla Toffee Crunch, Chunky Monkey, Chocolate Macadamia, and Smooth Vanilla.
Ethical consideration in business agreements is articulated in the Code of Business Principles offered by parent company Unilever. Synergy with Ben & Jerry's activist brand platform is expressed as "continuous improvement in managing environmental impacts, safe and healthy standards for workers, and a firm commitment to human rights," in support of the company's signatory status to the U.N. Secretary General's Global Compact of 1999 (Ben & Jerry's, 2010).
The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis in Table 5 provides an organizational assessment to complement other strategic evaluation approaches such as Six Sigma. Analysis of factors influencing the execution of current value chain strategies — including political, economic, social, technological, and environmental (PESTLE) changes — can be identified and subjected to deeper analysis where the PESTLE framework surfaces as a naturally occurring phenomenon (Appendix A).
Table 5. SWOT Analysis of Ben & Jerry's Market Prospectus.
Strengths: Solid brand identification; longevity of performance; large niche market with a loyal customer base; progressive vision ensuring continuity within the new market paradigm of "sustainable growth"; and conglomerate investment backing from the parent company.
Weaknesses: Perishable nature of food products means quality is always at issue; slow response to market trends in product competition; diminishing control over retail operations; idealism that sometimes supersedes cost-effective measures; and social responsibility now also the domain of competitors.
Opportunities: A host of countries where Ben & Jerry's has not yet been marketed; strong global product reception; leadership in sustainable planning and social contribution; and an established marketing platform recognized by consumers as an ice cream with a conscience.
Threats: Scandals arising from decentralized control by owners; shifts in supplier interests; full-cost price inputs required by environmentally sound ingredient sourcing; and competitive product innovation.
PESTLE analysis is undertaken in response to the SWOT analysis and assists in interpreting the facts and information discovered (RapidBi, 2010). Identity management assessment is readily facilitated using the PESTLE instrument. Constructive to the development of target market media analysis in both domestic and foreign markets, the tool is iterative — it can be applied repeatedly to deduce "pressure points" within international advertising and press content that may not be conducive to the sovereignty of a brand.
Ben & Jerry's holds a distinct position in the market of socially responsible food product lines as a subsidiary of Unilever. While some assert that the company is a "sellout," revenues and patterns of consumer loyalty continue to support the planning of strategic growth. The SWOT instrument encourages organizations to make informed decisions about everything from accounting to training. Ethnographic data gathered through assessment can be used in original qualitative form or inserted into larger quantitative narratives to add depth in company-wide surveys at the back end of the data collection process.
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