Ben & Jerry's Web Strategy and a Creative Service Concept

Ben & Jerry's Website as a Marketing Tool

Ben & Jerry's website is an almost perfect reflection of the company as the consumer popularly views it: high quality but "down home," clever, humanistic, ecologically minded, and service-oriented. Few people have not heard at least some part of the Ben & Jerry story — how two friends pooled their savings and started a little ice cream shop in a converted gas station, a sort of commercial swords-into-ploughshares tale.

The website opens with a top banner reminiscent of Blue Mountain Arts, containing simple animation of simple shapes. In this case, it is snowflakes falling on a cow that licks an ice cream cone. (One assumes that the sun shines in summer, leaves fall in autumn, and so on.)

Right below that, a product shot tells the consumer immediately that this is organic ice cream, appealing to the "greens." It mentions that it is good for you — that "your body will thank you" — and that it tastes good, appealing to the "foodies." It then invites praise, asking for "love letters." This is all calculated to engage the consumer further; one can assume that a visitor to a Ben & Jerry's website was already fairly well hooked. But a little invitation to interaction never hurts, especially when it is clever.

Product Promotion and Consumer Engagement

Next, Ben & Jerry's attempts to satisfy the curiosity of its upscale consumer by offering a virtual factory tour of the place where "Vermont's Finest" is made. This is both good marketing and good service. Ben & Jerry's target market, by virtue of the price of the product alone, is an upscale consumer — one who is likely well-educated or at least curious — who would want to see how ice cream is commercially made and to be assured that the product is everything Ben & Jerry's claims: premium, fresh, ecological, and all the other "earthy-crunchy" and food-aficionado buzzwords.

So far, Ben & Jerry's has entertained the customer (the cute animated banner), promoted the product (the product shot and tag lines), and educated the customer. Next, Ben & Jerry's sells the customer. The third column in the simple layout features another product shot, this time for a less familiar product — a "'Wich," or Ben & Jerry's version of the venerable ice cream sandwich. With that comes an invitation and a link to proceed further, as there was with the factory tour. Clicking the link reveals exactly what the 'Wich is made of — and the surprising fact that they are available at 7-Eleven locations. One can assume that Ben & Jerry's fans, who are used to taking pints home, will be thrilled to be able to stop, 'Wich up, get back in the car, and drive happily to their next appointment munching a genuinely good ice cream treat rather than the foam-core-and-cardboard slabs they might otherwise settle for during busy hours. This seems a brilliant strategy on every level.

Also not to be missed is one element on the left-side menu: the Flavor Graveyard. There are dozens of discontinued flavors — flavors that many consumers never heard of, in product lines they may not have known existed. One example: New York Super Fudge Chunk® Original Ice Cream Peace Pops™. Many of the dead flavors sound wonderful, and Ben & Jerry's has cleverly provided a way to request their resurrection. They have also provided a haunted house game to play — a delightful bit of interactivity that keeps the visitor engaged.

Back on the home page, the final column is Ben & Jerry's Schoolhouse, their version of FAQs — clever, complete, and again featuring an invitation. But there is more: the top banner is accompanied by several clever buttons, including, naturally, a Gift Shop button. Here, something truly distinctive signals just how upscale this brand is: customers can order six pints of Ben & Jerry's to be mailed to themselves or as a gift. The cost is $54.94, but it includes dry ice and a gift card. A cheaper alternative — printing out gift coupons — is also offered. Other gifts range from clothing to mugs, including a toothpick holder that resembles a shot glass.

Ben & Jerry's has defined its market as upscale, educated, "green," engaged in their world, in search of the unique, and willing to spend money for any or all of those reasons. The site lacks a traditionally corporate look; a talented high school junior who lives in dairy country could have designed it. All in all, this site is perfectly suited to its target market and very likely works extremely well — considering that this sort of site is usually intended to be more informational than interactive, since, unlike downloadable software or e-books, one generally has to go to the store to buy ice cream — at least until the ice-cream-by-mail option came along.

The Unprincipled Sleazeballs Business Concept

The website will open with a home page featuring a soccer mom groveling before a garage mechanic who has overcharged her and under-repaired the family van, while a half-dozen ten-year-old girls cry in the background. The word Yo! is both flashed on screen and heard in the audio. At that point, the screen morphs to show the soccer mom driving happily away while an Unprincipled Sleazeball actor stares down the mechanic supervisor.

The third screen is an invitation to preview the sorts of situations in which one would hire an unprincipled sleazeball: negotiating with a contractor, taking the car to the mechanic, arranging to pay off back taxes with the IRS, or sending a pointed message to the boss who fired you to hire his nephew last summer.

Pages would carry taglines designed to appeal to the customer's desire to solve their "wimp" problem:

Conclusion

Both websites — one real, one imagined — illustrate how digital presentation must align closely with the intended audience's values, expectations, and sense of humor. Ben & Jerry's succeeds by combining warmth, ecological credibility, and interactivity to serve a well-defined upscale consumer. The fictional Unprincipled Sleazeballs concept applies the same logic in reverse: it targets the same upscale demographic but sells them something they would never do themselves, wrapped in a tone that is equal parts irreverence and reassurance. In both cases, the website is not merely a storefront — it is the brand experience itself.