Ben & Jerry's secret formula for marketing: no apologies.(Ben & JerryEs Homemade Holdings, Inc)(Column)

Advertising Age, August, 2005 by Bloom, Jonah

Byline: Jonah Bloom

Ben & Jerry's doesn't care if you hate it.

Sounds like a strange thing to say about a company most of us think of as a loving tree-hugger of an organization, but it's true-and that devil-may-care attitude is one of the ice cream purveyor's biggest assets.

But we'll come back to that. Let's first talk about Ben & Jerry's promotional model, because it is another strength and is diametrically different than the approach of most marketers. Ben & Jerry's doesn't spend time or money positioning, hard-selling or even branding its products. It doesn't use the common outside-in approach of testing what resonates with consumers in order to decide on strategy and messaging.

Instead it uses an inside-out approach: It works...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.