Ben and Jerry's breakout session

During this week’s breakout session, we looked into the success of the well-established ice cream brand, Ben and Jerry’s. From this, we discussed who the company’s main competitors were within the premium ice-cream market. We concluded that Magnum and Haargan Darz were the Ben and Jerry’s main competition. We argued that their ‘product anatomy’ was composed by the company’s ability to differentiate themselves from other brands by having a wide range of fun unusual flavours that appeal to a wide range of consumers. Ben and Jerry’s fun flavours also coincide with today’s current affairs such as global warming and other ethical issues, as shown in the video.

We also discussed how the brand positioning strategies of Ben and Jerry’s vary from their competitors and how this is manifested in the product anatomy. We concluded that Ben and Jerry’s wanted to measure their success on how they are doing socially by instituting annual social audits such as improving their environmental foot print. The company focuses on recycling and waste reduction. People purchase Ben and Jerry’s ice cream with the belief that they are buying into a company that has an ethic. They use their packaging and ice cream flavors to tackle issues close to people’s hearts for example, their global warming ice cream. People can find more information about the ethical issues by going onto the company’s website. The company also champions a wide array of causes beyond ice cream such as a demonstration that tried to get the government to label milk products sourced from cloned cows. Overall this creates a positive image for Ben and Jerry’s as they are showing that they care about the environment which is important, as being such a large company they have a big carbon footprint. As a result customers are more incline to purchase their products. However this varies from their competitors for example; Magnum tends to focus on being an attractive brand with sexually appealing women advertising their products. This creates a ‘sexy’ image for the brand making it more appealing to its customer base.

We also looked at the anatomy of the products in the sector and what we believed to be the most influential factors that determine the brands’ relative positioning. We decided that the success of Ben and Jerry’s isn't just from the unusual ice cream selection, but from progressive social missions that calls for the company to look at the larger interest of the community rather than only the financial interest of the business. Being in a caring community based business makes business more profitable, as owner Jerry Greenfield said ‘if you help others you are helped in return’.

Adistats,

Jasmine