It seems Ben and Jerry’s may be next in the firing line after they made waves with a provocative 4th of July tweet claiming the US is on stolen Indigenous land. Could we witness a downturn similar to Bud Light?
Or is their irresistibly good ice cream strong enough to keep their ship afloat?
Edit: Side note - in the absence of B&J, what ice cream are you turning to? I’m in AUS. So B&J was a game changer. Not anything else like it that I’m aware of.
Ben & Jerry’s has always projected a Vermonter, hippy, psuedo-leftist image as a company (despite being owned by Unilever since 2000). This tweet is perfectly in line with that image, and the die-hard B&J fans probably won’t bat an eye.
I agree, it is in line with their image, their image being “phony progressive platitudes on top of bog-standard corpro shit”. It’s pretty rich for B&J to be sanctimonious about stolen land when they also do a shitload of business in Russia, which is currently attempting to steal even more land and is murdering every Ukrainian civilan they possibly can in the process. They sued their own parent company for allowing a licensee to sell B&J ice cream in the West Bank—not a word now. The fact that Ben has donated over a million dollars to a political action group that sought to stop the U.S. from arming Ukraine is technically a coincidence considering he no longer works there, but their public stance is just as bad. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re also super into Greenpeace and Tienanmen Square Truthing.
What about the average consumer? You’re right about the die-hard fans.
The people who hate “woke” B&J will go buy a different dessert product owned by Unilever. Believing that B&J actually is “woke” instead of a calculated marketing campaign from Unilever is hilarious.
This is definitely true to a degree, but it’s worth pointing out that Ben And Jerry’s is ran independently from Unilever and is pretty separated in terms of the way they run their business and they have a separate “ethics board” which has the final say over what Unilever is allowed to make B&J do.
@peter @heartlessevil https://www.foodonline.com/doc/unilevers-ben-jerrys-buyout-keeps-activism-in-0001
Die-hard Bud Light fans tend to be conservative men, and Bud Light did a small promotion with a person that doesn’t fit into their worldview. That vocal minority made a stink, got some press coverage, and maybe put a dent in this quarter’s earnings. But most average consumers didn’t care or maybe didn’t even notice, and they kept buying whatever beer they usually buy.
In this case, the die-hard fans won’t be up in arms. There won’t be nearly as much noise to make it through to the press and therefore to average consumer. Most people won’t hear about this tweet. If they do come across it, and disagree with the message, they’ll probably just roll their eyes and forget about it before their next trip to the grocery store.
Another difference, some people make their favorite brand of beer a part of their identity, and treat it the way some people treat their favorite football team. I would expect there are fewer people that do the same for their favorite brand of ice cream.