Ben & Jerry’s muzzled, OpenAI’s first brand campaign, Maxwell House becomes Maxwell Apartment …and all the latest in brand news

Issue #73

Weekly Exhale

Jerry Greenfield, the Jerry in Ben & Jerry’s, is leaving the company after forty-seven years. I can’t believe the guy was still clocking in after all that time. Blimey. You might see Colonel Sanders on a bucket or an old photo of Milton Hershey in a frame somewhere, but you don’t see either character’s name on the payroll. Truth? I wasn’t sure Ben Cohen or Jerry Greenfield were any more real than Ronald McDonald.

Once you realise that both founders—until last week—were still in the building, the reason for Jerry’s exit feels less surprising. Unilever, which bought Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million, is, in their telling, muzzling the brand’s political views on Gaza. Hence the new rallying cry: Free Ben & Jerry’s.

In a TikTok video-letter, Ben slings his arm around Jerry as he says, “It’s with a broken heart that I can no longer remain an employee.”

Since meeting in a Long Island gym class and setting up a Burlington scoop shop in 1978, they’ve come a long way. The hippie brand won a huge following and serious revenues. But then it sold. In the Unilever deal, the co-founders cashed out millions (Ben north of $40 million, Jerry about $10 million, double in today’s dollars).

So come on, Ben, come on, Jerry. You’re not naive enough to think you still have any real independence, are you? Feel bad about that? Well, as Don Draper says, “That’s what the money’s for.”

Sure, a while back, Ben & Jerry’s fought Monsanto over growth hormones and dairy cows. Its brownie supplier hired the homeless. And they campaigned for peace during the Gulf War.

But two and a half decades after the sale, Ben and Jerry pushing politics onto the parent company feels churlish.

Besides, it’s ice cream: the joy of a thousand calories and a hundred grams of sugar. Can’t I enjoy a pint of cookie dough and take two minutes off from the world?

Well, as it turns out, no.

Ben and Jerry were pioneers of the “Double Dip” company: lead with heart, make money too. They’re anti-business-as-usual and didn’t care that much about making money. But they knew how powerful business had become. They figured they could get more done inside it, having a company, than not.

Never more so during the sale to Unilever.

By the late 1990s, premium ice cream had gone big-league. Nestlé was tightening its grip on Häagan-Daz. Ben & Jerry’s was in play, and rival Unilever needed to win.

Unilever did what it had to do: it wrote cheques. All the cheques.

$5 million to the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation for grassroots activism, deal or no deal. Then the knockout offer—roughly a 25% premium—plus another $1.1 million a year for ten years to the foundation, a $5 million employee bonus pool, and a $5 million social-venture fund.

Now, the headline promise of an “Independent Board” is usually wallpaper. But in this case, it was structural.

The agreement hard-wired a right-to-sue clause, enforceable by two directors, including Jeff Furman, the longtime “&” in Ben & Jerry’s, often described as “left of Lenin.” Unilever would even reimburse reasonable legal fees.

Plain English: if Unilever veered off the social mission, Ben & Jerry’s could take them to court and do it on Unilever’s dime.

So when the purpose police say you can’t force politics onto a company, well, at Ben & Jerry’s, you can. It’s in the contract.

On 13th November 2024, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. filed a fresh complaint in federal court against Unilever.

And it lands at a flashpoint. America is running hot. Its algorithm is a stomach dripping bile and gold, eager to digest brands into meme stocks. And if the feed doesn’t get you, the state might: A president can slap a tariff on you by morning and declare you a national health risk by lunch.

So far, the algorithm likes Jerry’s TikTok letter—5.5m views, 1.1 million loves and climbing. The comments read like a shopping list of Unilever brands to boycott.

As for the president, Ben and Jerry are hippies who built a global ice cream brand. Protest is in their blood. This isn’t their first, and it won’t be their last.

Fights Unilever has no appetite for.

As it stands, Unilever wants out of ice cream. It will spin off Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s, and the rest of the freezer cabinet for whatever they can get. Then what? Ben & Jerry’s becomes The Body Shop, passed around from buyer to buyer, before sliding into administration.

So no, Jerry leaving isn’t delusional. It’s coordinated. Ben on the inside. Jerry on the outside. They’re manoeuvring to ensure their survival as a values-led company.

So what’s the path out from here?

Back in 2000, Ben & Jerry’s attempted to go private with Meadowbrook, a socially responsible consortium, including Anita Roddick. But Unilever outbid them. A fantastic deal for shareholders at the time, making Ben and Jerry millionaires.

“This is the worst day of my life… we failed because we succeeded,” Ben Cohen said then.

This time, they plan to win.

And to remind us that a values-led business isn’t absolute. It’s not political (Ben & Jerry’s is staunchly non-partisan). It’s not a good or a bad thing. It’s not right or wrong.

It’s more like...a dance.

One step towards the beautiful idea, the next towards staying in business.

Cherry Garcia, a fan’s love letter...best seller...a lawyer’s letter back...deal struck. Pay cap: 7x between lowest and highest paid...executives needed...make it 17x. “Yo! I Want To Be CEO”, lifetime ice cream for runners up...a rare Black CEO in the chair...split two years later, too free-spirited for a pro CEO. Vermont-only stock offering...we need more money...ok, a Nasdaq listing.

Final steps: A dream of going private becomes a sale to Unilever with a dare in the paperwork: “Sue us if we get it wrong.”

Again and again, intention met reality and negotiated a truce.

Keep dancing, and maybe an unfashionable idea still holds: You sell ice cream, make people happy, stand up for justice, and earn a little money.

Ben & Jerry’s did north of $200+ million in 2000; it’s over a billion now. In recent taste tests against the nouveau indie pints, their flavours still come out top. It’s hard to make ice cream at scale. There’s plenty to play for.

As for brand activism, we’ve got no shortage of leaders angling for a White House dinner. We could use one or two who’ll sue a conglomerate and get cuffed in a Senate hearing. And hey, if it’s not to my personal political taste, I’ll grab a pint of classic vanilla Häagan-Daz instead and call it a night.

Step to the beautiful idea. Then step to staying in business.

Stay light on your feet and keep the tempo.

Call it naive if you want, but brands who can look their audience in the eye and say: we see you, you’re not just a consumer, or turn to their workers and say: we see you, you’re more than just a paycheck, turn to the planet and say: hey we’ve taken from everyone, we should probably put a little back - well maybe, just maybe, we make room for the better angels to show up.

Jerry once closed a talk at the Grinnell Prize Symposium with this:

“There is a spiritual aspect to business. As you give, you receive. As you help others, you are helped in return. And just because the idea that the good that you do comes back to you is written in the Bible and not in some business textbook, doesn’t mean that it’s any less valid. We’re all interconnected. For business and people, it’s all the same.”

Let’s rise together with every issue. ♡

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Market Moves

What happens if the US government shuts down? | Financial Times

UK economy stalls in second quarter | CityAM

US economic growth revised: Consumer spending up | BBC

Brand Beat

If Ben & Jerry’s can’t speak out, corporate responsibility is over | The Guardian

OpenAI launches first brand campaign to win hearts and minds | Fast Company

AI shifts focus to emotional branding | Adweek

Palantir’s bid to become a lifestyle brand | Wired

Lewis Capaldi surprises Aldi shoppers with rooftop performance | Daily Mail

Maxwell House rebrands as Maxwell Apartment amid economic squeeze | Marketing Dive

CMO of eos, Soyoung Kang, on marketing strategy | Brand Innovators

Creator conglomerates are reshaping media | Digiday

Single-use coffee cup could be on the way out | The Wall Street Journal

TikTok deal smacks of crony capitalism | The New Yorker

YouTube to help fund Trump’s White House ballroom in settlement | Mashable

Dyson’s profits tumble nearly 50% in tough year | Business of Fashion

Pandora shares fall after CEO announces retirement | CNBC

JD Sports profits and sales tumble as consumers tighten budgets | The Guardian

Doritos revives 80s-style telethon for Stranger Things final season | Marketing Dive

Key takeaways from Vogue Business Fashion Futures 2025 | Vogue Business

The 5120 x 1080 thinnest post format goes viral | Marketing Mind

The Amazon Fresh model never checked out. I was wrong. | Mark Ritson

How CPG brands connect with shoppers during life’s big moments | Marketing Brew

System1’s ad of the week is for Zespri | System1

Diageo, Unilever and Tinder form think tank | MarketingWeek

Starting Up

How two leaders can outperform one in driving success | Harvard Business Review

What sets startup founders apart from other entrepreneurs? | The Economist

Co-founder of Gigi, Clara Gold, on her entrepreneurial journey | Sifted

Vibe-coding startup anything hits $2m ARR in two weeks | TechCrunch

Slate Milk secures $23 million Series B to fuel protein drink growth | Forbes

Tech Tidbits

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Checkout: impact on fashion shopping | Vogue Business

Create viral ultrawide Instagram reels at 5120×1080 resolution | Digit

Tim Berners-Lee seeks to save the World Wide Web | The New Yorker

China’s DeepSeek launches next-gen model | CNBC

OpenAI takes aim at LinkedIn | Fast Company

Venture Vibes

Coty mulls sale or spinoff of CoverGirl brand | The Wall Street Journal

Ex-Sequoia partner Matt Miller launches $400m fund | Sifted

Notion Capital raises $130 to tackle Europe’s follow-on gap | TechCrunch

I thought I knew Silicon Valley. I was wrong. | Wired

Design Driven

Jony Ive’s exquisite $4,800 sailing lantern | Wallpaper

The Yellow Pages for the internet | It’s Nice That

Google’s “G” gets a brighter look | Google

Happiness

Can a chatbot become your new best friend at work? | Fast Company

The moon’s current phase signals groundedness | Vice

Climbing cringe mountain with Gen Z | The New York Times

Why liminal spaces are your brain’s secret lab | Big Think

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