Heat Wave: My Ice-Cream Eating Marathon with Ben & Jerry

I Scream, You Scream - We ALL Scream for Ice Cream!

I got to crash a weekend-long confab of Ben & Jerry's "Scoop Shop" Operators, with ice cream for breakfast, lunch, dinner and every possible between-meal snack.

Irresistible Delight, served up by Dynamic Duo

Ben & Jerry were rewarding the operators for their hard work by taking over a conference facility near Phoenix, gathering the scoopers to celebrate their success, preview the coming new flavors and "novelties," exchange tips, and discuss all things ice cream.

The ticket? My piece of the multi-front effort to launch Animal Planet cable network was the development and publishing of Animal Planet CD-ROM, an animal encyclopedia and one of the first ever "internet-linked!" titles (animal video profiles on the disc connected to MS Encarta entries).  We'd cut a fun cross promotion deal with Ben & Jerry - they'd promote Animal Planet and give a $5-off coupon for the CD-ROM on the lid of every carton of Rain Forest Crunch (2 million units) and we'd promote Ben & Jery's by advertising a "free pint" coupon inside every CD-ROM package.

Save Rainforest by Eating

Usually I'd send the project manager on the road to do these previews.  In this special case, I pulled rank and went west to do the demo myself.

Those days and nights in Phoenix were long, and filled with ice cream.  The guys by then were fairly rotund (occupational hazard) and jolly (I'd be too), and Jerry in particular was genuinely interested in where we planned to go with the television network.  We discussed at length over Peace Pops - at the time, Animal Planet was envisioned to be a nature documentary and human/animal interest channel, and a strong advertising play.  Of course now it has become nothing but exploitative "reality"....  A violation?  Perhaps we were meant for each other (read on).

My afternoon demo followed the Marketing presentation:

Remember, Ben and Jerry's' well-earned brand promise is rich-tasting deliciousness based on innovative flavor combinations and mix-in's.  No one was ever going to look to B&J for vanilla (though their vanilla is unquestionably delicious).  But in spring 1996, the Marketing department had the idea that vanilla was the future for B&J.  Marketing Girl's logic? "People buy our pints, but we need market share of Ice Cream 'Occasions' - nobody's going to buy pints of NY Super Fudge Chunk to serve with the Thanksgiving pie, or at junior's 10th birthday party."

Ben & Jerry - Young Idealists

Well, that idea never panned out.  People don't look to Ben & Jerry's for vanilla (and if they do want a gallon of vanilla, they won't visit the scoop shop and stand in line to see it hand-packed).

Talk about following your bliss: here are a couple of ice-cream loving best friends from Merrick, NY who conquered the world of ice cream.

Cool Like a Brain-Freeze:
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were so "cool" they could, in corporate life, violate their socially-minded/counterculture identification with moves like the hiring of expert CEO Perry Odak from U.S. Repeating Arms Corporation (manufacturer of Winchester rifles), and ultimately the $326M exit sale to corporate megalith  Unilever.  Both were the right move, btw.

But now the duo are "Occupy Wall-Streeters" ...

Credit Where Due:

Come to Northampton MA, visit Herrell's, and meet Steve - the Albert Einstein behind the mix-in.  He selflessly schooled Ben and Jerry and they took the concept all the way to the bank.  But only Steve has the Hostess Cupcake Ice Cream Sundae...!