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Lesson #3: Creative Marketing Will Generate Sales Success
Article Overview: Ben & Jerry’s is not your typical company. From its bright and multi-colour painted stores to its interactive animated website, Ben & Jerry’s has consistently shown creativity and imagination in its marketing strategies. Owners Greenfield and Cohen decided early on that ice cream was a fun product, and thus so too should be their means of promotion.
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Free Download - Ben & Jerry Quotes By Ben Cohen Jerry Greenfield |
Lesson #3: Creative Marketing Will Generate Sales Success
Ben & Jerry’s is not your typical company. From its bright and multi-colour painted stores to its interactive animated website, Ben & Jerry’s has consistently shown creativity and imagination in its marketing strategies. Owners Greenfield and Cohen decided early on that ice cream was a fun product, and thus so too should be their means of promotion.
In 1986, Ben & Jerry’s launched its famous “Cowmobile” in what was their attempt to bring their product to a nationwide audience. A modified mobile home, Greenfield and Cohen wanted to take the Cowmobile on a national tour to distribute free scoops of their ice cream. This was the one of the first cross-country marketing drives of its kind. Unfortunately, the Cowmobile burned to the ground when the pair reached Cleveland, four months into their trip. With neither Cohen nor Greenfield injured, Cohen remarked that it looked like “the world’s largest baked Alaska.”
In the short time that the Cowmobile was in operation, it generated much curiosity and publicity and resulted in increased sales for Ben & Jerry’s products. As a result, the next year Cohen and Greenfield launched Cow II, their second Cowmobile, and successfully traveled across the U.S. serving free scoops of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Again, the brand continued to rise in popularity.
Wherever they could, Cohen and Greenfield tried to take creative advantage of situations to push their product. In 1986, New York City was suffering the effects of the October 19 stock market crash. What did this have to do with Ben & Jerry’s? Little, until Cohen and Greenfield decided to send its scoop truck to Wall Street to serve free cones of their “That’s Life and Economic Crunch” ice cream. It proved to be a huge morale booster and helped drive the company’s sales.
The creative names of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavours also go a long way in explaining their popularity. In 1987, the company introduced what would quickly become one of its best-selling flavours – Cherry Garcia. Named after Jerry Garcia, lead singer of the Grateful Dead, Cohen and Greenfield listened to the suggestions of two “DeadHeads” from Maine in creating the first ever ice cream named for a rock legend. The suggestion for their “Chunky Monkey” flavour – banana ice cream with walnuts and chocolate chunks – also came from a customer from New Hampshire. When it came to coming up with creative ideas for marketing and promotion, Cohen and Greenfield were not above taking them from wherever and whoever they could.
Today, the public has come to expect the unexpected from Ben & Jerry’s. From offering public tours of its ice cream-making operations, to implementing a nationwide Free Cone Day, serving more than one million servings of ice cream to its customers at no cost as a ‘thank you’, to sponsoring worldwide toe-wrestling championships, Ben & Jerry’s is not afraid of trying new and innovative techniques to get its message and its product across to larger markets.
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Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional
- Hi Evan,
I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional
- [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan,
I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz]
I second the request...
Happy Worker as of Dec 31 2007
- Here's mine... I'm now off to make an offering to the business planning gods for their help in getting to these goals & beyond.
To the combined success of Prophets 2 Profits!
-----------------------------------------
1) Corporate
a) Retail
- Sales reps covering all major markets (1M or more)
- Retail product launch plan
- 1 more retail release (TBD)
b) The Toy Agency
- Systems for:
o Creative process
o Pricing
o Manufacturing
o Logistics
- Marketing agency strategy in place
- 1 new customer every 2nd month (5 new customers); 1 of which will be rev of >= 500K/year
c) Business
- Creative talent pool management strategy & process
- Outsourced and/or weekly bookkeeping
- Monthly budgeting & forecasting
- Better banking organization (Line of Credit, CCs, automate billing for appropriate vendors)
- Team total of 5
- Larger office
d) Web site
- Daily updates
- Start of separation of Blog/TTA/Retail
2) Personal
- Most weekends “off”!
- Entirely separate personal finances; basic personal financing plan
- Family….?
niche forum categories
- I think Kevin just touched on the point that I was going make... and that is developing 'categories' that stick. Sales and Marketing may be too broad for example. However I can almost guarantee you that you would see many more sign-ups if you tailored a category to 'internet marketing' for newbies. I've seen this work on other forums, however, [i:1i903wkn]it can get a little frantic[/i:1i903wkn]...
Fine tuning the categories, or expanding the scope should be effective. I think a lot of IM folks are surfing right on by because they're not finding what they're looking for here...
Just a few thoughts:
Better Blogging
Developing Info Products
Internet Marketing
Presentation Skills
More How to's
Another point is... a lot of people don't know that they can benefit from participating in forums. The signature links to their site - if they have one - can / should be motivation enough to get more involved. The more internet savvy members that have signatures seem to stick around more... Don't you think?
Different Hats
- CEO Sales & Marketing & Leadership Development Company
Strategic Vision 10
Alliances & Growth Strategies 10
Hiring & Managing People 8
Mentoring 8-9
Strategic Planning for Clients 10
Execution of Marketing Campaigns 9-10 (i have great people who do the nitty gritty)
Financial Management 9
Bookkeeping 3 (outsourced as I really hate the fine details like GST0
Administrative Follow Up 6-7 (again have great staff)
Writing & Publishing 9 (getting better all the time!)
Speaking 10 (so I have been told)
Self Promotion 9-10
Web development & Promotion 6-7 (learning more and have brought on players who are 10+)
Babysitting Employees (1 - wont do it, that's why I work so hard to hire and motivate the people I have)
Great topic Kevin!!
Jude
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