I was at an event once and been, I think it was Ben Ben from Ben & Jerry's, was there. And he was talking about the story of Ben and Jerry's, you know, the ice cream brand and you're talking about the beginning. All right? So I have a bunch of notes from
it because I had never heard this anywhere. So let's
rewind the clock 1978.
You know, gallon of gasoline is like 79 cents a pound of bacon as a dollar twenty,
Kobe Bryant is born, it's
Eight you know,
ultrasounds are used for the first time you know tweets were just a sound that birds
used and this is when
an ice-cream Revolution was born. Alright so here's the story of Ben and Jerry's As Told to me by by been himself
and okay, so these two guys became friends back in school. He told the stories
like it was PE class and everybody had to like, you know, run the mile and he's like I was a terrible Runner and so, you know, this was sort of like a
Lee
ritual of humiliation for me. I'll
just be at the very back while everybody else ran way. Further ahead but so was Jerry, Jerry was there too and that was like where they performed their bond was just walking behind a whole bunch of other people running
and as I became friends kind of like in their teens or
whatever and and they got reunited
because Jerry was trying to apply for medical school
and I think it was rejected like 20 times from eight applying to medical school.
And every time you apply, you have to wait like another cycle to reapply and so in between Cycles,
he reconnects with been in these two guys basically said, they
have nothing in common except for
they, both
worked as ice cream scoopers while in school to earn a little bit of money and and so even though their ice cream scoopers, they knew nothing about ice cream.
But they decided like, you know what? If we opened up an ice
cream shop? Our own ice cream shop instead of med school
and so they enrolled in a class called ice
cream making. It was a
Respondents course at Penn State has five dollars to attend the course and and by the way, they didn't even order to seats. They bought one, they split the bill, 250 each. And that was the only formal training that these guys ever had before building, you know like a multi billion dollar brand of ice cream. So
like any entrepreneurs, they get started, they make their fair share of mistakes so they get
12 Grand from kind of friends and family ish
and they buy an ice cream shop in Vermont. But it's the middle of winter and it's Vermont.
It's freezing cold. So nobody wants ice cream, so they open up and nobody's coming in. And so they, you know, they start brainstorming. And this is where their real
geniuses in the marketing.
And so, they create this campaign called a popc DB Z. Ew, e. This is long acronym, what are the stand for it? Stood, for a penny off / Celsius degree below, zero, winter Extravaganza. All right, so for every every degree below zero, you would get a penny off.
Your ice cream and it was just sort of this
goofy marketing campaign that kind of spread a little word
of mouth and it just got it was just enough to get them through the winter season but, you know, that's still didn't they didn't make it, of course, you know it got a little bit warmer, but their equipment was shitty. It was, you know, sales were slow. And most of the ice cream is
just melting in the shop, basically every day,
and so they needed to come up with a plan. And so been said, you know what been love to
drive
Like his favorite thing, get in the car drive pop the cassette player in a listen to music and
drive and so he said look, give me some of the ice cream. I'll go sell are melting ice cream
to restaurants and convenience stores nearby. I'll just put them in a little pint pint jars, or whatever and I'll sell the ice cream by the pint
if you can see where this is going. And so, and that demand was actually pretty high, so nobody wanted to come to their shop, but
restaurants wanted their ice cream. They liked it. And
so two convenience stores and so they got Distributors all
Government and this kept growing one day, they got a store in Boston who had had heard about it. And in Boston, they, they started picking up Ben and Jerry's, and
it became the most popular brand of ice
cream in the store. And so, Ben and Jerry's. The Pines are, you
know, flying off the shelves
and you know, but there's little bit of a problem, there's a company called Pillsbury, right Pillsbury. You've heard of the Pillsbury, Doughboy
Pillsbury, owns Haagen-Dazs, which
Premier brand, they had just bought it for 70 million dollars and they're trying to increase sales
and the executives at Pillsbury noticed. Oh, in Boston.
There's a shop where we're not moving as much Haagen-Dazs as we
used to and they found out it's because Ben and Jerry's was getting sort of Premier placement in the
store and so they go to the owner and they say hey you need to sign an exclusive agreement with Pillsbury. If you want any Pillsbury products, you need to promote Haagen-Dazs and you need to stop
selling Ben and Jerry's. And so the owner you know they're like well shit I can't afford to lose Pillsbury products
so he's like sorry guys.
Pillsbury came to me, I level with you. I have to go with them. I love your ice cream, but I just can't do it.
He had met the founders before he'd met Ben and Jerry. So he felt obligated to like kind of tell them what this big corporate giant had done
and they started doing this in other stores and some yeah Ben and Jerry they were like shit. This is a problem but they did they did the right move here and this is the move you want to learn. They turned their Misfortune into Fortune. So what most people do is
some adversity or Misfortune strikes and they just try to
like limit the believing right? Okay.
It's bad. Let's just make it not
so bad.
But when you say, if you ask a different question, how can we turn this Misfortune into Fortune? You say, I don't want to just stop the bleeding. I want to actually turn
this into a benefit.
And so they came out with this campaign and you can look this up on Google, it's called the, they lost his campaign called, what's the Doughboy afraid of. And then this, they had all these images of the Pillsbury Doughboy, or even just like his hands. And they had a image of the Pillsbury, Doughboys kind of he's at that like cattle
that fluffy.
Light body or whatever,
just the hands of the Doughboy
strangling, a pint of Ben and Jerry's with the text saying, what's the Doughboy afraid of
brilliant marketing campaign? They didn't, they didn't say, oh, we got, you know, where the victim, right? Right away. They said, what's a doughboy afraid of? And so you kind of it's
attacking Pillsbury. It gets curiosity, what, what are they talking about? What's going on here? This turned into the rally cry. So
they they start buying Billboards and Banners and bus ads,
And they're just always showing,
what's the built, what's the Doughboy afraid of? And they took out an ad in the Rolling Stone and it said,
help to Vermont hippies fight the corporate Giants,
right? You love that positioning their David versus Goliath.
And so they and they put a number like I want 800 call in number and they said look
if you want to find out how to Vermont hippies are fighting corporate Giants call this number,
and you would call in, and they would tell the whole story about, you
know, how?
growing and they're just small little brand and then Pillsbury is strong-arming their distributors
and they take that story and then they say, hey, give us your name if you want to at the end of the voicemail would say, leave your leave your name and address. I will send you a mailing kit. That was paraphernalia, that basically tells
Pillsbury tell, you know, pick on someone your own size and
then Jerry himself would go. And he would protest in front of the Pillsbury, Doughboy Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis. He
had a sign that said, what's the Doughboy afraid of? It was just him standing there. And and that got picked up by the news, because he called the new
And said, hey, look, this is what's happening.
And so they shifted the, you know, the the
battle here, right? So Pillsbury had all the leverage but they also had everything to lose in public perception and PR and they created a PR Firestorm for
them. And if they had just said,
I'll Ben and Jerry's words, Haagen-Dazs, that's an ice cream war.
But instead they said the little guy, the the to Vermont hippies against the big
corporate giant that
creeley that created like a relatable. And so remarkable. They're worth
talking about.
Marketing campaign.
And so, and then they would, they would literally put fliers out that said, do you think the dough boy is afraid of two guys and
23 people working in 4,000 square feet of rented.
Space is the Dolby of Doughboy afraid that his hundred 85 million in profit, and a hundred eighty five million point. Hundred eighty five point three million in profits is not going to be a hundred. Eighty five point four million this year is the Doughboy
afraid of the American
dream and so this story catches on and it
starts
Run in the New Yorker, Wall, Street, Journal and
consumers, just sort of start to
find out about Ben and Jerry's is became the number one growth driver of awareness about Ben and Jerry's all the other Distributors wanted to check it out. What is this ice cream brand? That that is that much better than Haagen-Dazs that they had to do this. And
so Ben and Jerry's goes on ends up getting bought
for 326 Million by Unilever. Sort of joins the big guys joins the corporate corporate side.
But I thought this is an amazing
story, right?
From PE
class, you know, from the chubby kids and PE, they
can't run the mile to rejection from med school, starting an ice cream brand and the in the freezing cold and winter of Vermont to, to ultimately turning pillsbury's, you know, mistake on their hair on its head and using that as a number one, growth driver and pivoting into the pints business. This is the Ben & Jerry story. It's a story I love and it's a story about turning your Misfortune into Fortune.
So, the next time that
Bad news hits your
company or your brand. Don't just try to limit
the damage. Don't just do damage
control. Ask yourself how do we use this? How do we turn this disadvantage into an advantage? Alright, that's all for me. I hope you enjoyed this mini.
If you like these types of stories and business case studies,
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