Ben & Jerry\’s has a powerful Get/Keep/Grow model. A Get/Keep/Grow model is a company\’s strategy to get customers, keep them, and then grow their business from those customers. Ben & Jerry\’s is exemplary at this due to their mission and wacky flavors.
Ben & Jerry\’s has multiple strategies for acquiring new customers. One approach is by naming their ice cream wacky names. These names are more likely to catch people\’s eyes at stores. In addition, they also market extensively on social media platforms. In these ads, they use bright colors to grab your attention, and they make the videos very politically targeted. The videos, in turn, associate their brand with liberal opinions and makes democrats feel like their money is going to a good cause if they purchase Ben & Jerry\’s versus a different ice cream brand.
Ben & Jerry\’s customers a some of the most loyal customers that you can find out there. This is due to Ben & Jerry\’s stance always to do good. In other words, Ben & Jerry\’s believes that everything the company touches should benefit from its profits. They have demonstrated this multiple times by partnering with organizations such as the Children\’s Defense Fund and the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger. Their strong liberal political stance also makes customers more loyal to them. All of these factors have created one of the most loyal customer bases that exist today.
Ben & Jerry\’s strategy for growth is directly correlated to its strategy to keep customers. By creating such a loyal fanbase, these customers are more likely to spread Ben & Jerry\’s mission through word of mouth and over social media. As a result, people with similar mindsets are more likely to buy Ben & Jerry\’s.
Even though Unilever owns Ben & Jerry\’s, Ben & Jerry\’s can stick to its principles due to part of their contract. Before being purchased by Unilever, Ben and Jerry forced Unilever to create an independent board (of which Ben & Jerry are a part of) that has control over all of Ben & Jerry\’s most important principles. All in all, Ben & Jerry\’s is a marketing genius.