{"id":119373,"date":"2026-03-21T01:29:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/03\/21\/ben-jerrys-co-founder-ben-cohen-on-his-campaign-to-free-the-brand-from-unilever\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:30:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:30:42","slug":"ben-jerrys-co-founder-ben-cohen-on-his-campaign-to-free-the-brand-from-unilever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/03\/21\/ben-jerrys-co-founder-ben-cohen-on-his-campaign-to-free-the-brand-from-unilever\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben & Jerry\u2019s co-founder Ben Cohen on his campaign to \u2018free\u2019 the brand from Unilever"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At SXSW, The Drum spends a morning with one of many planet\u2019s most really maverick model minds as he escalates the battle for the corporate he constructed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Ben Cohen fights for the way forward for Ben & Jerry’s, he is unleashing an entire new stage of stunts (Credit score: DCX)<\/p>\n

Sure, you’re seeing that picture accurately.<\/p>\n

What you\u2019re is Ben Cohen, the 74-year-old co-founder of Ben & Jerry\u2019s, taking a chainsaw to a scale mannequin of the Pentagon, whereas faux cash rains down on a convention room in Austin, Texas. He\u2019s dressed up as Elon Musk \u2013 besides his baseball cap reads \u201cDOPE\u201d as an alternative of \u201cDOGE\u201d. The whiteboard behind him bears the coinage \u201cThe Army Algorithm Complicated\u201d. The look on Cohen\u2019s face is impish, with a contact of maniacal.<\/p>\n

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If the \u2018Improvements\u2019 convention on the SXSW competition tends to be rather less attractive, rather less star-studded than its sibling festivals for Movie & TV and Music, it\u2019s solely as a result of there aren\u2019t many Ben Cohens \u2013 individuals from the worlds of manufacturers and commerce keen (delighted, in reality) to fairly so comprehensively piss off each the richest man on this planet and the US Division of Protection in a single fell swoop.<\/p>\n

However what to the untrained eye may seem like a pure publicity stunt is actually the newest step in a profession that mixes mischief-making with focused model technique.<\/p>\n

That \u201cDOPE\u201d on Cohen\u2019s hat stands for \u201cDivision of Pentagon Extra\u201d, a parody of the US authorities division DOGE, the Division of Authorities Effectivity, carefully related to Musk (its governmental standing remains unclear<\/a>). The marketing campaign\u2019s mission: cut back US authorities expenditure on arms and struggle by chopping the protection price range by 30%, which it says quantities to $300bn a yr, or $1,882 per yr per taxpayer.<\/p>\n

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DOPE is only one of Cohen\u2019s present issues. One other is Up in Arms, a campaigning group to scale back the quantity that the US spends on protection. A 3rd is the Free Ben & Jerry\u2019s marketing campaign, which redoubles Cohen\u2019s efforts to persuade Unilever, the dad or mum firm behind Magnum, the house owners of Ben & Jerry\u2019s since 2000, to \u201claunch\u201d the model into impartial possession.<\/p>\n

Cohen is, maybe improbably, nonetheless an worker of the corporate he based with pal Jerry Greenfield again in 1978. Nevertheless, Greenfield left last year<\/a> after claiming that Unilever was \u201csilencing\u201d the model\u2019s progressive politics, breaching the phrases of the sale settlement.<\/p>\n

When The Drum meets Cohen within the foyer of his Austin lodge, the day after the SXSW stunt, there\u2019s no chainsaw in sight – solely a Hawaiian shirt, a Free Ben & Jerry\u2019s baseball cap and (a uncommon prevalence for a journalist assembly the founding father of a model that turns over a billion {dollars}) a giant, both-arms hug.<\/p>\n

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Need to go deeper? Ask The Drum<\/h4>\n


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Cohen has maybe essentially the most well-established progressive bona fides on this planet of manufacturers, so one expects, when assembly him, to speak about protection budgets and the present campaigns. However what\u2019s placing is how eager he nonetheless is to speak about Ben & Jerry\u2019s, and the way a lot affection he retains for the corporate he\u2019s publicly lobbying in opposition to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBen and Jerry\u2019s, amazingly sufficient, has grown into a robust drive for progressive social change. The corporate has a voice, it has a profile, it has a platform. It\u2019s capable of take part as a considerably important participant within the nationwide dialogue on varied points,” he says. \u201cProper now, I\u2019d say it\u2019s wanted greater than ever when the progressive social justice politics of Ben & Jerry\u2019s are underneath assault. And it\u2019s not simply the \u2018progressive social justice politics of Ben & Jerry\u2019s\u2019. I consider it\u2019s the progressive social justice politics of a lot of the nation, and a lot of the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simply then, two individuals – one dressed as a Magnum ice-cream and one as a bath of Ben & Jerry\u2019s – seem for a hotel-lobby boxing bout: \u201cOh look, the Magnum bar\u2019s bashing the pint of Ben and Jerry\u2019s. Let\u2019s see an excellent physique slam.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For Cohen, advocating for the corporate and advocating for progressive politics are inseparable; he\u2019s conscious, he says, that such public shows of discord may put his standing as an worker in danger. \u201cI don\u2019t know the way they give it some thought, however both I\u2019m doing the identical factor and I\u2019m not fired, or I\u2019m fired and I\u2019m doing the identical factor. I assume, from their standpoint, if he\u2019s going to be doing these things, we shouldn\u2019t make it worse for ourselves by firing him.\u201d The latter comes not glibly however with actual warning. Clearly, regardless of the whole lot, Cohen needs to stick with Ben & Jerry\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The dynamic enjoying out right this moment is many many years within the making, predating even that sale to Unilever in 2000. Cohen remembers the second he and Greenfield realized that the world of enterprise wasn\u2019t all the time welcoming to progressive causes.<\/p>\n

He says: \u201cWe had been the individuals making the ice-cream. We had been scooping the ice-cream. After which because the enterprise grew and we realized that, \u2018oh geez, we\u2019re not ice-cream any extra, we\u2019re businessmen\u2019. And, basically, businessmen are destroying society within the single-minded headlong rush to extend profitability. They destroy the atmosphere. They exploit their workers. They exploit the neighborhood. They externalize their prices. Our rapid response once we realized that was to promote the enterprise. We didn\u2019t wish to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Satisfied to not promote the corporate at that early stage, Cohen says that what adopted was a type of experiment. \u201cIs it potential that enterprise is actually only a impartial instrument, like a hammer, and it may be used to destroy issues, or it may be used to construct issues up? That it may very well be, as an alternative of being damaging, reparative? It was a protracted shot. The percentages had been we wouldn\u2019t be capable of do it. However we had been.\u201d<\/p>\n

The truth that they had been, for Cohen, was proof of idea that an organization may very well be run for neighborhood and revenue in tandem – proof since borne out by a rising motion of firms (he mentions Patagonia, Dr Bronner\u2019s, Nova Nordisk and people of the B Corp motion as friends) subscribing to the \u201ctriple backside line\u201d of individuals, revenue and planet.<\/p>\n

\u201c, there was this battle within the firm: for those who spend firm money and time and sources to enhance the standard of life locally, that takes away from sources you could put into bettering profitability. We found that that\u2019s not true. We found you could select programs of motion as a enterprise which have a optimistic impact on each backside traces,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the extra effort we put into bettering the standard of lifetime of the neighborhood, and the extra social political stands that we took to do this, the extra ice-cream we bought. As you give, you obtain. As you assist others, you\u2019re helped in return. As your small business helps the neighborhood, the neighborhood helps your small business. It\u2019s type of a non secular factor. You possibly can\u2019t actually show it, however I feel Ben & Jerry\u2019s is proof.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking of faith, is Cohen himself non secular? \u201cI\u2019m not\u2026 I\u2019m only a first rate individual. But when I had been a spiritual individual, I\u2019d say I used to be referred to as to do that work\u201d. Nonetheless, this pondering can be the sensible foundation of Cohen\u2019s grievance in opposition to Unilever: that the material of the corporate, combined, metaphorically talking, proper into the ice-cream, is that function, and eroding it’s \u201ca silly enterprise transfer\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s unhealthy for the model from a monetary standpoint,\u201d Cohen says. \u201cThe model goes to proceed to degrade, and all these individuals which can be followers of the ice-cream as a result of they\u2019re so purchased into the social mission and the shared values – the deepest connection you can also make with a shopper is predicated on shared values – they’re gonna not be into it. They\u2019re gonna go elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Cohen, the model\u2019s success is proof that what he\u2019s describing isn\u2019t fringe or radical, however completely achievable and broadly supported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe values of Ben and Jerry\u2019s,\u201d he says, \u201cAre the values of the common outdated individuals strolling down the road. Let\u2019s not kill individuals. Let\u2019s present meals for individuals. Let\u2019s not discriminate in opposition to individuals. Let\u2019s attempt to create a extra equal society by way of revenue ranges. There\u2019s an incredible quantity of help for that kind of factor. What there’s a lack of is companies talking out for that. And enterprise has now turn out to be essentially the most highly effective drive in society. It was faith, after which it was nation-states, and now it\u2019s enterprise. At the very least faith and nation states had as their function to enhance the standard of life for individuals. Most companies have by no means had that as a part of their agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Free Ben & Jerry\u2019s marketing campaign nonetheless has loads of observe to run: petitions to signal; social media motion campaigns; an effort to show the annual Ben & Jerry\u2019s \u2018Free Cone Day\u2019 into \u2018Free the Cone Day\u2019. However does Cohen assume the marketing campaign can actually persuade the titanic Magnum Ice Cream Firm, or the yet-more titanic Unilever, to half methods with – or at the very least loosen its grip on – considered one of what Cohen himself calls \u201cconsidered one of their crown-jewel manufacturers\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u201cI do. [We\u2019re] demonstrating to the monetary neighborhood, which is actually the one neighborhood that the Magnum company cares about, that the model is being degraded, that the worth of their asset goes down, that, basically, they\u2019ve charged traders some huge cash for a model that they’re now within the means of destroying, and that\u2019s a shitty funding. After which there\u2019s additionally the administration distraction of attempting to cope with this Ben & Jerry\u2019s crap that\u2019s taking their minds – or, I don\u2019t know, their government consideration – away from their different 100 manufacturers. They\u2019ve obtained numerous manufacturers that they know the best way to run, manufacturers that don\u2019t create issues for them. Allow them to run them. Let Magnum be Magnum. Let Ben & Jerry\u2019s be Ben &Jerry\u2019s. However attempting to destroy Ben and Jerry\u2019s in order that it\u2019s extra manageable for them is a dropping proposition financially.\u201d<\/p>\n

You could be questioning, by the best way, who received the staged battle between the human Magnum and pint of Ben & Jerry\u2019s. Sadly, there was no nice symbolic conclusion; it petered out and so they returned to the road for extra punching.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n