![]() At that time, Justin could no longer stand either, all the sugar in ice creams – one of his favorite foods – which was giving him hypoglycemic episodes, as well as his job as a corporate lawyer job at a prestigious Los Angeles firm. Most other CPG groups, would have experienced such an ‘incident’ as a potential political and PR issue to be kept hush, at best, if not distanced themselves from the former owners.Ĭompare this brand background with that of Halo Top, founded by Justin Woolverton in ca. The fact that the brand continues to report – front page of their website – about its founders being arrested on Capitol Hill for protesting against money in politics (in 2016, Ben did it again in 2018) shows, however, that the consumer goods giant has learned how critical living the purpose and maintaining the myth is to the continued success of the brand. And that meant significant ‘teething problems’ once Unilever took over as we will see below. This had progressively and expressly become the core to the brand’s existence after Cohen realized that theirs was “just a business, like all others, exploits its workers and the community” as Page and Katz recount in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Being reminded that they hold their own strings, he agreed with his partner and associates to put the usual business and organizational priorities on their head, which meant that commercial activities and financial results were seemingly relegated to a mere purpose-funding role. Rather, the reason for being of the brand was “to see if it was possible to use the tools of business to repair society”. Of note is that Ben & Jerry’s value was not really meant to be measured in monetary terms by that time. Today the brand has sales of about $800 million (Euromonitor, 2017). Within 20 years they had made it into a multi-million-dollar publicly traded company that became the subject of a bidding war between food conglomerates, with Unilever taking away the grand prize in 2001 for US $326 million. Driven by a love of food, the two hippie friends took correspondence courses on making ice cream. Let us illustrate below how we come to this conclusion by comparing the ‘full pint’ Halo Top versus ‘double dip’ Ben & Jerry’s stories through the lens of what drives the success of ‘Ueber-Brands’: Having a Mission and Myth that matters to enough people (call it ‘having Soul‘), recognizing who your most fervent disciples are and keeping them engaged (the Ueber-Target) while making many more long to be like them (balancing Longing and Belonging) and doing all this with products and in ways that seductively authentic versus hard selling marketing (‘having a compelling Truth‘).ĭouble Dip Mission and Myth faces Full Pint Fillīen Cohen & Jerry Greenfield, two “under-achievers with counter-culture values” as Professors Page and Katz describe them (link below) started their eponymous ice cream brand and business in 1978 in an old Vermont gas station, after first trying their luck at finishing their studies, driving cabs and starting a bagels and newspaper business. And we think that, if the brand wants to hold on to that love, premium price and business growth in the long-term, it needs to create the kind of deeper-seated relevance and meaning that Ben & Jerry’s has learned to keep, and refresh over the years – through ownership changes and external challenges like the current one from low-calorie offerings. Several of the principles that drive Ueber-Brand success are reflected in the Halo Top story, to date. In fact, Halo Top was founded by two lawyers – and not the civil-rights kind.īut no, Halo Top does not dis-prove the power of Ueber-Branding. No ‘free cones for the 99%’ or the founders getting arrested for civil disobedience (again, in 2017!), either. No ‘Imagine Whirled Peace’, ‘Hubby Hubby’, ‘Yes Pecan!’ or other ‘double dip’ messaging (taste-good, do-good) à la Ben & Jerry’s, here. Is this a case of product-benefit focus winning over the kind of purpose-led, myth-making and mission manifesting brand building we call ‘Ueber-Branding?’ After all, Halo Top puts the calorie count large and smack in the middle of their label and does not ‘clutter’ its packaging or posts with statements of any deeper meaning. The premium ice cream’s low-calorie, ‘you can eat a pint’ goodness is all the rage and seems to make Ben & Jerry’s with its ‘Peace, Love & Ice Cream’ message look lame – and loose share. If you live in the US and have any interest in ice cream – or consume social media with any regularity (and the two seem to correlate) – then you will have heard about ‘Halo Top’.
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