Why Ben & Jerry Have No Friends
12 Jan 2008 | Filed Under: Boot Camp + Marketing + Social Networks
I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds last night where there was a montage about a physicist who was a brilliant theorist because he could see string theory in action, literally visualise it in action in front of him. It reminded me of (and was clearly lifted from) A Beautiful Mind, in which John Nash has a similar visual relationship with Group Theory. It is possibly worth noting that both of these guys, whilst brilliant, were also schizophrenic.
I am neither particularly brilliant nor particularly schizophrenic, but I can relate to the mind-mapping experience as depicted on film because I have a similarly uh, active imagination when it comes to organising information. This was particularly useful when working with vast government clients who had tons of information to distribute online; left alone in a conference room with a stack of notecards, I could break it down their information and lay it out in a flow of information architecture that was intuitive to the eventual site visitors because it was intuitive to me, even if wasn’t the way the organisation itself visualised or organised it’s own data. Mapping it mentally took no time at all; it was the writing out and physically arranging the notecards bit that could take hours.
In my little schizophrenic way, I have a handy knack for seeing, visually, how information should flow, to whom and from where, where it should enter and where it should leave.
It occurred to me this morning that this is there’s a kind of related intelligence businesses need when they enter social spaces like MySpace or Facebook - but rarely seem to have. The problem is that a lot of marketing people catch on to the latests buzz, like “everyone is on Facebook” and simply follow the herd. They turn up, create an account for their brand, and have no clearcut strategy on what they’re going to do there. I assumed, for example, that Ben & Jerry’s - an extremely personal brand ripe for Facebook - would have a storming Facebook strategy and a massive Facebook entourage. When I went to add them as a Friend, it was clear they had no strategy at all and, accordingly, 82 followers.
Needless to say, I didn’t add them as a Friend.
Contrast this with Greenpeace USA, which is working Facebook like a hooker on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. They get that people come to Facebook to interact with their friends, and that to have friends on Facebook, they need to give people something to interact with or something to do. In their case, they’re providing lots of video to watch and photos to share, plus posting on their own message wall. They are also participating in a viral giving campaign, and while they’re not raising a ton of cash, I’m pretty sure this campaign will be “shared” heavily on Facebook, effectively working as a native viral to increase the numbers of their 1,000+ friends.
The thing is, a strategy for Ben & Jerry’s on Facebook wouldn’t have been hard to formulate if they’d actually looked at how information flows inside that space. They didn’t, or if they did, they failed to understand what they were looking at and made some critical errors right off the bat.
- I love Ben and I love Jerry; they are my friends and I have consumer allegiance to them as personal icons of a brand and product I love. So where are the photos from the company’s history? Where are Ben and Jerry? Come to think of it, where is the ice cream?
- Their account is called Ben & Jerry’s Prudential. Prudential is an insurance company. I do not want to be Facebook friends with an insurance company, thank you very much. Thank God they didn’t call it Ben & Jerry’s Prudential Unilever…
- Their profile’s Information section is straight out of their annual report. It is totally corporate and utterly impersonal; it is the opposite of what Facebook is about. It fails on the platform.
- The only part I can relate to at all is the statement that “Ben & Jerry’s is founded on, and dedicated to, a sustainable corporate concept of linked prosperity.” OK so where are the eco news headlines, where is the sustainability campaign I can get behind?
With a brand like Ben & Jerry’s, you could have amazing viral reach on Facebook. A couple of grand invested in developing an app that lets people give each other free Ben & Jerry’s scoops or build each other ice cream cones would find a home on my Facebook page. They could help undo some of the brand perception damage from being associated with Unilever by creating a fantastic sustainability campaign on Facebook. They could do all kinds of positive things for their brand if they had half a clue about the space they’ve entered.
But they don’t. Ben & Jerry’s is lame. And they have no friends.
Omar says:
I couldn’t agree more Sabrina! I love Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream but I’m definitely not their facebook friend because of the reasons you mentioned above.
I’ve been bitten on facebook by werewolves, vampires, I’ve been sent beer, wine, everything, but I have never had a delicious cup of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream been sent to me. I would enjoy that much more.
Great post! :)
Saturday, 12 January, 2008, 4:47 pmSabrina Dent says:
Thanks Omar.
You know, it’s interesting to me because I have never participated in any of the werewolf/vampire stuff or sent any Facebook items like beer. We are probably from very different demographics (age, gender, location, interests) and yet we would both be all over ice cream - particularly Ben & Jerry’s because we are loyal to the brand.
They really could have amazing reach. It is irritating to me that they are doing such a lame job.
Sunday, 13 January, 2008, 8:18 amnouns says:
Couldn’t agree more with all of that. Even the happy memories of explaining to clients exactly why their intranet IA *probably* shouldn’t mirror their org. chart. My failure to win some of these arguments may have indirectly led to the levels of customer service we currently experience from certain well known utility companies, and for this I truly apologise ;-)
Marketing people? Herd? Surely not … Reminds me of the similar vibe about Second Life a while back, when suddenly ‘everyone was on Second Life’. So people waded in, as above, with nary a clue as to 1. what they hoped to achieve or 2. how they would go about achieving this. Result - a whole lot of ‘branded’ derelict space. In the old days, I think this was called unnecessary brand dilution …
Ben & Jerry’s does have an ideal brand for Facebookalisation, but I’d guess their marketing heads are still struggling with this brave new post-broadcast world. They may be petrified that someone might say something, anything, remotely negative about them, because they wouldn’t be ready for that. Imagine if someone said that Ben & Jerry’s wasn’t 100% right-on? That they were trialling a new puppy ‘n’ kitten flavour on Calcutta street children?
This is just off-the-cuff speculation, but based on my long and painful observation of how marketing people react to change I’d have a hunch I’m on the right track. I have no doubt in the case of Ben & Jerry’s that the Unilever VP of marketing is sitting on some very impressive third-party ranking figures on the strength of their basket of brands which s/he can then parlay into pay rises. Cynical, moi? In this situation, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it is the attitude.
The poor marketing people had a hard enough time getting their heads around the Interwoogie in general, without having to deal with something that looks kinda the same - it’s in a browser - but is a little bit different.
The irony in this is that Ben & Jerry’s were the viral marketing guys before anyone had thought of the term. Heck, I’m Irish, not a huge ice cream fan and even I know that Ben & Jerry’s is the de facto textboook example of how to get word-of-mouth marketing unbelievably right.
The costs involved are, as you point out, minimal, and the risk is also minimal because most people who will come across the profile are probably Ben & Jerry’s fans already. They certainly won’t dislike Ben & Jerry’s. It’s not as if it’s Halliburton scrabbling around trying to pick up a few friends. That might provoke some real negative reaction.
Sunday, 13 January, 2008, 3:17 pmSabrina Dent says:
Moral of today’s story: blame Nouns FOR EVERYTHING!
I think it’s a question of fit really. SL is a great match for those core industries that grease the wheels of the SL economy. I never really understood Dell in SL. While yeah, a lot of your core audience is there, it’s not a great platform for interacting with them. Six Flags and Disney, however - perfect matches. Ben and Jerry could also do a great farm build (with ice cream stands!) and you could make it way cool in SL.
But the brand doesn’t just have to fit the audience, it has to fit the platform. Some brands, even if all their customers are in SL or on FB, will not be able to interact with them well on a given platform. A bad job is far worse than no presence at all in these cases, IMHO.
Sunday, 13 January, 2008, 6:16 pmAnnie Rhiannon says:
Hi there Sabrina, just found your blog via the Awards site. Love the design! And, to stay on topic, I totally agree about Ben & Jerry’s.
Monday, 14 January, 2008, 2:36 pm