It seems Ben and Jerry’s may be next in the firing line after they made waves with a provocative 4th of July tweet claiming the US is on stolen Indigenous land. Could we witness a downturn similar to Bud Light?
Or is their irresistibly good ice cream strong enough to keep their ship afloat?
Edit: Side note - in the absence of B&J, what ice cream are you turning to? I’m in AUS. So B&J was a game changer. Not anything else like it that I’m aware of.
Ben & Jerry’s has been fairly socially progressive for a while, this is not their first campaign like this and it hasn’t seemed to really affect them yet. There’s also the fact that part of Bud Light’s problem was who their average consumer was. Not every company that does something like that will get the same treatment, but when you advocate for something that most of your customers will disagree with, it’ll cause you problems.
For example, take the Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks). They took a stand against the war in Iraq and made negative comments about George W. Bush. They were nowhere close to the first band/artist to this, but they saw the most backlash. But it’s because they were a country band so the majority of their fanbase supported the things the condemned.