Case Study of Ben & Jerry’s

MBA 1144 Marketing Management

Assignment 01

Case Study of Ben & Jerry’s

Name :                 W.A.I.S Kasthurirathne

Index No:        MBA/RJT/2017/35

Q1. Ice creams are worldwide generic product offering intense competition. Explain the very successful expansion of Ben & Jerry in terms of its Strategic Capability, Competitive Advantages, and Unmatchable Customer Service

Ben & Jerry, a world leading innovative brand in the premium Ice Cream market having a well-established brand name for creating distinctive and indulgent taste experiences has following reasons for their very successful expansion.

1. Strategic Capably

Ben & Jerry’s operates in the super premium Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt and Sorbet business, which stands as an innovative brand of Ice Cream. They have created their brand image using several distinguished strategies.

Ben & Jerry’s best strategic approach has been the creation of a very powerful brand loyalty with premium Ice Cream lovers with various tastes, and innovative features along with the “all natural” motto targeting the market segment who seeks for rich and natural premium Ice Cream products.

They have taken the Ice Cream products to a new level by introducing the Ice Cream Powder, which use to make Ice Cream by mixing the Powder with Milk and freezing. It has created a new experience for families which is the making of own lice cream at home.

Ben & Jerry’s has strategically positioned them in the Ice Cream market as a premium product by its natural and rich ingredients while supporting that claim with a higher price tag. It’s the consumer’s mentality that a premium product cannot be cheaper and Ben & Jerry products have used that to make their Brand reputation.

Their product innovation is the key for their market share gain, where they introduce all new Ice Cream tastes each day to fulfill the requirements of the new Ice Cream flavor seekers.

Reaching for foreign markets such as China, Japan and India has given them a huge customer potential with their existing brand reputation. Especially China and India being the two largest populations in the world, Ben & Jerry has tested the strategy of approaching mass markets.

Ben & Jerry’s has adopted a three-part mission statement formalizing the company’s business philosophy. It includes Product, Social and Economic mission statements, where it gives unique strategic position to Ben & Jerry’s among the market competition.

Starting from 1979, Ben & Jerry has expanded their business using only their own Ice Cream shop outlets. But in the early 90’s, they have franchised with distributors for Ben & Jerry products and started sell them in Super Markets, Shopping Malls and high end retail shops.

Also Ben & Jerry has given the Ice Cream market a new trend, by being the trend setter of naming the Ice Cream products in funny, attractive and memorable names. As examples Bob Marley’s One Love, Chunky Monkey, Blondie Ambition, Chocolate Therapy, etc.

Ben & Jerry has variety of products which are made targeting different age groups and market segments. So with this product differentiation, they have been able to cater more market share. As examples; Cereal for kids, Cakes and Dessert meals for Adults, Ice Scoops and Pints for families, etc can be given.

1. Competitive Advantage

Ben & Jerry’s can be called as masters in product differentiation in the Ice Cream manufacturing industry where they gain a huge competitive advantage from it. “We offer a wide variety of products in addition to our cups and cones. In fact we sell over 100 menu items” Ben & Jerry says that in their web site.

Where there competitors are concentrated on other strategies such as market expansion, different marketing, innovative advertisements, Ben & Jerry creates a trend of introducing new Ice Cream flavors in to the market at continuous phase. They have a competitive advantage of attracting the new customers with new flavors while giving the existing customers the chance to explore with new products before the old products become mature. As an example they have innovated their first products in a unique style of including chunks in the Ice Cream.

Ben & Jerry also have a high competitive advantage obtained from their ingredients as they claim those are the best. They are using “All Natural” products for their production to get the premium richness in Ice Cream. Also they are having a strong reputation being a Green company by having CERES, using fully organic ingredients, etc.

Also Ben & Jerry’s maintain a high Corporate Image contributing so Social Responsibility activities and serving according to the Triple Bottom Line principle.

Being under a world corporate leader, Unilever has given Ben & Jerry an added competitive advantage with strong financial stability, modern marketing methods and reliable distribution channels.

1. Unmatchable Customer Service

Ben & Jerry’s have a good reputation of fast responding to customer feedback and complaints. They have dedicated professional staff for that and that customer service has bought considerable amount of customer loyalty to the company. As examples, Ben & Jerry’s social media pages are very active. Their administrators actively participate with the conversations or posts made by their Ice Cream lovers.

In recent past, there was an incident occurred where several consumers have complaint against Ben & Jerry’s claiming their ingredients are not natural as they claim. Without going to the courts for harming the company’s reputation, the management of Ben & Jerry’s decided to take those unhappy customers to their manufacturing factory and gave them the chance to see the reality by themselves. Later Ben & Jerry’s published a video of those people visiting the factory and later apologizing for their false claim.

Also Ben & Jerry’s uses a unique way to satisfy their customers through their web site. The tab called ‘How can we help you?’ contains all the details that a general customer would seek for. Furthermore, they are using the customer feedback to improve their products and even uses the customers as idea feeders for new Ice Cream flavor suggestions. Which means they offer the consumer a chance to be a product founder in the company.

Ben & Jerry’s have taken the Ice Cream catering to a new level by adding lots of entertainment to it. They have created a trend of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream summer parties in parks and schools.