Ben and Jerrys Partners with The Advancement Project for Social Justice

Ben and Jerrys ice cream being served at the event.

Tonight, I had the chance to hear Sean Greenwood, a public relations practitioner at Ben and Jerrys (who calls himself the Poobah of PR), and Cedric Brown, the digital campaigns strategist for The Advancement Project speak about their recent joint campaign called “Justice ReMix’d.” Brown came to Newhouse as part of PRSSA’s speaker series, while Greenwood spoke via FaceTime due to a flight issue caused by the snow.

Justice ReMix’d is Ben & Jerrys’ newest ice cream flavor. The flavor itself is “Cinnamon & Chocolate Ice Creams with Gobs of Cinnamon Bun Dough & Spicy Fudge Brownies,” but according to Greenwood and Brown the flavor represents mixed races and the fight for their rights, specifically for criminal justice and equality.

Ben and Jerrys has a long history of participating in social responsibility campaigns. According to the founders, the company’s purpose is more than to make great tasting ice cream, but to act on their values and take a stance for what they believe in, no matter if that causes a positive or negative effect on sales. The product, social responsibility, and economic mission all hold the same weight of importance at Ben and Jerrys. The Advancement Project is a non-profit organization that focuses on criminal justice, immigrant justice, educational justice and voting rights. The two organizations make a great pair when taking a stand on justice by coming up with a creative way to take the conversation nationwide. The Justice ReMix’d ice cream flavor shows messages about criminal justice and The Advancement Project uses donations to decriminalize innocent inmates who can’t afford their bail and to give money to schools in Miami to afford in-school counselors who can replace in-school police.

From a public relations standpoint, The Advancement Project and Ben and Jerrys created three main methods to increase engagement with the campaign. These methods included website content, social media content, and in-store activations. The website content section included top news coverage, past Ben and Jerrys and social advocacy blogs, e-advocacy subscribers and online donations. The social media portion included posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. This resulted in 1k+ new followers and interactions as well as increased engagement with the website. Ben & Jerrys new flavor social media and PR placements resulted in over 300 million PR impressions, showing that their PR media efforts were clearly effective. Lastly, the in-shop activations allowed for people to learn about the new flavor and the criminal justice it supports by creating interactive posters to engage people to do more than just taste the flavor. This creative campaign shows that interactivity drives engagement, especially regarding a topic people either don’t know much about or care deeply for.

Another key public relations technique used to bring positive publicity to the campaign was the Justice ReMix’d flavor launch party. Although the launch was supposed to occur in Miami near the schools it supports, the hurricane caused Ben and Jerrys and The Advancement Project to change their plans. Instead, the launch party took place in a small neighborhood outside of DC with a similar demographic to those in Miami that the organizations are trying to help. The launch featured a press conference as well as activities for the public to enjoy, like DJ lessons and graffiti lessons, while founders Ben and Jerry handed out samples of the new flavor. This attracted a large audience to the event and created lots of positive press that influenced people all over the country to buy the flavor and donate to the cause.

I look forward to going out to buy Ben and Jerrys new flavor “Justice ReMix’d” and I can’t wait to taste justice and support the cause. Sounds delicious!