Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. It's time for
Speaker 1: this week's cover story, Will Carol. Many companies, especially these days,
Speaker 1: are championing social, economic, and environmental causes, but few have
Speaker 1: succeeded and continue to succeed quite like Ben and Jerry's. Sure, Jason,
Speaker 1: I mean Ben and Jerry's makes ice cream. But it's
Speaker 1: real business may very well be activism. That was most
Speaker 1: recently on display with the company's June second statement made
Speaker 1: during the Black Lives Matter protests, titled we must dismantle
Speaker 1: White supremacy. Silence is not an option. The statement immediately
Speaker 1: went viral well and Ben and Jerry's approach to activism.
Speaker 1: It's also informing decisions at Unilever. That's, of course, it's
Speaker 1: parent company, and that company's CEO, Alan job has described
Speaker 1: the brand as a guide for how other Unilever properties
Speaker 1: can marry purpose and profit. So how does Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry's always seem to get things right while others fail.
Speaker 1: The answer, it seems it's rooted in the company's three
Speaker 1: part mission, economic, product, and social. It's also not shy
Speaker 1: about linking its product directly with its ideals. Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry's activism team counts almost twenty full time members who
Speaker 1: meet each week and work with outside advocates. They'll often
Speaker 1: spent a year building a campaign to a specific event.
Speaker 1: Now all of this helps the company pursue, in the
Speaker 1: words of its former CEO, a deeper bond than sugar
Speaker 1: and fat. I scream, you scream, we all scream for social, economic,
Speaker 1: and environmental justice. Ben and Jerry's Recipe for Corporate Activism
Speaker 1: by Jordan Holman and Thomas Buckley. Annorata Mittal was about
Speaker 1: to step out of her home in Oakland, California, on
Speaker 1: the last Friday of May, but first she had one
Speaker 1: last email to send. She was on her way to
Speaker 1: one of the demonstrations that had broken out around the
Speaker 1: world five days after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: Like hundreds of other protesters, she'd be praying and dancing
Speaker 1: late into the night in streets blurred by billowing tear
Speaker 1: gas and teeming with riot police. The note Mittal, the
Speaker 1: board chair of Benna Jerry's, was sending, was to the
Speaker 1: chief executive officer, Matthew McCarthy, requesting that a statement be
Speaker 1: prepared by Monday. She wanted the ice cream brand to
Speaker 1: express support for the Black Lives Matter movement and to
Speaker 1: cry the violence against Floyd, who died while being restrained
Speaker 1: by a white law enforcement officer less than fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: after his arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill to
Speaker 1: buy cigarettes. McCarthy replied immediately to assure her his team
Speaker 1: was already on it. Over the weekend, the CEO, who
Speaker 1: sports woodstock cheek, elbow length curls, and a straggly beard,
Speaker 1: consulted two advocacy groups the company works with, Color of
Speaker 1: Change and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
Speaker 1: People for advice on how to phrase an unequivocal takedown
Speaker 1: of racial injustice. He was one of five Bennajerry's employees,
Speaker 1: including executives with curious titles like Global Social Mission Officer,
Speaker 1: making edits to a Google doc's draft written primary early
Speaker 1: by the company's global head of activism Strategy, Chris Miller.
Speaker 1: On Monday, a final version was sent for approval to
Speaker 1: Color of Change and the in double A CP, and
Speaker 1: then to Ben and Jerry's board. The seven for word
Speaker 1: text linked Floyd and other recent victims of fatal persecution,
Speaker 1: such as Brianna Taylor and ahmaud are very with historical
Speaker 1: ones like Martin Luther King Jr. It supported the creation
Speaker 1: of a national task force that would draft by partisan
Speaker 1: legislation aimed at ending racial violence and increasing police accountability.
Speaker 1: It advocated for the U. S. Department of Justice to
Speaker 1: reinvigorate its Civil Rights division and reinstate policies rolled back
Speaker 1: by the Trump administration, such as consent decrees to curb
Speaker 1: police abuses. It called on the President to disavow white
Speaker 1: supremacists and nationalist groups that overtly support him instead of
Speaker 1: using his Twitter feed to promote and normalize their ideas
Speaker 1: and agendas. And it said Congress should create a commission
Speaker 1: to study the effects of slavery and discrimination dating back
Speaker 1: to sixteen nineteen, the year the first Africans arrived in
Speaker 1: Virginia in shackles. When Ben and Jerry's posted the statement
Speaker 1: on June two to its website and social media accounts
Speaker 1: under the title we must dismantle white supremacy, Silence is
Speaker 1: not an option, hundreds of thousands of people rapidly circulated it.
Speaker 1: It was lauded as the most detailed and powerful message
Speaker 1: from any corporation seeking to condemn the latest high profile
Speaker 1: homicide in a chain of abuse black people have suffered
Speaker 1: at the hands of white people across centuries. Other more
Speaker 1: somnambulent businesses found themselves on the defensive. Facebook saw hundreds
Speaker 1: of employees stage of virtual walkout after it refused to
Speaker 1: add labels to false or incendiary Trump posts that apparently
Speaker 1: violated its policies. The furor prompted some of the world's
Speaker 1: largest marketers, including Verizon, Coca Cola, Lego, and Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry's owner Unilever, to stop advertising their products on the
Speaker 1: platform for at least a month. Google, Twit, and YouTube,
Speaker 1: which have also been criticized for inaction on misinformation and abuse,
Speaker 1: were hit by Boycott's two, and the renewed attention to
Speaker 1: racial injustice led some companies and sports teams to reconsider
Speaker 1: problematic brand identities and logos. PepsiCo and Mars said they
Speaker 1: would retire imagery associated with Aunt Jemima Pancake Syrup and
Speaker 1: Uncle Ben's Rice, which both featured caricatures of black cooks.
Speaker 1: Washington's NFL franchise announced it would change its name a
Speaker 1: racist slur against Native Americans. Mittal, a human rights and
Speaker 1: environmental activist who founded the Oakland Institute, a policy group,
Speaker 1: says Ben and Jerry's firm stance was especially motivated by
Speaker 1: the White House's response, which she viewed as fanning the crisis.
Speaker 1: I think of the killings that have happened as no
Speaker 1: different than lynchings. It has just laid bare again how
Speaker 1: deep the racism is, says Mental, who has been on
Speaker 1: the board for almost thirteen years and was appointed chair
Speaker 1: in I think that's why I as a company, we
Speaker 1: can't wait for others to make it a tipping point.
Speaker 1: It is really for each one of us to ensure
Speaker 1: that George Floyd and Brianna Taylor do not just become
Speaker 1: a hashtag. When this year's protests began, many companies tried
Speaker 1: to write tickets seating themselves on the right side of history,
Speaker 1: expressing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, which formed
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen after the acquittal of the man who
Speaker 1: shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a black teenager in Florida.
Speaker 1: Some businesses have come under pressure in recent years to
Speaker 1: find callings higher than driving shareholder value as shoppers turned
Speaker 1: to brands with a more conscious approach to capitalism. A
Speaker 1: survey conducted after Floyd's killing by Morning. Consult a data
Speaker 1: analysis firm, found that about two thirds of Americans from
Speaker 1: Generation Z, the sought after cohort of high schoolers and
Speaker 1: college students, said the way corporations and their brands reacted
Speaker 1: to the BLM movement would permanently effect their future purchasing patterns.
Speaker 1: But in the age of going viral, attempting to speak
Speaker 1: to more than four centuries of racial injustice can be perilous.
Speaker 1: Perhaps most famously, PepsiCo tried and failed in seventeen to
Speaker 1: evoke the BLM movement by airing a three minute ad
Speaker 1: that depicted Kendall Jenner, a white fashion model from the
Speaker 1: Kardashian clan, handing an ice cold Pepsi to a policeman
Speaker 1: flanked by other officers in protective gear as an ethnically
Speaker 1: diverse crowd of actors cheered her on. Companies keep trying, though,
Speaker 1: following the Floyd protests, Righteous Gelato introduced a chocolate flavored
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter Gelato, then quickly pulled it after an
Speaker 1: online backlash. The white designer who shepherded the branding later
Speaker 1: conceded she may not have been best suited for the task.
Speaker 1: Pretty Little thing. An online retailer posted a photo on
Speaker 1: social media showing jet black and peach toned hands clasped
Speaker 1: above the motto Stand Together, only to be criticized for
Speaker 1: depicting the black hand in an unlo life like hugh
Speaker 1: a distillery in Bristol, England, tweeted a crass reference to
Speaker 1: its gen's high flammability, making it a favorite of looters.
Speaker 1: Other efforts were baldly hypocritical. On Blackout Tuesday, one of
Speaker 1: the millions of social media accounts posting a single black
Speaker 1: tile in support of BLM belonged to the NFL's San
Speaker 1: Francisco forty Niners, which split acrimoniously with quarterback Colin Kaepernick
Speaker 1: after he began kneeling during the National Anthem to protest
Speaker 1: police brutality toward black people. Washington's franchise posted a tile
Speaker 1: to Laureal, whose black square was overlaid with the words
Speaker 1: speaking out is worth. It was criticized for insincerity by
Speaker 1: Monroe Bergdorff, a black English model who said the cosmetics
Speaker 1: company had dropped her from a seventeen campaign after she
Speaker 1: spoke out about white supremacy. The company responded by apologizing
Speaker 1: for the incident and adding her to its UK Diversity
Speaker 1: and Inclusion Board. A McDonald's statement that each black victim
Speaker 1: was one of us prompted the American Civil Liberties Union
Speaker 1: to ask the fast food chain why it was denying
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of black workers access to paid sick
Speaker 1: and family leave during a global pandemic. The company offers
Speaker 1: some paid leave to workers at corporate owned locations, but
Speaker 1: doesn't guarantee it to those employed by franchise ese. Starbucks,
Speaker 1: which posted that it stood in solidarity with black partners, customers,
Speaker 1: and communities and that it wouldn't be a bystander, also
Speaker 1: said it's baristas wouldn't be permitted to wear BLM clothing
Speaker 1: until an outcry and boycott threats led it to reverse course.
Speaker 1: Companies have to actually, truly be ready and willing to
Speaker 1: address their impact, and that doesn't happen overnight, says Rashad Robinson,
Speaker 1: executive director of Color of Change. Robinson, who's addressed audiences
Speaker 1: at a number of leading corporations about structural racism, the
Speaker 1: deep seated influence racial bias has on power structures, and
Speaker 1: the importance of quantifying diversity, was one of the experts
Speaker 1: McCarthy called to help an Jerry's draft its response. A
Speaker 1: lot of companies say black lives matter, but Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry's has actually put energy, time and flavor behind black
Speaker 1: lives matter. This is not new for them. In Ben
Speaker 1: Cohen and Jerry Greenfield Friends since grade school completed a
Speaker 1: five dollar correspondence course in ice cream making and found
Speaker 1: it Ben and Jerry's out of a renovated gas station
Speaker 1: in Burlington, Vermont. While most shoppers came to know the
Speaker 1: brand for a political wasteline crime such as caramel Chew Chew,
Speaker 1: it simultaneously became a committed corporate activist, campaigning for causes
Speaker 1: such as same sex marriage, criminal justice reform, and nature conservation.
Speaker 1: It's ethos closely tracked the leninesque worldview of its creators,
Speaker 1: who often seemed more comfortable hosting their One World, One
Speaker 1: Heart music festival, a kaleidoscope of tie dyed roots, rock
Speaker 1: and psychedelic Ben and Jerry's motifs, then participating in quarterly
Speaker 1: earnings calls. Some of the company's most important and long
Speaker 1: standing commitments have been on the environmental front, and it
Speaker 1: hasn't hesitated to link its product directly with its ideals.
Speaker 1: In the late eighties, it released Rainforest Crunch, a flavor
Speaker 1: that incorporated nuts responsibly sourced from indigenous Amazonian tribes, helping
Speaker 1: spark a national conversation about deforestation. Over time, it refined
Speaker 1: a model for activism centered on campaigns. Each week, a
Speaker 1: team meets to identify and discuss pressing social justice issues.
Speaker 1: After Ben and Jerry's decides to align itself with the cause,
Speaker 1: the team taps experts at leading advocacy groups and spends
Speaker 1: at least a year working on persuasive language. Then it
Speaker 1: disseminates material to the company's website, social media channels, and
Speaker 1: ice cream tubs, often building up to a specific event.
Speaker 1: One of Ben and Jerry's environmental campaigns, an eighteen month
Speaker 1: initiative called Save our Sworld, culminated at the United Nations
Speaker 1: Climate Change Conference in Paris, where organizers wield in a
Speaker 1: giant paper mache statue of an ice cream cone with
Speaker 1: a melting globe patterned scoop. The company's ongoing climate messaging
Speaker 1: includes a website page listing endangered pints whose supply chains
Speaker 1: are at risk of disruption by climate change Tragically. The
Speaker 1: list includes every flavor containing chocolate, as coco production in
Speaker 1: West Africa suffers from rising temperatures and lower rainfall. Related
Speaker 1: blog posts read like abstracts of essays by Sierra Club
Speaker 1: Scientific Advisors, with the fondness for exclamation points and cutesy vernacular.
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's activism didn't slow through a mid nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties initial public offering or its acquisition for three and
Speaker 1: twenty six million dollars in two thousand by Unilever, the
Speaker 1: sprawling Anglo Dutch conglomerate behind Dove Soap and Hellman's Mayonnaise.
Speaker 1: Unilever is also the world's largest maker of ice cream
Speaker 1: en gelato, selling supermarket and concessionary brands such as Briar's Cornetto, Fudgsicle, Gram, Klondike, Magnum, Popsicle, Solero,
Speaker 1: and Talenti. According to Brad Edmondson's book Ice Cream Social,
Speaker 1: The Struggle for the soul of Ben and Jerry's, the
Speaker 1: takeover agreement took about two years to negotiate, in part
Speaker 1: because Cohen and Greenfield were adamant that the business retained
Speaker 1: its own board of directors and independence over what the
Speaker 1: company calls its three part mission, Economic, Product and Social.
Speaker 1: Mittal says many employees viewed Unilever as an eight thousand
Speaker 1: pound guerrilla moving in. Ultimately, it took charge of the
Speaker 1: economic part of Ben and Jerry's mission and left the
Speaker 1: other two to the subsidiary. At times, Ben and Jerry's
Speaker 1: activism has tested Unilever's promises. All of its current directors
Speaker 1: save for two Unilever executives, are activists or have extensive
Speaker 1: experience in the charity sector. At one point, more members
Speaker 1: of the Creamery's board had been arrested while protesting than not.
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry and Ben and Jerry vocally supported the
Speaker 1: Occupy Wall Street protests in twenty eleven, and when the
Speaker 1: company took a stance a decade ago against ingredients derived
Speaker 1: from genetically modified organisms and directed the first of several
Speaker 1: billboards about the cause. Then CEO Jostein Solheim got a
Speaker 1: call from case Kratoff, who headed Unilever's business in the
Speaker 1: US and served on the board of the Grocery Manufacturers
Speaker 1: of America, which is pro gmo. Solheim referred him to
Speaker 1: the commitment to advocacy Unilever had agreed to in its
Speaker 1: ownership contract. Around the same time, Paul Polman became CEO
Speaker 1: of Unilever and began a ten year effort to turn
Speaker 1: the parent corporation into a test bed for a more
Speaker 1: socially adroit way of doing business. As he worked to
Speaker 1: cut carbon emissions at its factories and right human and
Speaker 1: environmental wrongs in its supply chain, among other initiatives. He
Speaker 1: visited the Ben and Jerry's team in Vermont at least
Speaker 1: once a year to learn from its campaigns. UNI Leaver's
Speaker 1: current CEO, Alan Joke, pledged when he took over to
Speaker 1: consider selling off brands that couldn't operate in a manner
Speaker 1: that benefits society. He's described Ben and Jerry's as a
Speaker 1: guide for how other Unilever properties can marry purpose with profit.
Speaker 1: One of its flagship brands, Dove Soap, followed Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry's lead on BLM, saying it would advance its own
Speaker 1: calls for legislative action and extend its work with such
Speaker 1: organizations as the National Black Child Development Institute to address
Speaker 1: racial justice for the next generation of Americans. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, Unilever has been pilloried recently for continuing to
Speaker 1: market melanin suppressing skin whitening creams, which critics say promote
Speaker 1: racist preferences for lighter skin in some Asian countries. The
Speaker 1: company has said only that it will change the name
Speaker 1: of its Fair and Lovely line, which generates more than
Speaker 1: five million dollars in annual revenue, to Glow and Lovely,
Speaker 1: and that will include women of all skin tones in
Speaker 1: future marketing materials. Ben and Jerry's has its issues too,
Speaker 1: starting at the source. It makes its money from a
Speaker 1: deeply unhealthy product that's a particularly uncomfortable fact at a
Speaker 1: moment when glucose is increasingly regarded as the new tobacco,
Speaker 1: and it clashes two with the company's work and supported
Speaker 1: black Americans, who are more likely to contract type two
Speaker 1: diabetes than whites. The company also baffled many progressive customers
Speaker 1: and dismayed some members of its own board when, despite
Speaker 1: its history of campaigning to end gun violence, it appointed
Speaker 1: Perry Odac, who would previously run a firearms manufacturer, as CEO.
Speaker 1: Odak's fractious tenure ended less than a year after the
Speaker 1: sale to Unilever, and Mittal is quick to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's has shortcomings of its own where inclusion
Speaker 1: is concerned. While the board's seven directors do include four
Speaker 1: women and three people of color, two of whom are black.
Speaker 1: The majority of its workforce and leadership, she says, remain
Speaker 1: all very white. In part, this reflects Vermont's demographic makeup.
Speaker 1: The state is white, so Ben and Jerry's has been
Speaker 1: seeking other ways of becoming more diverse. Mittal says the
Speaker 1: company is, for instance, examining how to source a greater
Speaker 1: share of its ingredients from black owned farms. Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry's long record of activism has tended to mitigate and
Speaker 1: he perceived sins, helping it avoid accusations of insincerity when
Speaker 1: it speaks out, and the company has largely managed not
Speaker 1: to be regarded as opportunistic of using social consciousness to
Speaker 1: increase sales. In recent years, keeping revenue up has become
Speaker 1: ever more crucial as it fends off a rash of
Speaker 1: insurgents from low calorie alternatives such as Halo Top two,
Speaker 1: sheeshy probiotic choices such as Foxy's Thoughtful ice cream. Solheim
Speaker 1: says sales were never the point, stressing that Ben and
Speaker 1: Jerry's campaigns have neither hurt nor helped demand during his
Speaker 1: eight years running the company. He traces the fundamental appeal
Speaker 1: of its pints to their indulgent flavors, as well as
Speaker 1: to carefully timed price reductions and product releases. In his view,
Speaker 1: the company's expressions of principle serve rather to cement its
Speaker 1: long term standing with socially minded fans. Loyalty is pretty
Speaker 1: valuable in this business, he says. If we share values
Speaker 1: on climate, same sex marriage rights, racism, I think that's
Speaker 1: a deeper bond than sugar and fat. These days, Ben
Speaker 1: and Jerry's activism team counts almost twenty full time members,
Speaker 1: including characters such as Dave Rappaport, the Global Social Mission
Speaker 1: officer who once spent several days in the Nevada Desert
Speaker 1: being chased by armed security forces in helicopters after he
Speaker 1: tried to stop a nuclear weapons test explosion. It has
Speaker 1: a budget that's as large as a fifth of the
Speaker 1: marketing department's discretionary spending, which runs into the millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: The Ben and Jerry's Foundation, which the company funds, also
Speaker 1: earmarks about two point five million dollars annually to grassroots
Speaker 1: causes across the US. Running the show is Miller, whose
Speaker 1: posts on Ben and Jerry's social media accounts have helped
Speaker 1: bring more than one thirty thousand new signatories to Color
Speaker 1: of Change petitions in the past year alone. On June tenth,
Speaker 1: the Activism Team published a blog post announcing its next project,
Speaker 1: defunding US police forces. That project, like the statement on
Speaker 1: the George Floyd killing, Miller drafted, follows from a recent
Speaker 1: emphasis on criminal justice reform, a cause Ben and Jerry's
Speaker 1: has supported since at least the late eighties, when it
Speaker 1: began sourcing the brownie bites found in some flavors from
Speaker 1: New York's Graceton Bakery, which provides jobs and training to
Speaker 1: formally incarcerated people and those who were homeless. In twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: the foundation brought executives and board members to North Carolina,
Speaker 1: where Reverend William Barbour's Moral Monday's movement on civil and
Speaker 1: environmental rights was taking off. Three years later, ahead of
Speaker 1: the U S midterm elections, the creamery rebranded its New
Speaker 1: York superfudge Chunk to Pecan Resist in response to Trump
Speaker 1: administration policies that threatened the civil rights of women, people
Speaker 1: of color, refugees, immigrants, and the lgbt Q community. The
Speaker 1: pun on pe Can was more evident in Vermont than, say, Georgia,
Speaker 1: where the word is pronounced pecan. Last year, it introduced
Speaker 1: Justice Remixed, a variety that includes cinnamon bun and spicy
Speaker 1: fudge brownie chunks, in partnership with the Advancement Project, a
Speaker 1: racial justice advocacy group. Its factories are also outfitted with
Speaker 1: art painted by former inmates, and it's brought in political
Speaker 1: figures such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and the late
Speaker 1: U S. Representative John Lewis of Georgia to speak to
Speaker 1: its workforce and council management on the race related imbalances
Speaker 1: that pervade the judicial system. Ben and Jerry's social justice
Speaker 1: efforts accelerated a year after the trip to North Carolina,
Speaker 1: when its first blog post on BLM drew so much
Speaker 1: traffic it broke its website. The more comprehensive statement the
Speaker 1: company issued in June came from a muscle that was
Speaker 1: continuously being developed from the board and management team over time,
Speaker 1: says Darren Dodson, a board member and managing director at
Speaker 1: illumin Capital Management, an investment firm focused on reducing implicit bias.
Speaker 1: It didn't just happen. It came out of years of
Speaker 1: work and commitment of which will never stop conversations about
Speaker 1: the root causes of racial inequality and systemic abuses by
Speaker 1: law enforcement still seemed to overwhelm large swaths of the
Speaker 1: business community at times. It's challenging, Miller acknowledges, even for
Speaker 1: a company that's long tried to be a rising force
Speaker 1: for change. He mentions a recent conference call related to
Speaker 1: their new campaign, during which the debate became so heated
Speaker 1: he had to tell everyone to park it for a minute.
Speaker 1: It felt like a conversation I would have had back
Speaker 1: in my green Piece days, he says. I made some
Speaker 1: comment that this is likely not a conversation that is
Speaker 1: happening right now at Hoggindas. And that's the cover story
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. Check that out, plus many
Speaker 1: other stories. The magazine now on newsstands, also at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com and on the Bloomberg terminal. I'm Carol Masser
Speaker 1: and I'm Jason Kelly. Check us out every day on
Speaker 1: the radio, Bloomberg Business Week Daily two to six pm
Speaker 1: Wall Street Time. This is Bloomberg