How many roads can a man walk down? Ben Cohen seems determined to find out. He’s been a college dropout, teacher of troubled kids, cofounder and CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, and now president and founder of the cause-related-marketing organization Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities (sensiblepriorities.org). As a bit player in the ice cream business, he took on giant Pillsbury and won. Today, he’s taking on the priorities of the American government with the same guerilla marketing tactics. FuelNet caught up with Cohen when he briefly touched down in Vermont between trips to California and Atlanta.

FuelNet: You’ve been a leading figure in the worlds of commerce and social marketing. How are they similar and how are they different?
Cohen: Marketing is marketing, whether you market a political/social message or a brand. I recall people criticizing the state of our political discourse by saying candidates are marketed like cereal. I think this is essentially true, good or not. My experience is it’s a lot harder to market a political campaign than ice cream. One tastes a lot better than the other. In terms of the Priorities campaign, our aim is getting more federal money into social needs — education, health care, the environment — at no additional taxpayer expense. We propose doing this by reducing Cold War–era weapons systems. The [integrated marketing communication] tactics we’re using in that campaign, so that the public can lead the politicians, are the same as in the early days of Ben & Jerry’s. It’s a high-touch strategy. There’s very little paid media; we heavily rely on mobile vehicle promotions.

FuelNet: What is the secret to building customer loyalty?
Cohen: At Ben & Jerry’s, we ended up creating outstanding customer loyalty because the connection we made with our customers was based on shared values. That’s a deep, almost spiritual connection. Most people don’t like corporations; the reason is that the corporations are not looking to benefit the community. They’re trying to benefit themselves at the expense of the community. When customers found we weren’t like that, they glommed onto it.

FuelNet: At Ben & Jerry’s, you famously involved customers in product development. How important has that been for the company?
Cohen: We had gobs of customers who would write us fan mail. A lot of them gave us suggestions for flavors. Not to get money or for [attention]; they were doing it to help this company they believed in, and for the joy of having a flavor they actually created. Jerry [Greenfield] read every one of those letters, and he would respond personally. Cherry Garcia. Chunky Monkey. Chubby Hubby. They’re in the top-10-selling flavors. The concepts and the names came in for free.

FuelNet: The ice cream business is a tough, competitive field. How did you stay ahead of your competition?
Cohen: Just making things we liked. Our heritage was the homemade ice cream shop. So it’s pretty easy to put in big chunks of weird stuff. That’s very different from the big-manufacturer mentality. When we came out with Ben & Jerry’s pints, there were a lot of super-premium pints out there, but they were making believe they came from a foreign country — Häagen-Dazs is a good example. Ben & Jerry’s had our faces on the lid. Marketing studies show that people want authenticity. But you can’t make the inauthentic authentic.

FuelNet: What are your thoughts about strategic communication?
Cohen: I personally believe that communication is an art. Those of us who practice that very powerful art have a responsibility to use it for the common good. At some point you have to ask yourself, in whose interest am I using this tool? Is it propaganda? And who is it benefiting and who is it hurting?

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