Is Twitter more marketing or customer service at Ben & Jerry's Netherlands?
"Having conversations is so much in our DNA that we don't differentiate. We want to show all our fans that we love them more than they love us. That costs a lot, but it also gives us a lot: positive conversations between fans, but also between people who don't like us."
Stephan explains that almost all marketing takes place online, a very conscious choice that is not woolly at all. Apart from active sampling of new flavours in cities and at relevant events, you will hardly encounter print advertisements. “How great is it that you have ‘online’ to talk to your fans these days? What is better than telling a ‘word of mouth’ story to your friends? Now we are lucky that Ben & Jerry are real people with a strong opinion. Everything we do and say is sincere and comes from somewhere.”
“There will always be people against us”
Recently, while running, Stephan heard on the radio that Exodus, a Christian organization in America, was against gay marriage. One of the leaders apologized for this: they should never have said that. Knowing how Ben & Jerry's feel about this as individuals and as a company, Stephan posted a picture of the two cows and the text "love who you love" that evening. Followers did disappear, but "a good conversation about certain social issues is much more valuable than the number of fans. I accept that consequence. If you stand up for something, you will always have people who are against it."
Ben & Jerry's Netherlands and the tweet about #lovewhoyoulove
Ben & Jerry's Netherlands and the tweet about #lovewhoyoulove
“We see Twitter as a separate communication channel and we don’t really do any russia mobile phone number list promotions. Except when we had 10,000 followers, we also got 10,000 retweets for free ice cream. We thought that was so bizarre, our phones were red hot! A nice sign that we are rewarded by our fans in any case.”
“In turn, we want to reward everyone who says something to us, whether it’s negative or not, with attention. We really appreciate that you like us, or that you’re a fan of us, or that you have an opinion about us at all – and that can be negative, that’s part of it. We always want to show that we think it’s cool that you’re interested in us as a brand that also has people behind it. That’s why we’re going to have a conversation with you.”
Ben & Jerry's was on Hyves in the Netherlands for a very short time, before they switched to Facebook. When Stephan was hired, he was told that 'we're putting Twitter on hold for a while , because it takes up too much time'. He explains that they fully realised that you have to be reachable there day and night. Moreover, Stephan noticed a different character between the Facebook fans and the Twitter followers. That's why they only really started with Twitter in January 2013. In a few months, Twitter has perhaps become your most important channel for webcare. With hardly any advertising budget, there are now 33,000 followers, compared to 1,000 in January 2013.