Ben and Jerrys Fair Tweet Campaign

In 2011 Ben and Jerry’s launched their “Fair Tweets” campaign.  The campaign was highly successful and made use of two marketing techniques. It made use of cause campaign through the campaigns associated with Fair Trade. The Ben and Jerrys Fair Tweet Campaign also made use of social media as the vehicle for the campaign, in the form of an excellent Twitter application.

The Ben and Jerrys Fair Tweet Campaign made use of the KISS marketing theory (Keep It Simple Sweetheart). Due to this, the campaign offered users an incredibly simple way of participating. The campaign was designed to increase awareness for Fair Trade Day which is held annually on the 14^th of May.

Whilst the Ben and Jerrys Fair Tweet Campaign increased awareness for Fair Trade, it also increased awareness and improved how Ben and Jerry’s were perceived simultaneously.

During the campaign, Ben and Jerry’s helped users to recycle their unused tweet characters. These unused characters were then replaced by a message and a link to an article about fair trade. Users were able to interact and engage with the campaign in a number of ways, including:

• Fair tweet from the old Ben and Jerry’s micro-site www.fairtweets.com. The site, which is no longer in use, enabled Twitter users to transform their tweet into a fair tweet using an algorithm which was specially created for the campaign.
• Alternatively, users could install an extension to Firefox and Google Chrome. The extension made fair tweeting even easier for Twitter’s browser based users.
• Users were also able to fair tweet directly from their smart phones and mobile devices with a specially created app for the campaign.

This campaign once again demonstrated Ben and Jerry’s brand’s authentic commitment to worthy causes. When Ben and Jerry’s states it is a “brand on a mission”, it doesn’t even feel like “cause washing”. How many other brands can say that?

We think this has to be one of the most successful social media campaigns of 2011. By the 19^th of May, four days after World Trade Day, the number of committed characters exceeded 439,454! This, whilst raising awareness for Fair Trade Day, also equated to millions of individual users keeping a keen eye on the Ben and Jerry’s cause message.  This figure does not take into account retweets, which were probably equally as high.

On top of the actual “Fair Tweet” tweets, users could also engage with the campaign through the social media hashtags: #FairTrade and #FairTweets. These hashtags massively helped to increase the reach of the campaign on Twitter.

As a company, Ben and Jerry’s are dedicated to activism. A large amount of their site lists the ways in which the company supports causes ranging from environmental issues to supporting the cause for peace and justice.