Ben and Jerry's Premium Ice Cream Products Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream is a brand name company known worldwide. With superior marketing techniques Ben and Jerry's has positioned themselves to be the leader in manufacturing premium ice cream products. They have successfully targeted their market, and there by achieved a strong customer base. The mission statement of their product line is "to make, distribute, and sell the finest quality all natural ice cream while incorporating wholesome, natural ingredients and promoting business practices that respect the earth and the environment".(1) This company is known to be a monopolistically competitive, because there are still many firms and consumers, just as in perfect competition, but they still have control over what price they charge in their company, because Ben and Jerry's ice cream is differentiated from the other ice cream companies and they provide a lot of non price competition which will be mentioned later in the paper. Ben and Jerry's began in 1963 when Ben Cohn and Jerry Greenfield met in a New York middle school gym class. While playing together, neither realized what the future would hold in store and ultimately changed their lives forever. By 1977, Ben and Jerry moved to Burlington, Vermont and enrolled in an ice cream making class at Penn State, which required a tuition fee of only five dollars. After their exceptional performance in the class, the two made a $12,000 initial investment on May 5, 1978 to open their first ice cream shop in Burlington. (1) The small Vermont community was considered very important to Ben and Jerry and therefore they made sure that the residents of the area benefited as well as they did in their business venture. As an example, they celebrated the company's first anniversary by giving away free ice cream cones to the public. In 1980, Ben and Jerry decided to expand the business and move into an old mill where they packaged their ice cream into pints and distributed them to "Mom & Pop" stores. The company operation continued to grow in 1981 when they opened the first Ben and Jerry's Scoop Shop franchise. (1) Today, Ben and Jerry's has expanded into a multi-million dollar business, and continues to open franchises throughout the world. Maintaining their commitment to "share the wealth," these two business men have supported many charitable organizations including " 1% For Peace," "Support Farm Aid," and "One World, One Hear Festival," (1)
Product: The company produces a physical good – Cookies/Crackers. In doing this, the company became diversified by the use of several product lines, not just one line of cookie or cracker. Also, in acquiring other businesses, the company thought it best to keep the originating firm’s brand name vice-carrying its name on the new product (i.e., Sunshine company). In thins regard, Sunshine’s Cheeze-It cracker line would not risk losing customers who are accustomed to that logo on the product or the name being used in association with the product.
Ice cream in Russia is a very profitable business. Profit margins range between 15 and 20 %. This profit can be even greater when creating a premium product. Ice-Fili’s product value lies within raw material acquisition. Since the content of fat applied in the creation of ice cream is higher in Russian ice cream, the product is of better taste quality and unique flavor. With the Russian public placing more alarm on preservatives in edibles rather than fat content, this gives Ice-Fili an advantage over foreign competitors. In fact, Ice-Fili was the only ice cream producer awarded at the 2002 Moscow World Food exhibition for its brand Eralash. To market such prestige could help increase brand loyalty amongst customers. Ice-Fili also enjoys rather favorable brand recognition. The Lakomka brand is hailed as one of three most recognized ice cream brands in Russia....
Before Milton Hershey had a world wide known chocolate business, he had a small, not so well known caramel business. Milton Hershey began his chocolate making business in 1893, when his father and him traveled to Chicago to attend a big job fair (Tarshis 14), but it wasn’t until 1900 when Hershey succeed in making the first milk chocolate candy bar (The Hershey Company). Hershey attended an exhibit hall of new and amazing inventions around the world at the fair in Chicago. As Hershey walked into the exhibit hall, he was struck by a delectable smell (Tarshis 14). “Hershey was already a leading candy maker. He had created the largest caramel factory in the country, but he became convinced that the future of his business would be chocolate. At the fair in Chicago, Hershey Bought chocolate-making equipment. He had it shipped back to his caramel factory in Pennsylvania. Then he hired two chocolate makers. Soon the company was churning out chocolate candies in more than 100 shapes” (Tarshis 15).
M&M's candies has a broad target market, everyone can enjoy eating M&M's. M&M's cartoon characters are colorful, friendly, and funny. The same cartoon commercials that allure kids contain adult humor and sexual innuendos. M&M's are sold in every grocery store, and gas station so that they cover middle class and lower class. Specialty M&M's are sold over the Internet, which are aimed at the higher class. M&M/Mars doesn't have a specific target market. The company markets to all sectors of the market through distinctive marketing schemes they utilize mass marketing to target a large market at once. Some major markets are: children, Latino's, middle-aged women, people on the run, etc.
In addition to that, the article will be evaluated and summarized for its ability to justify its arguments. The article in question is titled “Monopolies Don’t Give Us Nice Things” by Barry Ritholtz. It is a fascinating read to anyone who is interested in learning
The Famous Amos cookies sold $300,000 the first year in the business. The very next year he sold $1,000,000 in sales the following year afterward. By 1982 the cookies had earned at least 12 million dollars. The cookies were such a success they were eventually sold in supermarkets across the United States. They eventually went into places like TGI Fridays, Baskin-Robins, and Starbucks. Eventually all good business must come to an end because in 1985, Wally Amos sold the company to the Shansby Group. Though it wasn’t his company still, Wally still was a spokesperson for the company for a year before quitting because of frustration. The company was eventually sold to many companies including President Baker and Keebler. Even though his business didn’t fall through he still didn’t quit. Eventually Amos created another company called Chip and Cookie. The new cookies are slightly different from the Kellogg version or variation and is only ran by Wally himself.
Topic A (oligopoly) - "The ' An oligopoly is defined as "a market structure in which only a few sellers offer similar or identical products" (Gans, King and Mankiw 1999, pp.-334). Since there are only a few sellers, the actions of any one firm in an oligopolistic market can have a large impact on the profits of all the other firms. Due to this, all the firms in an oligopolistic market are interdependent on one another. This relationship between the few sellers is what differentiates oligopolies from perfect competition and monopolies.
This case examines issues of asset control for Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc., in light of the outstanding takeover offers by Chartwell Investments, Dreyer‘s Grand, Unilever, and Meadowbrook Lane Capital in January 2000.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream in 1978. Over the years, Ben & Jerry's evolved into a socially-oriented, independent-minded industry leader in the super-premium ice cream market. The company has had a history of donating 7.5% of its pre-tax earnings to societal and community causes. Ben and Jerry further extended their generosity by offering 75,000 shares at $10.50 per share exclusively to Vermont residents, so that they may help those who first supported the company; Ben and Jerry's wanted residents to profit from their venture as well. In addition, steady growth and a widely recognized brand name helped Ben and Jerry's obtain 45 percent of the premium ice-cream market, yet the company stock price remained stagnant at $21 a share for several years.
Staying in touch with their customers would not enable Ben and Jerry to be as successful as they have become if their ice cream was not high quality as well. The second value the company espouses is to use only wholesome, natural ingredients. They began their operation on this premise, utilizing fresh Vermont milk and cream to create their frozen concoctions. During a period of volatility in the dairy market in 1991, the company went so far as to pay a dairy premium totaling a half million dollars to combat Vermont dairy farmers’ losses. This helped protect the family farmers who supplied the milk for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
Ben & Jerry’s has always been focused on the communities in which they serve. In the UK, they have a bus that travels through the streets during festivals selling ice cream. The profits gained are used to support charitable causes in the local community such as “Childline” and “Trees for Cities”.
The second market structure is a monopolistic competition. The conditions of this market are similar as for perfect competition except the product is not homogenous it is differentiated; thus having control over its price. (Nellis and Parker, 1997). There are many firms and freedom of entry into the industry, firms are price makers and are faced with a downward sloping demand curve as well as profit maximizers. Examples include; restaurant businesses, hotels and pubs, specialist retailing (builders) and consumer services (Sloman, 2013).
ice cream belonging to the premium category. Based on our analysis, we have identified two major
In addition, J&Y Co. has set the net weight and pricing based on a comparison analysis on the potential competitors such as Nestlé and Special K. In order to compete with them, J&Y Co. has set a relatively lower price compared to the two competitors and more weight in the product.
Marketing Strategies of an Ice Cream Firm Introduction As the Marketing Manager of this ice cream firm, CALMOR, I have. written this report detailing the marketing strategy for the launching. and selling of a new ice cream containing liqueur, as the ice cream liqueur should contain at least 6% alcohol, there are restrictions as. where it can be sold. With a budget of £5 million, I have also. detailed where this budget is to be allocated.