How Ben & Jerry’s Reached Over 10% of the World’s Population with One Social Campaign

In 1979, Ben and Jerry’s decided to thank friends, family, and loyal customers for supporting their first year in business with a free ice cream cone. Since then, the tradition has transformed into a major event, and now “Free Cone Day” is marked on calendars all over the world. As a global brand, Ben & Jerry’s wanted to engage with audiences around the world. To do this, Ben & Jerry’s utilized the hashtag #freeconeday to aggregate, organize, and re-display the real-time conversations taking place on social networks.

#FreeConeDay’s Three Objectives:

In launching a social campaign around #freeconeday, Ben & Jerry’s hoped to:

1) Engage a global audience

2) Drive awareness about the event and traffic to their stores

3) Fuel customer participation that would propel word-of-mouth and increase their brand reach

The strategies implemented to carry out these objectives made a viral splash eventually reaching over 700 million people -- that’s 10% of the world’s population!

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#Freeconeday Strategy: Converging Paid, Owned, and Earned Media

Optimizing their paid, owned, and earned media channels, Ben & Jerry’s utilized a converged media strategy to build their Free Cone Day campaign. Now the ultimate marketing imperative, this strategy allowed them to bring valuable consumer conversations to light.

Here’s how Ben & Jerry’s integrated each of the paid, owned, and earned channels into a single, consistent brand experience:   

Owned Media:

Several days leading up to Free Cone Day, Ben & Jerry’s launched a dedicated microsite powered by real-time, global conversations around the big day.

Earned Media:

The microsite was dominated by interactive experiences that allowed Ben & Jerry’s to capture and generate relevant earned media to promote the event. A poll engaged people to vote on their favorite flavors and a conversation stream flowed dynamically, showcasing excitement from consumers around the world. A real-time photo wall let users visually connect with Free Cone Day moments around the world.

Paid Media:

Using Twitter Promoted Products, Ben & Jerry’s owned the social conversation surrounding the campaign. By targeting the right audience at the right time with a brand-specific hashtag, social content was easily organized and spurred on by people contributing relevant and identifiable Tweets that were then curated and displayed back to the owned microsite.

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The Results Spoke for Themselves:

Through the successful integration of paid, owned, and earned media, Ben & Jerry’s created a fresh environment showcasing excitement from consumers around the world. By encouraging social conversations, amplifying word-of-mouth, and driving visitors to their site, Ben & Jerry’s converged media campaign resulted in the following:

• The Promoted Hashtag #freeconeday had a social reach of over 700 million, generating brand exposure that totals 10% of the world’s population.

• Demonstrating high viewer engagement, there was a 48% retweet rate within the microsite.

• The social conversation quickly resonated across the United States with #freeconeday trending in 48 cities on Twitter.

Interested in learning how to converge your media strategy to drive similar results? Download the “How To Converge Your Media” whitepaper here!