Ben Cohen is asking the marketing community to do more than launch campaigns—he’s asking it to help him win back a brand. At Brandweek in Atlanta on Wednesday, the Ben & Jerry’s co-founder gave attendees an open creative brief: build a cheap, fast, and simple guerrilla campaign that pressures The Magnum Ice Cream Company to sell the ice cream maker.
He framed the assignment as a chance to “help improve the quality of life for many people.”
The ownership fight behind the brief
Ben & Jerry’s began in 1978 in a converted gas station in Burlington, Vermont. Unilever acquired the company in 2000. Late in 2025, Unilever spun off its ice cream division and the brand came under The Magnum Ice Cream Company.
Cohen and Jerry Greenfield had opposed the original purchase. They did secure an unusual governance structure: an independent board held legal authority over the social mission, ice cream quality, marketing, and trademark, while the parent company controlled finances and operations.
That arrangement has since frayed. Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever, claiming it was silenced over its stance on Gaza. After the spinoff, Magnum removed CEO Dave Stever and installed a longtime Magnum executive. Greenfield left the company and Cohen launched the Free Ben & Jerry’s campaign, which now points to roughly 200,000 petition signatures and about 800,000 social followers.
In July, the company said its foundation would close by the end of the year because of funding cuts. The brand says Magnum has refused to meet with its independent board and has ignored that board’s authority. Magnum maintains that Ben & Jerry’s is not for sale.
What the brief asks for
- Format: A guerrilla stunt or social-led campaign
- Location: The U.S. or Amsterdam, where Magnum is headquartered
- Budget: Up to $20,000, with “cheaper is better”
- Deadline: October 7, 2026, at 11:59 p.m.
- Prize: Free Ben & Jerry’s for life if the brand regains its independence
Why marketers should watch this one
The brief is part activism, part brand strategy, and part creative competition. It tests whether a founder can convert a business dispute into an earned-media movement—and whether marketing professionals can make a boardroom conflict feel urgent to ordinary consumers.
Cohen’s argument is blunt: “Magnum doesn’t have a social mission. They don’t respect a legally binding agreement, and they got a lot of money and a lot of power.” He also used an analogy that should resonate with brand builders: “What’s going on here is the goose that laid the golden egg. Magnum really likes those golden eggs, but they’re in the process of destroying the goose.”
For entrants, a useful strategic screen would be to keep the idea simple, link it to a clear audience action, and make the cost-to-attention ratio as low as possible. The brief explicitly rewards cheap execution, so ideas that are repeatable, visually shareable, and easy to localize are likely to have an edge.
Even for marketers who don’t enter, the episode is a live case study in brand purpose, stakeholder pressure, and the limits of a parent company’s operational control when a social mission is part of the product’s identity.
Source: Adweek
