The comms implications of the Ben & Jerry’s-Unilever CEO ouster saga

One of America’s most popular ice cream brands found itself in the news for a not-so-sweet reason earlier this week. According to a report from ABC News, a court filing from Ben & Jerry’s with the Southern District of New York alleged that parent company Unilever removed CEO Dave Stever for his liberal political stances without consulting the brand’s independent board.

It’s important to note that while it’s a subsidiary of Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s maintains its own board and is well-known for lending vocal support to social justice causes dating back decades.

“Unilever has repeatedly threatened Ben & Jerry’s personnel, including CEO David Stever, should they fail to comply with Unilever’s efforts to silence the Social Mission,” the filing reads in part.

Unilever responded to the filing with a statement, attributing it to an unspecified spokesperson.

In line with the terms of the acquisition agreement, decisions on the appointment, compensation and removal of the Ben & Jerry’s CEO will be made by Unilever after good faith consultation and discussion with the B&J’s Independent Board. Regrettably, despite repeated attempts to engage the Board and follow the correct process, we are disappointed that the confidentiality of an employee career conversation has been made public. We hope that the B&J Independent Board will engage as per the original, agreed process.

Erika Schneider, an assistant professor of public relations at Syracuse University, described the Unilever-Ben & Jerry’s turmoil as a potentially defining moment in the relationship between “corporate governance and the autonomy of socially conscious brands within larger corporate structures.”

“The approach is defensive and stresses confidentiality, but right now, consumers want transparency,” said Schneider, who specializes in crisis communications. “Yes, confidentiality is important, but it is ineffective to deflect the question of whether this is an attempt to suppress Ben & Jerry’s engagement in political discourse.”

The external pressure to maintain brand loyalty amid political pressure

Schneider noted that the statement from Unilever seems to “point fingers but perhaps understandably evades the question people want to know about,” namely if the company silenced the brand for its political stances.

“That’s their core brand identity,” Schneider said, pointing to an “Issues We Care About” section on the Ben & Jerry’s website under an “Activism” pull-down tab. “When you buy Ben & Jerry’s, you’re not just buying ice cream; you’re supporting Fair Trade, sustainability and a company that stands for social justice,” the web copy reads.

A perhaps coincidentally timed Instagram post on Wednesday, co-authored by the ACLU, calls for people to contact their representatives to vote “no” on the SAVE Act to “protect voting access,” has drawn thousands of likes and comments.

“We need to flood Unilever with emails now that they fired your CEO for no reason,” one comment reads.

The timing of the CEO’s removal is interesting given Unilever’s well-known plans to spin off Unilever ice cream brands into a separate company, said Anne Marie Squeo, founder and CEO of Proof Point Communications. Having the brand go silent on social issues also risks alienating Ben & Jerry’s longtime customers.

But it’s also understandable why Unilever would want to tame that social action given the growing tension between corporate values and political scrutiny, Squeo said.

Squeo, a former CCO at Xerox, called Unilever’s acquisition of Ben & Jerry’s a cautionary tale, emphasizing the importance of aligning company cultures during mergers.

Unilever, more of a buttoned-up company, knew what it was getting when it acquired its politically charged ice cream brand in 2000. Squeo noted that the SEC filing for the merger mentioned the word “social” 107 times. That number includes dozens of mentions of the Vermont company’s longstanding social mission and its commitments to social investments, as well as Unilever’s contractual agreement to increase “socially beneficial activities as a percentage of sales–every year. Ben and Jerry’s will be doing more good than it does today.”

“It was pretty clear from the outset that Ben & Jerry’s was never going to be controlled, but the environment back then made it seem OK,” Squeo said. “Twenty-five years ago, they felt that would be fine, but it’s not fine anymore.”

The internal communications ripple effects

While much of the focus on the battle between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever has been in the public forum, there are also key factors to consider about the effects on internal comms. For example, Stever’s ouster challenges the status quo of Ben & Jerry’s organizational culture. Removing him stands to erode Unilever’s standing with employees as the parent of Ben & Jerry’s.

Montieth Illingworth, CEO of Montieth and Company, told Ragan that C-suite leaders are often reflections of a company’s mission and values.

“If the CEO doesn’t or can’t express the established values, employees may wonder ‘Are we just fair-weather friends?’” Illingworth said.

This also stands to affect employer reputation. Illingworth said that employees at companies like Ben & Jerry’s may view commitments to social issues as lip service if leaders who embody these values are removed. In many instances, companies that maintain social stances like Ben & Jerry’s are popular employers because of the stances they take, not despite them.

“If it turns out that people are scared to participate in a survey or express an opinion internally, then we’re in a moment of reckoning,” he said.

He added that great leaders need license to express sentiments that reflect the company’s values. This involves looking to long-term strategic goals rather than reacting to every single bump in the road that employees might see coming from the outside in.

“The CEO is an expression of the company’s values in a person,” Illingworth said. “We need to carefully evaluate what leaders are saying and when they’re saying it to reinforce internal culture and create minimal external risk.”

Kerry O’Grady, comms consultant and professor of communications at Holy Family University, said that the move reads as a way of grabbing authority back on the part of Unilever.

“As communicators, we need to stop throwing around words like ‘autonomy,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘free speech’ unless we operationalize what those words mean to both parties,” she said.

With that in mind, she recommended that internal communicators take an audit of employee sentiment via surveys and social media monitoring to see their reactions to such a move. Doing so will help internal comms plot their next employee comm moves as needed.

“You need to monitor your employee landscape to see how both internal and external reactions are affecting their sense of connection to the company’s established culture,” O’Grady said.

Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.