I Scream, You Scream--Saaay, Nice Carton!
By Ed Brown

(FORTUNE Magazine) – It's no secret that despite its hippy-dippy image, Ben & Jerry's is just another profit-hungry company. But last winter the ice-cream maker, based in South Burlington, Vt., began phasing out one of its last countercultural trappings: those containers that look as if they were hand-lettered in someone's basement. Ben & Jerry's hopes its redesigned carton will boost sales among upscale consumers without alienating its loyal fans; to us, the packaging just is kind of bland. We asked Thomas Hine, a consumer-packaging expert and author of The Total Package, to critique the new look. --Ed Brown

CAP: The cap is vital, because it's the first thing you see if your supermarket has a coffin-style freezer. That's why this new cap replaces a photo of Ben and Jerry with large, easy-to-read text.

COLORS: Black may seem downbeat for ice cream, but no: "Black is a marker of a premium product," says Hine. "The more upscale you are, the less it is presumed that you are responsive to razzle-dazzle colors."

PRODUCT ID: Ten years ago spelling this out might have seemed like overkill. But with the advent of sorbet, frozen yogurt, etc., it's important to prevent confusion.

FLAVOR DESCRIPTOR: Ben & Jerry's added this "flavor descriptor" so that you won't have to guess what, say, Wavy Gravy, Chubby Hubby, or Phish Food taste like.

SNOBIFICATION: Can you say "identity crisis"? Here you'll recognize the old carton's folksy typeface, but the new, high-rent black-on-gold look positively oozes snob appeal.

BRANDING: Update the brand's look? Sure. But you don't want to make it completely unrecognizable. "Ben & Jerry's" is still written in the company's proprietary Chunk typeface with the same white-on-black lettering that you'll find on the old package.

PICTURES: These pictures replace the cartoonish--some might say pointless--drawings on the old carton with realistic-looking watercolors of the product's ingredients. "The old package was ushering you into a lifestyle, a set of principles," says Hine. "This new one is trying to make you salivate in a way that a cartoon can't."