Ben & Jerry's spent more money on political Facebook ads last week than nearly every 2020 candidate

published 28 May 2019

Talk about living the Americone Dream.

Ben & Jerry's has truly dipped its cone into the political sphere, spending $83,152 in the last week alone on Facebook ads that advocate for criminal justice reform. That puts the ice cream company's political ad spending from May 20 to 26 ahead of all but five 2020 candidates, CNBC notes via Facebook's publicly available ad library.

The ice cream company's founders have made their political leanings blatantly clear, with Ben Cohen even serving as one of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign co-chairs. Cohen and Jerry Greenfield sold Ben & Jerry's nearly 20 years ago, but the company still shares "progressive values" widely on its website. Racial justice is at the top of the company's list, and that's highlighted in their 311 Facebook ads pushing for criminal justice reform in the past week. The ads feature illustrated graphs that show how the U.S. prison population is disproportionately made up of people of color.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

After a dose of controversy in the 2016 election, Facebook started posting political ad data online. That data made it easy to see that only President Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Co.), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) spent more on their ads than Ben & Jerry's from May 20 to 26. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) usually nears the top of the weekly spender list, but her campaign actually spent less than $100 on ads last week. Check out all of Facebook's political ad buyers here.

Explore More

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.