Ben & Jerry's row deepens as three board members removed Three members of Ben & Jerry's independent board will no longer be eligible to serve in their roles, after the ice cream company introduced a new set of governance practices. These include a nine-year limit set on board members' terms. Chair Anuradha Mittal, who earlier said she had no plans to resign under pressure, is among those affected. The move was criticised by the company's co-founder Ben Cohen, who called it a blatant power grab designed to strip the board of legal authority and independence. His remarks are the latest in a long-running row between Ben and Jerry's and its owner over the Cherry Garcia maker's social activism and the continued independence of its board.

Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband can't be called chocolate any more Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband bars can no longer be called chocolate after maker Nestle changed their recipes. To be described as milk chocolate in the UK a product needs to have at least 20% cocoa solids and 20% milk solids, a level each product fell below once a higher amount of cheaper vegetable fat was used. Nestle said its reformulations were needed due to higher input costs but were carefully developed and sensory tested and there were no plans to alter the recipes of other chocolate products. As many ingredient costs, such as cocoa and butter, increased food companies have altered recipes to use less of the expensive ingredients, as well as shrinking serving sizes. Nestle now describes the treats as being encased in a smooth milk chocolate flavour coating rather than being covered in milk chocolate.

Ben & Jerry's brand could be destroyed, says co-founder Ben & Jerry's will be destroyed as a brand if it remains with parent company Magnum, the company's co-founder Ben Cohen has told the BBC. His remarks are the latest in a long-running spat between the ice cream brand and its parent company over its ability to express its social activism and the continued independence of its board. The comments came on the day that the Magnum Ice Cream Company (TMICC) started trading on the European stock market - spinning off from owner Unilever. A spokesperson for Magnum said the firm wanted to build and strengthen Ben & Jerry's powerful, non-partisan values-based position in the world. Ben & Jerry's was sold to Unilever in 2000 in a deal which allowed it to retain an independent board and the right to make decisions about its social mission.

Ben & Jerry's co-founder quits over social activism row Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield has left the ice cream maker after almost half a century at the firm, deepening a dispute with parent company Unilever. In a letter shared on social media by fellow co-founder Ben Cohen, Mr Greenfield said the Cherry Garcia maker had lost its independence after Unilever put a halt to its social activism. His exit marks the latest episode in a row that started in 2021 when Ben & Jerry's said it would stop selling its ice cream in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. A spokesperson for The Magnum Ice Cream Company, which is being spun off from Unilever, said it was grateful to Mr Greenfield but disagreed with his stance. In his letter Mr Greenfield said leaving the firm was one of the hardest and most painful decisions he had ever made but he could no longer in good conscience work for a business that had been silenced by Unilever.

This story originally appeared in the October 2019 issue of strategy. In recent years, every sector, from finance to QSR, has amassed and aggregated data from various sources to uncover themes around unmet consumer needs, says Meghan Nameth, managing director for customer marketing and product analytics at PwC. But identifying patterns within defined sets of structured data is "actually the easy part of AI," notes Anne-Marie Castonguay, who heads up data and insights at Lg2. Now, the next big thing is deciphering unstructured data, such as documents, audio, video, social chatter and product reviews, which are usually qualitative in nature and far more difficult to parse. Machine learning algorithms typically use structured data – clearly defined data types that can be easily categorized, stored and searched in a database – to function.

We've entered an era in which marketers are being bombarded by volumes of data about consumer preferences. In theory, all of this information should make grouping users and creating relevant content easier, but that's not always the case. Generally, the more data added to a marketer's workflow, the more time required to make sense of the information and take action. Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence. The technology equips computers with the capacity to analyze and interpret data to proffer accurate predictions without the need for explicit programming.

We've entered an era in which marketeres are being bombarded by volumes of data about consumer preferences. In theory, all of this information should make grouping users and creating relevant content easier, but that's not always the case. Generally, the more data added to a marketer's workflow, the more time required to make sense of the information and take action. Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence. The technology equips computers with the capacity to analyze and interpret data to proffer accurate predictions without the need for explicit programming.

Unilever is using artificial intelligence to influence more of its marketing, from processing insights to finding influencers. The advertiser has 26 data centers across the globe where scientists are using AI to synthesize insights from a range of sources including social listening, CRM and traditional marketing research. Like other advertisers, Unilever hopes the investments fuel a move away from mass reach channels toward more personalized communications that are also cheaper to produce and localize at scale. Unilever has been using AI and machine learning to sort through structured data within a database for years, but it hasn't been able to do the same for unstructured data until recently. Unstructured data is qualitative, which makes gleaning insights from content such as text, audio, social media and mobile activity harder.