overseas briefing Madrid helado Tastes Like Phish Food

Author: Reid Hansen

MADRID - As United States companies have advertisements along every major sidewalk in the city, American marketing in Madrid can't be missed. John McClane's bald head, frowning face and fingers wrapped around a nine milly celebrate the release of "La Jungla 4.0," better-known back home as "Live Free or Die Hard." Plaza Callao, which is full of cinemas, features an enormous image of the spy-hero from "La Ultim·tum de Bourne." Nike employs a Rafael Nadal billboard that looks like a page from an old-school X-Men comic and the gorgeous models of the California company Guess occupy an entire wall of Gran VÌa.

But with these advertisements for Hollywood action flicks and the most recent fashion, the familiar green hills, blue skies, bubbly clouds and fat cows of Vermont have their place in the streets of Madrid. Ben & Jerry's billboards appear in many central plazas of the city, often displaying the current slogan, "Mucho mas que helado," or "Much more than ice cream." Other B&J's advertisements highlight the tropezones, or the fruits, brownie, chocolate, cookie, coffee, toffee, marshmallows, pecan, popcorn, caramel, orange-flavored liquor and every other extra ingredient Ben & Jerry's has managed to mix into to their creations. And as the ingredients remain the same, so have the unforgettable names for each flavor. "Chunky Monkey" in America is "Chunky Monkey" in Spain. "Fornido Mono" wouldn't have the same appeal.

While walking past the famous Bank of Spain, the B&J's cows, placed on a street corner next to promotions for the 2016 Olympics in Madrid, surprised me. However, given the company's recent success with Unilever (also responsible for Vaseline petroleum jelly, Hellman's mayonaise and Axe body spray), Ben & Jerry's international acclaim shouldn't alarm anyone. In 2000, Unilever bought Ben & Jerry's for $326 million, leaving childhood buddies Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield hopeful for the spread of their "green" messages and sentimental about the growth of their business, which, according to the company's Web site, started with Cohen's long-ago job driving an ice cream truck. In 2002, Unilever announced the opening of 75 heladerÌas in Spain. In 2005, Ben & Jerry's served 50,000 free ice creams to Spanish fans (a Spanish Free Cone Day), and repeated the event again this past April.

I've lived in the northeast United States for fifteen years and even worked a bit at a dairy bar in Maine. And of course I've passed through the B&J's factory once or twice (something I'd highly recommend to anyone staying in Vermont for, say, four undergraduate years). Health Bar Crunch has always tasted a little like home. So it's strange to see our local countryside image of Ben & Jerry's reaching the big city, the global scale, from South Burlington to Madrid to Hong Kong. But I can't be selfish. Ben & Jerry's is makin' it out there in the wide-world, and I've just been in New England too long to notice.