• Ad Age, Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:47 AM

One of the first stories I assigned when I became national editor of Adweek in 1984 was a follow-up to one of the short ads that the New York Times used to run in agate type on the bottom of its front page. It read: "What's the dough boy afraid of?" As Gail Belsky subsequently reported, a small ice cream company in Vermont was charging Pillsbury with trying to block distribution of its boutique brand in order to protect its own investment in Häagen Daz. The campaign proved to be a master-stroke of an amateur PR effort that put Ben & Jerry's on the brand map.

The boys are still at it a quarter century later, it seems, though the Ben & Jerry's brand is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Unilever. Häagen-Dazs, meanwhile, is distributed by Dreyer's, which is mostly owned by Nestle, the world's largest food company. So it's still David vs. Goliath, I guess, though David is on steroids.

Emily Bryson York reports that Häagen-Dazs has decreased the size of its "pints" from 16 to 14 ounces to cover increased ingredient and manufacturing costs. On its Web site, Ben & Jerry's tweaks an unnamed competitor -- "think funny-sounding European name," as it puts it -- for "downsizing their pints." Particularly in these tough economic times, it proclaims, you, the [downtrodden] consumer, "deserve your full pint of ice cream."

Can't wait for Round III in 2034 .

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