Encore: Hershey's vs Mars | A Chocolate Rolls Royce | 5

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s the late 1970s and Mars is America’s top confectioner. But Hershey is hungry for a comeback. It’s plotting a return to the top powered by a rush of new candies it hopes can nibble away at Mars’ market share.

Not that Mars has any intention of surrendering pole position without a fight. It thinks it can stop Hershey in its tracks by focusing exclusively on best-selling brands like Snickers, M&M’s and Milky Way.

But what neither company knows is that a tempting opportunity from Hollywood is about to disrupt the balance of power in candy land.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Business Wars Add Free on Amazon Music.
0:04.6	Download the app today.
0:06.6	Next year, Business Wars is going even bigger.
0:10.0	Starting January 5th, we'll be bringing you new, longer episodes every Wednesday with
0:14.8	even more inside stories on the most outrageous and intense corporate rivalries of all time.
0:21.1	This episode originally aired in 2019.
0:35.0	It's April 1976, and in a resort hotel nestled in Pennsylvania's Polkano Mountains, Hershey's
0:41.5	top executives are facing the biggest challenge yet in the company's history.
0:47.2	Two and a half years ago, Mars ousted Hershey as America's candy king.
0:51.7	The victory was no fluke.
0:54.3	Mars relentlessly focused on conquering the market and outmaneuvered the insular and
0:58.9	tradition-bound Hershey.
1:01.0	Now, Hershey's new CEO, Bill Deerden, wants to turn the tables.
1:06.6	The 53-year-old CEO stands before his team in a room overlooking a tranquil lake.
1:12.5	He owes everything to Hershey.
1:15.5	When he lost his mother at 13, his future looked bleak.
1:19.4	But then, he got a place at Hershey's School for Orphans.
1:23.3	Now, he wants to repay the Hershey chocolate company by leading it back to glory.
1:31.1	He scrolls the word strategy on a flip chart.
1:35.2	A strategy.
1:36.2	That's what we've always lacked, and it's what we need now.
1:40.0	I'm not expecting a change to happen overnight.
	...

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