Encore: Hershey's vs Mars | Mars Attacks! | 4

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s 1965 and Forrest Mars has just become the manufacturer of Snickers and M&M’s. He is now – at last – ready to duke it out with Hershey in a battle to become the number one candy maker in America.

And he knows Hershey is far from prepared for his sudden switch from ally to enemy. Hershey is a company wedded to tradition. It has no marketing department, doesn’t advertise, and has a completely complacent sales team.

The question is: can Hershey shake off its docile ways in time to stop Forrest’s relentless advance?

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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.
0:27.6	This episode originally aired in 2019.
0:34.0	It's summer in 1965, and in the conference room inside the windowless headquarters of
0:38.4	the Hershey Chocolate Company, new CEO Harold Moller has news for his top team.
0:44.6	The executive stare at their stocky leader with his neat, contoured hair.
0:49.4	He looks worried.
0:51.3	I got a letter from Mars this morning that they're starting to make their own chocolate,
0:55.4	and will stop using ours over the next few years.
0:58.8	The executives are stunned.
1:01.3	Why would they do that?
1:02.3	That's crazy.
1:03.3	It'll be more expensive for them to make chocolate than to buy it for Mars.
1:07.5	Another executive nods in agreement.
1:09.5	It'll cost them what?
1:10.7	Around 20 million just to start production?
1:13.5	They will recoup that investment for years.
1:16.0	But what the Hershey team doesn't get is that Forest Mars isn't thinking about next year,
1:22.7	or even the next five.
	...

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