Hershey vs Mars - A Chocolate Rolls Royce | 5

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2019

⏱️ 25 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.
0:04.8	Download the app today.
0:07.0	It's April 1976, and in a resort hotel nestled in Pennsylvania's Polkano Mountains, Hershey's
0:22.0	top executives are facing the biggest challenge yet in the company's history.
0:27.8	Two and a half years ago, Mars ousted Hershey as America's candy king.
0:32.2	The victory was no fluke.
0:34.8	Mars relentlessly focused on conquering the market and outmaneuvered the insular and tradition
0:40.0	bound Hershey.
0:41.5	Now Hershey's new CEO, Bill Deerden, wants to turn the tables.
0:47.2	The 53-year-old CEO stands before his team in a room overlooking a tranquil lake.
0:53.0	He owes everything to Hershey.
0:56.0	When he lost his mother at 13, his future looked bleak.
1:00.0	But then, he got a place at Hershey's School for Orphans.
1:03.8	Now, he wants to repay the Hershey chocolate company by leading it back to glory.
1:11.7	He scrolls the word strategy on a flip chart.
1:15.7	A strategy.
1:16.7	That's what we've always lacked, and it's what we need now.
1:20.6	I'm not expecting a change to happen overnight.
1:23.5	What we're doing here is building a Ford Model T. A Ford Model T that will one day become
1:30.6	a Rolls Royce.
1:33.4	Over the next few hours, Deerden and the team hammer out a comeback plan.
1:38.2	They'll restart advertising after a five-year hiatus.
	...

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