Mars, Inc., every mention

Mars Inc. - The Chocolate Story (Audio) · Acquired Dec 16, 2024 · 40 mentions

• ▶ 3:13:21 Ben Gilbert They are raising some outside capital for that, not just using their cash.
• ▶ 3:19:21 Ben Gilbert It might be technically true in that they don't take margin because of their, but they have to deploy their brand power in another way, in the same way that Mars, I don't think, charges more for a Snickers than a different candy bar.
• ▶ 3:19:36 Ben Gilbert Mars doesn't take price in the form of brand, but they do something else.
• ▶ 3:20:23 Ben Gilbert So by that definition, they absolutely have branding.
• ▶ 3:20:48 David Rosenthal I think Mars has always had the best technology and the best equipment and the best resources.
• ▶ 3:23:30 Ben Gilbert Mars was not down to do that with the M&M's characters, and passed on the opportunity.
• ▶ 3:26:17 Ben Gilbert And let's flip back to the Mars side of the world.
• ▶ 3:26:20 Ben Gilbert The associations that they have leaned into with the brands that people love, it's a very Disney-like playbook.
• ▶ 3:26:29 Ben Gilbert In fact, they operate a M&M's store in Disney World or in Disneyland.
• ▶ 3:26:36 Ben Gilbert But they associate with the holidays.
• ▶ 3:26:37 Ben Gilbert They've got that commercial where the two M&M's characters come in the house.
• ▶ 3:26:48 Ben Gilbert They've run it every year for 20 years or something.
• ▶ 3:26:54 Ben Gilbert The Rolling Stones they've associated with for Snickers.
• ▶ 3:26:57 Ben Gilbert They had the I Can't Get No Satisfaction ad.
• ▶ 3:27:08 Ben Gilbert I mean, they find ways to associate with national or global premier brands that everyone loves, that you have nostalgia for.
• ▶ 3:27:34 Ben Gilbert It's been a strategy for Mars to chase known, loved, universal brands.
• ▶ 3:27:41 David Rosenthal Well, sounds like we've learned a lot here at Acquired from the Mars playbook.
• ▶ 3:27:48 Ben Gilbert Another one, just like the innovation on commercials, think about how long they've had those computer-generated M&M's characters.
• ▶ 3:28:07 Ben Gilbert Within one year, they were running commercials with those characters.
• ▶ 3:28:13 Ben Gilbert They know how to
• ▶ 3:28:19 Ben Gilbert In some ways, it's actually shocking that they missed ET, given how good they've been in all these other facets.
• ▶ 3:28:25 Ben Gilbert And ultimately, the ET thing's a fun story, but did missing it really hurt them?
• ▶ 3:28:32 Ben Gilbert My last one around this is, in this sort of marketing world, do you remember in 1995 when they said they were gonna do away with the tan M&Ms?
• ▶ 3:28:55 Ben Gilbert They needed to spice it up because basically it was boring, and does it cost them anything, or does it have any impact on their business if they change the color of one to something else?
• ▶ 3:29:04 Ben Gilbert Do they actually care what it is?
• ▶ 3:29:05 Ben Gilbert But they got millions and millions of Americans who
• ▶ 3:29:20 Ben Gilbert So they're giving everyone this, like, vested interest in what the new color is.
• ▶ 3:29:27 Ben Gilbert They lit up the Empire State Building after announcing it was blue with blue.
• ▶ 3:29:47 David Rosenthal I'm sure you read, too, Mars is constantly rebalancing the ratios of colors in M&M bags to suit current tastes.
• ▶ 3:32:13 David Rosenthal There are a couple things about chocolate that I want to talk about that are more general than specific to Mars.
• ▶ 3:32:29 David Rosenthal Part of that is marketing, and part of that is a hundred years of Mars marketing and Hershey's marketing and all that, but really, really, when you were describing the production process of chocolate earlier in the episode, like, it is one…
• ▶ 3:35:37 David Rosenthal This is like a existential, super, super important focus of Mars and the entire chocolate industry.
• ▶ 3:36:26 Ben Gilbert Mars always has been a diversified conglomerate, and they actually look a lot like LVMH in that they aren't a private equity firm, they're a buy and hold.
• ▶ 3:36:36 Ben Gilbert I think they've made 30 acquisitions since the nineties, and they've only sold two things since 2015.
• ▶ 3:36:47 David Rosenthal They also don't rebrand things.
• ▶ 3:37:04 Ben Gilbert If you look at them over the last hundred years, they have grown revenue at a compound annual growth rate of 14% for a century.
• ▶ 3:38:22 David Rosenthal And because the company is so private, like, nobody knows about him, you know, like, but he should be right up there
• ▶ 3:39:08 David Rosenthal So, with the caveat that those companies and ones like them probably also fit this bill, I think Mars is one of the first modern companies.
• ▶ 3:42:54 David Rosenthal I mean, we debated when we first set out to do this episode whether it should be about Mars or Hershey.
• ▶ 3:43:01 David Rosenthal We ultimately decided Mars because these days it's the bigger and more important company.