That changed in , when a financial panic suddenly made advertising rates drop. Wrigley moved in for the kill, expanding his ad reach exponentially. Soon, his spearmint gum was the bestselling gum in the world. He kept product moving with promises of two things we might not see as particularly gum-related—claims of physical and mental health. Gum, Wrigley argued, could soothe not only nervous stomachs but stressed-out minds, making the product more patent medicine than candy. Despite popular perceptions that chewing gum was rude, Wrigley prevailed, convincing Americans that they were stressed and sick and providing them with a stick of respite.
JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. Privacy Policy Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. Detail from Charles Green Shaw's Wrigley's , By: Erin Blakemore. May 11, May 11, Share Tweet Email Print. He said he would prefer to invest in chewing gum than in one of Wall Street's struggling investment banks: "I understand a Wrigley or a Mars a whole lot better than I understand the balance sheet of some of the big banks.
I know what I'm getting on this and some of the large financial institutions, I really don't know what's there. Analysts suggested this morning that combining Mars and Wrigley's could leave Cadbury Schweppes with plenty to chew on. Cadbury is trying to break Wrigley's dominance with its own brand, Trident. Wrigley's was originally a maker of soap and baking soda in Chicago. Founded by William Wrigley Jr in , it offered customers free packs of chewing gum with every purchase - only to discover that the gum was actually more popular than the products it was promoting.
Spearmint gum went on sale in Britain in The company opened its first UK factory at Wembley in , and shifted production to Plymouth in This gave the company ownership of Altoids, the UK breath mint that was first created in the s. Did you find any mention of Spearmint on its outside walls?
People thought when I began to put this up that I would plaster my name all over it in letters big enough to be seen miles away. People talk more about it. As author S. Ironically, nearly a century later, the Wrigley Building stands in stark contrast to its new next-door neighbor on the north bank of the Chicago River, the Trump Tower—widely known, and derided locally, for its foot tall glowing name tag.
Wrigley was no less of a showman than Donald Trump in many respects, but he seemed to look at self-promotion more like a necessary engine of the larger machine, rather than a statement of conquest.
Once you stop stoking, the fire goes out. It was hard going for a while. Then I hit on the notion of offering the merchant the premium of an umbrella with every box of soap, raising the retail price to ten cents a cake and giving him at the same time a bigger margin of profit. It worked. From there, a comedic series of events unfolded in which each subsequent premium item that Wrigley offered ended up more popular than his main product.
First he switched from soap to baking powder, then—when customers loved the sticks of chewing gum he offered with the baking powder—he switched gears again: a billion dollar decision. He took enormous risks throwing piles of money at billboards and magazine advertising across the country.
This finally changed in , when Wrigley purchased Zeno outright and established the Wm. Wrigley Jr. The Wrigley Company had numerous other plants across the world, but that legendary factory at S. When the Ashland Avenue plant was finally shuttered in , it ended more than a century of Wrigley gum production in the Chicago city limits. After sitting empty for nearly a decade, the Ashland factory started undergoing demolition in Its new official corporate headquarters is located on Goose Island, known as the Global Innovation Center.
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