Speaker 1: Welcome to Business on the Brink, a production from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and How Stuff Works. It was the early
Speaker 1: eighties and a successful young filmmaker named Stephen Spielberg was
Speaker 1: looking for something sweet. He wanted to make a squat, gray,
Speaker 1: wrinkled alien lovable, and part of that hinged on the
Speaker 1: critter developing a taste for candy. His first choice was Eminem's,
Speaker 1: but when asked about it, the Mars Candy Company told
Speaker 1: Spielberg to phone home. He'd have to go with choice
Speaker 1: number two. This is Reese's on Business on the Brink.
Speaker 1: Hey there, I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Ariel Castin, and
Speaker 1: welcome to our spooky Halloween episode us. It was an
Speaker 1: episode requested by my co worker Ramsey, who wanted us
Speaker 1: just to talk about Reese's pieces. However, before we get
Speaker 1: into that, you know we're gonna have a lot of
Speaker 1: fun with this episode. And spoiler alert, we actually already
Speaker 1: recorded the whole thing, but in retrospect, we figured we
Speaker 1: really can't talk about this without addressing something that's much
Speaker 1: more serious. So we wanted to get that clear up front,
Speaker 1: which is that the candy industry a lot of companies
Speaker 1: that get chocolate are dependent upon extremely terrible, awful, inhumane practices,
Speaker 1: largely involving child labor and even child slavery, and there
Speaker 1: have been uh regulations and kind of deadlines put into
Speaker 1: place to make chocolate companies fix that. But they're having
Speaker 1: a hard time, they say, because they don't know where
Speaker 1: a lot of their chocolate is actually sourced, which seems
Speaker 1: pretty corporate, irresponsibly yeah type of thing going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is something you may have heard of, the
Speaker 1: phrase fair trade chocolate. That's you know, obviously, that's chocolate
Speaker 1: that's been sourced to a place that does not engage
Speaker 1: in these practices. But Hersh's which supplies the chocolate actually
Speaker 1: now Reese's as part of her She's you'll hear all
Speaker 1: about that. Uh, But Hershey's, which has always supplied the
Speaker 1: chocolate for the Reese's Peanut buttercups, is one of those companies,
Speaker 1: and so we wanted to make sure we acknowledged that
Speaker 1: before we go on to the zany fun of the episode,
Speaker 1: which I know is a big tonal shift, but and
Speaker 1: after we recorded it, we realized we really needed to
Speaker 1: to address that because it's it's something that we think
Speaker 1: is extremely important that people know. Yes. Yeah, So now
Speaker 1: that we've got that, we're going to rejoin Jonathan and
Speaker 1: Ariel from the past, who already recorded the episode that's
Speaker 1: extra spook. Yeah, welcome to our spooky Halloween episode. We
Speaker 1: were trying to come up with a topic that would
Speaker 1: be suitable for Halloween, and while chatting with my coworker Ramsey,
Speaker 1: he said, you should do an episode about Reese's pieces
Speaker 1: and how they ended up in et when everyone supposed
Speaker 1: to be a a Yeah, but you know what, Ramsey, there's
Speaker 1: not enough information on Reesa's pieces. Also a lot of
Speaker 1: people know that story, but we're gonna include it anyway.
Speaker 1: But more importantly, Ramsey's awesome. His suggestion was awesome. It
Speaker 1: is awesome, Thank you, Ramsey, and it led us on
Speaker 1: this wonderful trail to the business history of Reese's in general,
Speaker 1: which is pretty fantastic. Well, and it's it's funny because
Speaker 1: it's a history that was largely ignored starting in the
Speaker 1: late seventies because of the company that would take over races.
Speaker 1: Because well, we'll get there. I don't get that, we'll
Speaker 1: get no spoilers jumping way ahead, Jimmy way, all right,
Speaker 1: So let's start with that history, and it all begins
Speaker 1: with the founder of the company. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: you might occasionally here in this episode a little crinkly
Speaker 1: noises because Ariel and I each have a Reese's Peanut
Speaker 1: butter cup, a manager one, the kind you would get
Speaker 1: at Halloween. It is so hard not to eat it
Speaker 1: at this very second, I know I'm trying to hold
Speaker 1: off myself. Okay, so start with the history. Harry Burnett
Speaker 1: Reese is who we can thank for the Reese's Peanut
Speaker 1: butter cup. He actually I have in my notes. He
Speaker 1: had aspirations of becoming a real life Willy Wonka forty
Speaker 1: years before Dahl would write that book. That's being a
Speaker 1: little tongue in cheek facetious. But he was born in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania in eighteen seventy nine and by the year nine
Speaker 1: he had married a woman named Blanche Edna Hyson, and
Speaker 1: he started working as a farmer on the family farm
Speaker 1: at Frosty Hill, which is near Muddy Creek Forks. Then
Speaker 1: in my notes, I wrote, this makes me think that
Speaker 1: this isn't one of the best spots in Pennsylvania based
Speaker 1: on the name. I mean, if it's Frosty then the
Speaker 1: mud is probably not like squishy, So bring Muddy Hill.
Speaker 1: That's where my farm is. And he would end up
Speaker 1: working several different jobs in his young adulthood, and he
Speaker 1: was like, he got a reputation for picking up and
Speaker 1: moving with his whole family multiple times in order to
Speaker 1: pursue these opportunities. Eventually, he and his wife and now children,
Speaker 1: of which he would ultimately have several sixteen intervals, would
Speaker 1: settle in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which I've been to. Have you
Speaker 1: been to Hershey? I have not. I have been to Pittsburgh. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, so my wife's from Pennsylvania and we've
Speaker 1: been to Hershey several times. It's also where the Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: Renaissance Festival takes place. I hear. That's fantastic is and
Speaker 1: Hershey is obviously a monument to chocolate. Even back then,
Speaker 1: Hershey's the the Chocolate Company was a thing. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's that's not where Reese started in Hershey. He started
Speaker 1: working at a dairy farm called the Round Barn in
Speaker 1: like nineteen sixteen. But here's the thing, Round Barn owned
Speaker 1: by Hershey. So yeah, he technically he was, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't working straightly strictly for the chocolate tier. He was
Speaker 1: working for the dairy farm. Yes, so he worked there
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, but then Hershey's, in a
Speaker 1: cost saving measure, closed that dairy farm in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: and so then Rees's went over to try and do
Speaker 1: some other stuff, including create his own candy company. Now
Speaker 1: that initial attempt was the R and R Candy Company,
Speaker 1: and he was largely basing his his recipes off of
Speaker 1: his mother's recipes, and they included things like chocolate covered
Speaker 1: almonds and chocolate covered raisins, taking the things that kids
Speaker 1: don't want to eat at Halloween and dipping them in chocolate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, it did not end up becoming a huge success.
Speaker 1: And I mean even at the time, like Hershey's was
Speaker 1: already a dominant player in pocolate. We'll have to do
Speaker 1: a full episode on Hershe's at some point. But when
Speaker 1: you think of her She's, you think of hershey Bars,
Speaker 1: and he's focusing it looks like on little I Can't
Speaker 1: held candies. Yeah, he's looking for the stuff that would
Speaker 1: be sold in like the big barrels at a general store.
Speaker 1: Because this is also before you know grocery stores and
Speaker 1: department stores are really a thing. Yeah, so our in
Speaker 1: our candy company didn't do well, and so he rebranded.
Speaker 1: He called the new company the Superior Chocolate and Confectionery Company,
Speaker 1: which is superior to our and R Candy I suppose yep.
Speaker 1: He tried to sell some stock in order to fund
Speaker 1: this business, but this also did not take off, and
Speaker 1: pretty soon he was closing the doors on that one,
Speaker 1: and not too long after that he would go back
Speaker 1: and work for her She's again, this time in the
Speaker 1: shipping department, which where he was sneaking little chocolate covered
Speaker 1: raisins into everybody's packages with a little note saying, if
Speaker 1: you want more of these, cover Superior. Now. He did
Speaker 1: not find the particularly engaging or interesting, but it was
Speaker 1: paying the bills, and in the meantime, he continued to
Speaker 1: create different recipes for his own candy, working out of
Speaker 1: his basement's um hygienic basement candy. Well, here's the thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I will eat basement candy, maybe everything but
Speaker 1: bathroom candy. Okay, that's fair. Well, you know why he
Speaker 1: was making his basement. It's because this is before air conditioning,
Speaker 1: so the temperature would get too warm, especially during the
Speaker 1: summer months. Like in summer they couldn't make chocolate at
Speaker 1: all because the temperature would be so warm they could
Speaker 1: never get the candy to set properly. It would always
Speaker 1: be that kind of sweaty, melty stuff. So the basement
Speaker 1: was the coolest room to work in, so you could
Speaker 1: heat up the chocolate, mold it, and let it cool
Speaker 1: and set there. So that's why he set up down there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think it's really cool that some of the
Speaker 1: candy was he named after his kids, yes, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And not only that, but it was the successful stuff
Speaker 1: that he was making. Yeah, so that this is what
Speaker 1: would actually help establish him and convince him to make
Speaker 1: a real go of it. Yet again, So do you
Speaker 1: know the name of the candy bars? Well, I do, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: because it's right here in our nose and frost. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's not. Don't peel back the curtain too far. I'm sorry. Okay, No,
Speaker 1: there's the Lizzie Bar, which was carmel and coconut covered
Speaker 1: in chocolate. Sign me up. You know. I first read
Speaker 1: it and I was like, m hmm, but I could
Speaker 1: totally see mixing a Snickers in an almond in a
Speaker 1: mound's bar, and I'd be happy, and I love coconuts
Speaker 1: so much together with the caramel took me by surprise
Speaker 1: for a little bit. And the other one was the
Speaker 1: Johnny Bar, which is made from alasses. So I guess
Speaker 1: similar to a sugar daddy, maybe, yeah, kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: And so he had sixteen kids that I mentioned in total,
Speaker 1: eight boys and eight girls. They tragically not all of
Speaker 1: them would live to adulthood, but you know, he had
Speaker 1: had so many kids, and every single history has a
Speaker 1: similar joke about how the chocolate business was necessity because
Speaker 1: of his large family. And uh, they had a great
Speaker 1: advertising slogan that would come a little bit later down
Speaker 1: the road, but I wanted to include it now. Arial
Speaker 1: could you please deliver that slogan sixteen good reasons to
Speaker 1: buy Reese's. Yep, they would have a picture of all
Speaker 1: the kids lined up, so essentially saying exactly, buy candy
Speaker 1: so we can feed these children. So, uh, this was
Speaker 1: enough for him to be convinced to give another go
Speaker 1: about actually starting a candy company of his own, because
Speaker 1: these these chocolate bars named after his kids were starting
Speaker 1: to see some success. And so once again he quit
Speaker 1: his job at Hershey's and he founded the H. B.
Speaker 1: Reese Candy Company in nineteen twenty three. And you know,
Speaker 1: he was already selling candy at this point and that
Speaker 1: was enough for him to actually make a living. So
Speaker 1: now he was just creating the company to make that
Speaker 1: his full time gig. Yeah. And the candies he was
Speaker 1: making around the time where things like peppermint creams, encoded
Speaker 1: dates and things like that still in the raisins and
Speaker 1: almonds arena, and he, as you said he was, he
Speaker 1: was trying to sell them in like the general stores
Speaker 1: and the barrels. So he sold them on consignment to
Speaker 1: local shops in Pennsylvania. And he had made enough money
Speaker 1: to build a new house, probably because he ruined his
Speaker 1: basement and his old one. That's an assumption by me, Ariel,
Speaker 1: but I'm sticking to it. And also enough money to
Speaker 1: build a factory. Yes, So now he's like hiring people
Speaker 1: he's making he's making these candies in uh, in larger amounts.
Speaker 1: And by hiring people, um, I think you can imagine
Speaker 1: what much of his workforce was made up of his children,
Speaker 1: which is almost the same thing that I don't know
Speaker 1: if they would sing songs about, you know, being greedy
Speaker 1: or chewing gum all the time, but they definitely would
Speaker 1: work for him quite a bit. We'll get back to
Speaker 1: the family issues a bit later. So in ninete, Reese
Speaker 1: happened to fall into a conversation with a local shop
Speaker 1: owner who was telling Reese, you know, my customers really
Speaker 1: like these peanut butter cups that this other candy company,
Speaker 1: this other candy maker is making. In your face, Reese, yeah,
Speaker 1: so so peanut butter cups. Chocolate covered peanut butter cups
Speaker 1: were already a thing. Okay, Reese had never made them,
Speaker 1: but they were they were a known quantity. So Reese
Speaker 1: did not invent the peanut butter cup um. And but
Speaker 1: he was being told by the shop owner, the problem is,
Speaker 1: this candy maker can't make enough of these peanut butter
Speaker 1: these chocolate covered peanut butter cups to meet the demand
Speaker 1: my customers have. They are always asking for them. So
Speaker 1: do you think you could make some? And Reese wasn't
Speaker 1: super crazy about this, just he didn't that was not
Speaker 1: what he was really interested in doing. But he thought, well,
Speaker 1: there's a demand, I should definitely try to meet that.
Speaker 1: So he got to work and um, he started roasting
Speaker 1: his own peanuts, which for a long time was like
Speaker 1: the thing that Reese's would say, set their peanut butter
Speaker 1: cups apart from everyone else's. Yeah, but that's because he
Speaker 1: almost burned his peanuts. Yeah. Apparently, according to the histories,
Speaker 1: there was a malfunction in the roasting equipment which over
Speaker 1: roasted the peanuts almost to the point of burning them,
Speaker 1: and then he ended up turning it into peanut butter anyway,
Speaker 1: and it was a happy mistake because it produced a
Speaker 1: peanut butter that people found particularly tasty. Yeah, but imagine
Speaker 1: when you're trying to cook peanuts to a certain level
Speaker 1: and then you overcook him, and now you have to
Speaker 1: overcook him that exact amount every time to keep your
Speaker 1: to maintain like a standard. Yeah. I ad meant that
Speaker 1: once he fixed that roaster, he had to figure out
Speaker 1: how to replicate the effect with a roaster that was
Speaker 1: actually working properly. And then he covered the burnt peanut
Speaker 1: butter in Hershey's chocolate. Yes, And this would be something
Speaker 1: that is an interesting, interesting kind of sympatico relationship because
Speaker 1: throughout his career Reese would use chocolate from Hershey's. He
Speaker 1: would purchase the chocolate from Hershey's, and Hershey's would send
Speaker 1: him the chocolate needed. He and her She had a
Speaker 1: good working relationship. It's it's not uncommon for confectioners to
Speaker 1: outsource their chocolate from other people. Yeah, and so this
Speaker 1: was one of those cases where, uh, this was not
Speaker 1: even a rivalry so much as it was like like
Speaker 1: just two different companies doing business in the same area.
Speaker 1: But they both realized there was enough room. Plus, I mean,
Speaker 1: Hershey's was operating at a level far beyond what Reese
Speaker 1: was doing at this point. So then he introduces the
Speaker 1: peanut butter cup. That's not what they were called originally. No,
Speaker 1: they were called penny cups. That's how much they cost,
Speaker 1: one penny a cup. That's also that's also the same.
Speaker 1: It's a good exchange rate. When you said one one
Speaker 1: one cup of penny, or however you said it, I
Speaker 1: just pictured someone like throwing pennies into a cup. That's
Speaker 1: fair enough. That's fair enough, which you weren't incorrect. My
Speaker 1: brain just went weird anyhow. Sorry. We actually have the
Speaker 1: date that they debuted too. It was November. Are you certain,
Speaker 1: because oftentimes dates are shaky, I mean sure enough to
Speaker 1: put it into the notes that's super awesome. To be fair, yes,
Speaker 1: the histories state November fift it could give or take
Speaker 1: five years, but for once, we're not getting so many
Speaker 1: conflicting reports on the date, so it's it's pretty spectacular.
Speaker 1: So he originally sold these peanut butter cups in bulk
Speaker 1: mixed up with all of his other candies in five
Speaker 1: pound bags. But you know what, people like the peanut
Speaker 1: butter cups better than the chocolate covered dates, and so
Speaker 1: again Reese was not super thrilled with that. He he
Speaker 1: was not a fan of the peanut butter cups, but
Speaker 1: you got to give the people what they want. So
Speaker 1: he would continue to make them, and eventually it would
Speaker 1: take a couple of years, but eventually it got to
Speaker 1: the point where he could make them solely on their
Speaker 1: own and sell those as a separate item as opposed
Speaker 1: to being one item in a five pound bag of
Speaker 1: bulk candy. So they got popular enough where they could
Speaker 1: stand out as a single item, which was unusual at
Speaker 1: the time. And then we get to a brink moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was a bring moment that was not unique
Speaker 1: to Reese's. It was not something go ahead and unwrap
Speaker 1: that candy I'm gonna I'm not gonna eat it. I'm
Speaker 1: just unwrapping it. Okay, that's fair. She really, she literally is.
Speaker 1: That's not that's not us doing sound effects. She really
Speaker 1: did just do that anyway. So this bring moment was
Speaker 1: a bring moment that happened to the entire world. This
Speaker 1: is not something that was unique to Reese's and not
Speaker 1: a moment would be if you're keeping track of what year.
Speaker 1: It is the Great Depression, and it was almost enough
Speaker 1: to bring the story to an end, and then we
Speaker 1: would have two segments of nothing. But we've got a
Speaker 1: little more to explain right after this break. So the
Speaker 1: Great Depression hit, you are right of their areal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm your started before I'm done with this peanut butter. Okay,
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to eat it, but um, it smelled
Speaker 1: really peanut butter and good. I can taste those burnt peanuts. Okay,
Speaker 1: I need another one, Well, this one's mine. Originally, guys,
Speaker 1: I wanted to just bring this giant bag of rees
Speaker 1: peanut butter cups and see how many I could eat
Speaker 1: throughout the episode episode. But I'm sparing you all of
Speaker 1: that smacking noise. If you want to take that challenge
Speaker 1: on yourselves. Please do let us know how many you ate. Yes,
Speaker 1: you can, but don't tell us how much you threw up.
Speaker 1: Ariel will keep it tally and then as a reward,
Speaker 1: will name whoever ate the most of the end. But
Speaker 1: be honest. All right, we don't want you saying I
Speaker 1: ate a thousand Reese's peanut butter it cups No, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get back to the story. The Great Depression really
Speaker 1: hit Reese very hard, and he was so short on
Speaker 1: cash that, according to the stories, he got to the
Speaker 1: point where he wasn't able to pay his employees in money,
Speaker 1: so he paid them in candies. I mean I would
Speaker 1: be happy, I mean, but his employees were his kids, right.
Speaker 1: Well know, yeah, that's that's you know, fun in theory,
Speaker 1: but not very practical. Yeah, you can't pay your rent
Speaker 1: in candy most of the time, and his employees complained
Speaker 1: in The sheriff even came after him, and he went
Speaker 1: into hiding. And yes, he kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: the Ozarks. Yeah, he ran off to hide at his
Speaker 1: old family farm while the sheriff was looking for him.
Speaker 1: So things were pretty grim, and he decided that in
Speaker 1: order to to make it through the hard times that
Speaker 1: he actually would go back to farming, especially in the
Speaker 1: summer months, because again it was too warm to make
Speaker 1: the candy, So he ended up putting his workers to
Speaker 1: work doing stuff like canning vegetables, So people who had
Speaker 1: been making chocolates were now canning, Like, maybe they'd make
Speaker 1: those canned lama beans taste better. I like chocolate. I
Speaker 1: would eat those. He also would end up in order
Speaker 1: to keep his business afloat, and he secured several loans
Speaker 1: to make sure everything was in operation. Now. Obviously, that
Speaker 1: in itself meant that he was taking on a big
Speaker 1: risk because now he had debt he needed to pay
Speaker 1: off in addition to just making sure that he could
Speaker 1: make ends meet, you know, day to day. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: here's the thing, people still really liked his peanut butter cups.
Speaker 1: I guess they brought him a little bit of joy
Speaker 1: in the midst of all this financial turmoil. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where it was a luxury
Speaker 1: that people were willing to pay for on occasion, and
Speaker 1: it was relatively affordable. Yeah, it wasn't like it was
Speaker 1: super expensive. So the peanut butter cups were incredibly popular
Speaker 1: and kept him in business. And by n five, because
Speaker 1: of that popularity, he had actually made enough money to
Speaker 1: pay off all that debt. So it was only a
Speaker 1: few years that he had this debt over him, and
Speaker 1: then literally the peanut butter cup was what allowed him
Speaker 1: to to get out from under it. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know what, he still couldn't give up on those chocolate
Speaker 1: covered dates, not for a while until World War te
Speaker 1: was stubborn. Yes, so the Great Depression kept all of
Speaker 1: his other like he was still making other types of candies.
Speaker 1: But the World War Two was a different story because
Speaker 1: during World War Two the United States government put strict
Speaker 1: rationing on a lot of different staples, sugar exactly, and
Speaker 1: so with sugar under this rationing, Reese was not going
Speaker 1: to be able to make enough of the candies. However,
Speaker 1: one thing that wasn't rationed was peanut butter, so that man,
Speaker 1: he had plenty of peanut butter, and he could still
Speaker 1: buy chocolate from Hershey's. Her she was still agreeing to
Speaker 1: sell Reese chocolate, so that meant he could still make
Speaker 1: the peanut butter cup. And ultimately he said, all right, well,
Speaker 1: the only thing that makes sense is to just make
Speaker 1: peanut butter cups, and it was a good decision. It
Speaker 1: kept him in business. So he keeps on churning these
Speaker 1: things out, and at this point he has um really
Speaker 1: focused specifically on just making peanut butter cups. By the
Speaker 1: mid nineteen fifties, UM it had gotten to the point
Speaker 1: where they were going to need to expand again. They
Speaker 1: were going to need to build essentially a new factory
Speaker 1: that they had outgrown their old one, and UM they
Speaker 1: decided that they were going to actually build this thing
Speaker 1: and it was scheduled to open in nineteen fifty seven
Speaker 1: like that. That was kind of the target of when
Speaker 1: this would come online. But HB. Reese himself would not
Speaker 1: live to see that come to pass. He would pass
Speaker 1: away on May sixteenth, nineteen fifties, six one year before
Speaker 1: the new facility would come online. Man, that's really sad.
Speaker 1: But what's even sadder is the fact that he left
Speaker 1: his company to his sons. He excluded his daughters from
Speaker 1: his will, from his will, and then his not all
Speaker 1: of his sons all I guess eight of them, six
Speaker 1: of them, six of them, six of them at that
Speaker 1: point wanted the company. So there was all of this
Speaker 1: in fighting on whether they should sell it or keep it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the sons didn't all get along with each other, and
Speaker 1: yet because of the will, they were each named two
Speaker 1: different positions of authority in the in the company. So
Speaker 1: get six people who don't like each other and then
Speaker 1: tell them they have to lead a company together. You
Speaker 1: can imagine that's not gonna smoothly. So yeah, there was
Speaker 1: this whole thing about who, whether they should keep the company,
Speaker 1: whether they should sell the company. They had built the
Speaker 1: manufacturing facility. This was an interesting thing too, because it
Speaker 1: shows how how Reese's was interesting in its marketing. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know they had done this sixteen good reasons to
Speaker 1: buy a resas. They had gone from marketing Reese's as
Speaker 1: being sort of a hand dipped candy to now that
Speaker 1: they have the new manufacturing facility saying untouched by human hands,
Speaker 1: which also makes me think of Willy Wonka, which kind
Speaker 1: of makes it go from like a little home good
Speaker 1: field to a super technical candy of the future field. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: by the time the nineteen sixties rolled around, it was
Speaker 1: pretty obvious that her that Reese's sons were not going
Speaker 1: to be running the company forever, at least not all
Speaker 1: of them, and so this because some of them were
Speaker 1: looking around at the possibility of selling the company off.
Speaker 1: They looked specifically to her She because and her She
Speaker 1: and her She had heard about it. Yeah, and her
Speaker 1: She already had a stake in this candy. Yes, so
Speaker 1: the company her She takes a look and says, all right, well,
Speaker 1: will make you an offer. And this ended up being
Speaker 1: a big point of argument amongst the Suns, And then
Speaker 1: eventually they came to an agreement and they decided to
Speaker 1: sell to her She's um and and the ones who
Speaker 1: wanted to stay with the company became employees of her She's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of the men joined the board of directors for
Speaker 1: Her She's, and then the others kind of went their
Speaker 1: own way, and it would become one of the best
Speaker 1: selling candies out of Hershey's. That's because it's delicious, y'all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna skip ahead a bit in the story,
Speaker 1: because I mean, ultimately the story is like, and they
Speaker 1: kept making recus peanut butter cups, and people kept buying them,
Speaker 1: and they kept eating them, and then they kept making
Speaker 1: them and c even years pass and now we get
Speaker 1: a very famous ad campaign which I remember from my childhood,
Speaker 1: because it was still going when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: But we're into the nineteen seventies now, and this was
Speaker 1: a campaign that would ruffle some feathers among people who
Speaker 1: knew Reese and who were familiar with the history of Rees's.
Speaker 1: There was a guy named billings fuse, A a who
Speaker 1: was a director at an ad firm that said, all right,
Speaker 1: we're going to do an ad campaign where people are
Speaker 1: going to accidentally create the combination of chocolate and peanut butter.
Speaker 1: According to him, he was saying, people just aren't convinced
Speaker 1: that chocolate and peanut butter is a good combination. Is crazy.
Speaker 1: The whole reason that Reese started making them is because
Speaker 1: the candy was selling out. Yeah, there was a demand,
Speaker 1: and it had been in demand for for like four decades,
Speaker 1: and they it was it was an obviously successful candy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was one of her She's best sellers too.
Speaker 1: But for the basis of this ad campaign, they wanted
Speaker 1: it to look like Hershey's had come up with this
Speaker 1: brand new idea almost by accident. You just accidentally got
Speaker 1: peanut butter and chocolate colliding together. Yes, And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what the ad campaign was. It would be. It would
Speaker 1: be all these different scenarios where someone's carrying like a
Speaker 1: chocolate bar and someone else has got, like, you know,
Speaker 1: a spoon of peanut butter as you normally would, and
Speaker 1: then through happenstance, the to collide and you get some
Speaker 1: variation of Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate,
Speaker 1: Hey you got chocolate peanut butter, And they try and
Speaker 1: they're like, say, chocolate and peanut butter. Who knew everybody? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing everybody knew. I mean, I do have
Speaker 1: friends who do not like chocolate peanut butter together, but
Speaker 1: I have former friends who do not like chocolate. I
Speaker 1: respect them. I don't understand it. It's okay if you
Speaker 1: don't like peanut butter and chocolate together, we still love you, yea.
Speaker 1: So maybe you could argue that this was their first
Speaker 1: national ad campaign for Reese's peanut buttercups, really is the
Speaker 1: first national ad campaign for Hershe's in general. So you
Speaker 1: maybe you could argue that these particular chocolate covered peanut
Speaker 1: butter cups were mostly known in the Northeast and the
Speaker 1: regions around that where Hershey's was shipping this stuff, and
Speaker 1: that maybe nationwide, it wasn't as big a deal, but
Speaker 1: this changed that because whether you agreed with the ad
Speaker 1: campaign or not, whether or not you were upset that
Speaker 1: Hersy's was effectively erasing the history of this peanut butter
Speaker 1: cup and therefore also of HB. Reese. The campaign was
Speaker 1: a success and sales skyrocketed. Yes, okay, now we're going
Speaker 1: to skip ahead to and her She's was working with
Speaker 1: a peanut butter powder. Yes, this was different than the
Speaker 1: peanut butter in the cups. Yes, they took all the
Speaker 1: oil out of it. Yes, it's dry. Yes, And that
Speaker 1: way they could mold it into shapes and use it
Speaker 1: as baking chips and things like that. And then they
Speaker 1: could cover it. And I was going to steal that
Speaker 1: from and I'm jealous, so he would cover it. They'd
Speaker 1: cover it in candy coating. And they had these powdered
Speaker 1: peanut butter candy coated things that they needed to market
Speaker 1: to push. You know what, we're gonna get back into that.
Speaker 1: I need to take a break and fund another peanut buttercup.
Speaker 1: I'm going to lick the paper. So this peanut butter
Speaker 1: flavored powder that Hershey's had created had the consistency similar
Speaker 1: to chocolate. So again, it's not the same stuff that
Speaker 1: was in a Reese's peanut butter. You can say that again.
Speaker 1: And it was it was meant to be used in
Speaker 1: stuff like baking chips. Yeah, where you don't want the
Speaker 1: oil because it will ruin the consistency of your batter exactly.
Speaker 1: Aerial is by the way, in case you do not know,
Speaker 1: this an incredible baker. I've only been able to sample
Speaker 1: the stuff she's baked on a couple of occasions. It's
Speaker 1: always phenomenal. I need to make some of my peanut
Speaker 1: butter shortbread cookies. Yes, you do. So they introduced this
Speaker 1: this candy coated peanut butter powder stuff in and um
Speaker 1: they had already introduced a candy coated like chocolate years before.
Speaker 1: But Eminem's had that market sewn up, so her she
Speaker 1: has gotten out of that, which is of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in this case, they're like, well, this is different
Speaker 1: because it's peanut butter, it's not chocolate. And they needed
Speaker 1: a name for it, so they settled on the amazing
Speaker 1: name Pebs. Pebs did not did not really strike anyone
Speaker 1: as interesting. Um, As I mentioned, they had already had
Speaker 1: a previous candy coated chocolate that was called the Hershey
Speaker 1: Ets as a great name. Yeah, And then they realized
Speaker 1: that there was a problem with the name Pebs. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't that Pebs was not capturing the imagination. Skippy
Speaker 1: has a peebe bites sort of product right now. The
Speaker 1: problem that they read into was peb Ease would be
Speaker 1: very hard for them to trademark. Yeah, So they needed
Speaker 1: to come up with a different name so that they
Speaker 1: could trade market and make sure that they protected their
Speaker 1: their intellectual property. Yea. So they called them Reese's Pieces,
Speaker 1: which I just want to say is a huge misnomer
Speaker 1: because if you go to eat a Reese's Pieces expecting
Speaker 1: the same wonderful flavor you get from a Reese's peanut
Speaker 1: butter cup, You're going to be sorely disappointed. It is
Speaker 1: a very different experience. It doesn't have that salty, mommy
Speaker 1: peanut butter flavor. Yeah, and you're missing the oil too,
Speaker 1: which does make a difference now and all of the chocolate.
Speaker 1: There's no chocolate in Reese's Pieces, But also beyond that,
Speaker 1: there's literally no connection to Reese's right, Like it wasn't
Speaker 1: made by Reese. This was not This was not a
Speaker 1: peanut butter powder that here. It has none of the
Speaker 1: same ingredients. Really, yeah, woman, he's got peanuts, but but
Speaker 1: not like the peanut butter exactly. So it's this is
Speaker 1: where they ended up using Ee's name as a brand
Speaker 1: of its own, rather than there's no connection to the
Speaker 1: man Reese. But then, to be fair, this isn't really fair,
Speaker 1: but to to illustrate why Hershey's had largely, you know,
Speaker 1: erased Reese's history in their marketing. So the name really
Speaker 1: didn't mean anything anyway. It was just a name. It
Speaker 1: was it was it was something to grab people's attention.
Speaker 1: If oh, I like this one product, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like this other one too. It was a brand um
Speaker 1: and it did really well at first. Yep. It was
Speaker 1: like you know, brand new candy. So I got people's
Speaker 1: attention and sales were pretty good. But then after that
Speaker 1: initial burst of popularity, the sales kind of flagged a
Speaker 1: little bit, which was problematic because Hershey's was investing in
Speaker 1: new manufacturing facilities. Yeah right, so they really couldn't afford
Speaker 1: to have declines in sales. It's not unusual to see
Speaker 1: a new candy like come out the gate swinging and
Speaker 1: then let's just mixing metaphors. But then, uh, I'd love
Speaker 1: to see a horse come out of the gate swinging
Speaker 1: there like, wow, that horse is angry and fast. No it,
Speaker 1: But coming out of the gate going full tilt and
Speaker 1: then slowing down, that's not unusual. But they were worried
Speaker 1: that the rate of slowdown might be an indicator that
Speaker 1: they could end up with a very medium, you know,
Speaker 1: mediocre kind of performing candy. Yeah, they wouldn't make back
Speaker 1: all of their investment into it. And so this is
Speaker 1: where we get to eat. Yes, the opportunity of Et
Speaker 1: the Extra Terrestrial. So am Bulow Productions was making this movie,
Speaker 1: and they're different versions of this story. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of he said, she said kind of stuff out there,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of stuff where people are just
Speaker 1: making assumptions. But we're gonna try and give the general
Speaker 1: gist of what happened. Yeah, so, uh, Spielberg wanted the
Speaker 1: main character, Elliott. Yeah, yeah, uh sorry we did that
Speaker 1: to you guys, to use candy to basically get Et
Speaker 1: the alien in to trust him. Yes, this is the
Speaker 1: famous trail of candy that was lampooned in Family guy
Speaker 1: with James Woods, as I called piece of candy candy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: originally that candy. They wanted it to be Eminem's. Yes,
Speaker 1: And so they went to Mars because another thing they
Speaker 1: were hoping to do was do some product like actual
Speaker 1: product placement, which was not common. Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: brand new idea really in the early nineties. The concept
Speaker 1: being that hey, we're going to use your product front
Speaker 1: and center in our movie, and in return, we will
Speaker 1: get some form of support from you. In this case,
Speaker 1: they were really looking at marketing support, like ad campaigns
Speaker 1: that would tie into the movie and thus help promote
Speaker 1: the film. They weren't looking for production costs, which is
Speaker 1: what a lot of product placement does now. Adam Sandler movies, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so many movies. I watched so many TV shows where
Speaker 1: I'm light product placement, product place where are very conveniently
Speaker 1: pointed straight at the camera, or certain shows will just
Speaker 1: flat out they don't even try to hide it anymore.
Speaker 1: They're just like commercial in the middle of the show. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: we're getting off track. One of the story says that
Speaker 1: the president of Mars, who owned Eminem's, didn't think the
Speaker 1: film would be successful, and that's why he said, now. Yes.
Speaker 1: There are other stories that say they were nervous about
Speaker 1: any sort of movie about an alien because the movie
Speaker 1: Alien had come out not too long ago and it
Speaker 1: scared the pants off people, and so the thought was, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want our candy to be associated with something
Speaker 1: like that. Whatever the reason is, whether it's one of
Speaker 1: those or something entirely different, what we do know is
Speaker 1: Mars past on this opportunity. Then the next part of
Speaker 1: the story goes that a VP at Amblin turned to
Speaker 1: his son, his young son, and said what kind of
Speaker 1: candy would be best to lure a e t out
Speaker 1: into the open? If Eminem's isn't available, mart Move Amblin
Speaker 1: VP yes, and his son said Reese's Pieces, which the
Speaker 1: VP said, yeah, he had never heard of the candy before,
Speaker 1: and then universal Slash Amblin would reach out to her
Speaker 1: She's would essentially the same offer, although according to least
Speaker 1: some stories, they actually shot a sequence using Reese's Pieces
Speaker 1: before they even talked to her. She's and essentially said
Speaker 1: here it is. Would you like to would you like
Speaker 1: to be part of this? Other versions of the story
Speaker 1: say no, no, no. Jack Dould, who as director of
Speaker 1: New product development over at Hershey's, flew out, got to
Speaker 1: see a bunch of very early stuff about ET, but
Speaker 1: not like a finished sequence, and then was convinced that
Speaker 1: this was gonna be a good idea and that they
Speaker 1: should be on the ground floor. So he said, yes,
Speaker 1: we will do that, and then he had to go
Speaker 1: back to her She's and convince everyone at Hershey's that
Speaker 1: it was a good Yeah, that we're going to spend
Speaker 1: money on marketing for this film so that we can
Speaker 1: also market our candy, and people were not It took
Speaker 1: them a little bit. Yeah, they were not totally on board.
Speaker 1: It was. It was actually a hard sell. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: it's it's funny because there's some stories that say he
Speaker 1: went to uh to his coworkers and he showed them
Speaker 1: some early pictures of ET and they're all like, he's ugly.
Speaker 1: And then it wasn't until they were able to watch
Speaker 1: a finished cut of the movie that they were like,
Speaker 1: oh as they cried their eyes out as any human
Speaker 1: being with a beating Heartwood after watching ET certainly certainly,
Speaker 1: which is why I don't watch it anymore because so beauty,
Speaker 1: it's too beautiful. I think I saw it like virus.
Speaker 1: It's too beautiful, But it was really successful. The sale
Speaker 1: of Reese's pieces increased by six and that was early on.
Speaker 1: There's some figures that have that as high as three.
Speaker 1: So it was clear a great tie in. The marketing
Speaker 1: campaign was a huge success. The sale of Reese's pieces
Speaker 1: were so popular that actually outpaced the sale of Eminem's
Speaker 1: during that same time. A positive brink. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: definitely one of those positive moments. And this is also
Speaker 1: a moment where some people will point to it and
Speaker 1: they'll say, man, Mars made a bone headed decision. Can
Speaker 1: you believe that they passed on ET? Here's where I
Speaker 1: want to be a little fair. There was no way
Speaker 1: of knowing at the time that ET was going to
Speaker 1: be a big hit. Steven Spielberg had made some great
Speaker 1: movies already, he had made Jaws, he had made Close
Speaker 1: Encounters of the third kind, but he was not yet
Speaker 1: known as like a master filmmaker, and so there was
Speaker 1: no assurance that ET was going to really work. So also,
Speaker 1: you don't know if Mars even had the marketing budget
Speaker 1: that year to to put towards something like that. So
Speaker 1: there are a lot of a lot of factors that
Speaker 1: could have fed into Mars say, know that aren't just
Speaker 1: based on Oh well, that movie is never gonna work.
Speaker 1: So I think one, it's important to remember where Reesis
Speaker 1: came from. So thank you Ramsey for suggesting this, because
Speaker 1: it's so much bigger than the Reese's Pieces story. But also, uh,
Speaker 1: this history kind of tells us that, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're hitting a hard time, look at what's working and
Speaker 1: invest in that. Yes, yeah, it's it's an important thing
Speaker 1: to say, Like, I could keep going with all my
Speaker 1: different lines of business, but if the if that's going
Speaker 1: to be a real big challenge and there's one specific
Speaker 1: part that's doing really well, maybe it's best for me
Speaker 1: to just focus all my efforts there, at least for
Speaker 1: the time being. Um. Another thing I would mention is
Speaker 1: that Mars did get Eminem's into et in a way
Speaker 1: because in the novel version of et Et it's still
Speaker 1: Eminem's because the novel was written before the deal filter.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a novel. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: a novelization of the film, and in that one it's
Speaker 1: Eminem's not Reese's Pieces. Yeah, well we have a we
Speaker 1: have a fun fact here. Yep, yep, we have. If
Speaker 1: you've ever actually enjoyed or endured Reese's pieces, then you
Speaker 1: may have noticed that there's not as many colors as
Speaker 1: you might find in say a bag of Eminem's. There
Speaker 1: in fact, only three colors. There's orange, and there's yellow,
Speaker 1: and there's brown, and you're gonna get way more of
Speaker 1: one of those than the other two, which is orange. Yes,
Speaker 1: the orange makes up of all the candy pieces that
Speaker 1: are made, and then the other fift is divided evenly
Speaker 1: between yellow and brown. It makes sense because yellow and
Speaker 1: brown is a color candy. But when you think Reces,
Speaker 1: you think orange trappers. So that's that's why if you
Speaker 1: ever get Reese's and you open up a bag and
Speaker 1: you're like, man, there are a lot of oranges in
Speaker 1: this one, well, it's because they make twice as many
Speaker 1: a man. I hate when I get oranges inside my
Speaker 1: bags of can d okay, And I also want to clarify,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna let you guys go, because we
Speaker 1: know we've gone a little bit long that I don't
Speaker 1: endure Reese's pieces. I just needed to know the first
Speaker 1: time I tried them that it wasn't chocolate covered Reese's
Speaker 1: peanut butter It would have been so much better if
Speaker 1: I had been prepared. Yeah, I well, you know, I
Speaker 1: had a lot of Reese's pieces when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: because again I was I loved et and that marketing
Speaker 1: totally worked on me. But these days, if I'm going
Speaker 1: to have something with Reese's name on it, it's going
Speaker 1: to be a peanut butter cup me too, because they
Speaker 1: are amazing and I probably should not have eaten the
Speaker 1: one that I had. I'll just have to get on
Speaker 1: the treadmill for another. Like our fine. Yeah, so well,
Speaker 1: Jonathan's on the treadmill. If this story has inspired you
Speaker 1: to think of topics that you'd like to hear us
Speaker 1: talk about, you can email us at Feedback at the
Speaker 1: Brink Podcast dot show and let us know. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: can also visit our website, The Brink Podcast dot Show.
Speaker 1: That's where you're gonna find more information about the two
Speaker 1: of us, as well as an archive of all of
Speaker 1: our past episodes. Yep, and if you like listening to
Speaker 1: the Brink, please tell your friends, you know, give us
Speaker 1: a positive review. We'd really appreciate it. Yeah, share the
Speaker 1: love because we're having a lot of fun covering these
Speaker 1: and Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. All right, Well until next time.
Speaker 1: I Am Spooky Jonathan Strickland, I Am Creepy aerial cast
Speaker 1: I'm like the paper Business. On the Brink is a
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