When you think of chewing gum, what brand of chewing gum comes to mind? There are many types of chewing gum on the market, but when I think of gum, Wrigley’s chewing gum comes to my mind. William Wrigley Jr. is the world’s #1 chewing gum maker. Its products include such popular brands as Juicy Fruit, Doublemint, Freedent, and Extra sugar free gum. Wrigley’s also manufactures novelty gums, including Big League Chew, Bubble Tape and Hubba Bubba. Wrigley controls about a 50% share of the U.S. market, and sells its products in more than 120 countries with international sales accounting for close to half of the company’s annual revenues. Sales of sugar-free gum, overseas and at home, now outpace shipments of regular gum. Today, CEO William Wrigley, grandson of the founder, owns roughly 1/4 of the company.
William Wrigley Jr. came to Chicago from Philadelphia in the spring of 1891. He was 29 years old, had $32 in his pocket and the ambition to start a business of his own. Besides having unlimited enthusiasm and energy, William Wrigley had great talent as a salesman. His father was a soap manufacturer, and as a boy, William developed his salesmanship selling Wrigley’s Scouring Soap out of a basket in the streets of Philadelphia. In his early teens he took a full time job as a soap salesman for his father, driving a horse and wagon from town to town, calling on retail stores.
At the start of his new business in Chicago, in April of 1891, William sold Wrigley’s Scouring Soap. As an extra incentive to the merchants, he offered premiums. One of these premiums was baking powder. When baking powder proved to be more popular than soap, he switched to the baking powder business. Then one day in 1892, William got the idea of offering two packages of chewing gum with each can of baking powder. The offer was a big success. Once again the premium - chewing gum - seemed more promising than the product it was supposed to promote.
At that time, there were at least a dozen chewing gum companies in the United States, but the industry was still pretty undeveloped. William decided that chewing gum was the product with the potential he had been looking for, so he began marketing it under his own name. His first two brands were Lotta and Vassar. Juicy Fruit gum came next in 1893, and Wrigley’s Spearmint was introduced later that same year.
Getting a foothold in the chewing gum business was not easy. Companies that already existed offered products that were better known than Wrigley brands. In 1899, the six largest companies merged to form what was known as "the chewing gum trust," and this combination meant very serious competition for the developing Wrigley business. William was offered and chance to join the trust, but he turned it down and went his own way. Many times his young company was on the verge of going under, but hard work seemed to pay off as his company began to take off.
In the early days of the company, William personally did much of the selling to the trade. He was good at seeing his customers’ point of view and accommodating himself to their needs. He constantly traveled and called on wholesalers and retail merchants in many parts of the United States. As the company grew, William showed an unusual knack for inspiring enthusiasm in the people who worked with him.
William continued the use of premiums to encourage merchants to stock his products. He knew that his customers would be more likely to carry Wrigley’s chewing gum if they received "a little something for nothing." Wrigley expanded his premium offers to include items ranging from lamps to razors to scales. These offers grew to be so successful that he published premium catalogs to assist his customers in their selection.
Wrigley also experimented with the idea of using advertising to encourage more people to buy Wrigley’s gum. He was one of the first to use advertising to promote the sale of branded merchandise. He saw that consumer acceptance of Wrigley’s gum could be built faster by telling people about the benefits of the product through newspaper and magazine ads, outdoor posters and other forms of advertising. Then, as more and more consumers began to ask for and buy Wrigley’s chewing gum in the stores, the storekeeper would naturally want to keep a sufficient stock of Wrigley brands on hand.
This idea was put to the test when Wrigley decided to concentrate on popularizing a spearmint-flavored gum, which he believed to be a superior product, which is now known as Wrigley’s Spearmint. Because this brand was a slow seller at first, in 1906, Wrigley decided to advertise the gum on a modest scale in the three eastern cities of Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. The results were promising.
The company was also rapidly becoming an international business. Through exports to many countries, Wrigley brands became known throughout the world. The first factories established outside the United States were in Canada in 1910, Australia in 1915, Great Britain in 1927 and New Zealand in 1939. Different preferences in the international markets led to new types of products and flavors. Perhaps the most successful product for the Wrigley Company outside the United States is the pellet-shaped chewing gum most often sold under the "P.K." brand name.
A big part of the Wrigley’s success was his philosophy. He said, "Life and business are rather simple, after all. To make a success of either, you’ve got to hang on to the knack of putting yourself in the other fellow’s place." "We propose to keep our identity . . . and if we cannot do business by fair and square methods, we prefer not to do business at all."
As the company continued to grow, it steadfastly applied this basic principle: "Even in a little thing like a stick of gum, quality is important."