Page 13 - Business Blunders 1

M&Ms

Passing on E.T.

a marketing bonanza

Amblin Productions approached

Mars, Inc. for the permission to use
its popular bite-sized M&Ms in its

upcoming film, E.T, but were
promptly rejected. Mars decided

that they didn’t want their
candy to be associated with

aliens or some such nonsense.

To be fair Mars had no way of knowing how successful E.T.

would be, but what was the risk?

Instead, Reese’s Pieces,

Hershey-manufactured

peanut-butter

confections, were used by

Elliot to lure the

abandoned and

famished, space-

travelling little alien called ET, out of hiding in the woods by

laying a trail of Reese’s Pieces into Eliot’s home.

Jack Dowd, then vice-president of Hershey Co. was reticent

about associating with the movie, but decided to go ahead

and invested $1 million dollar in the promotion and

advertising of the movie, which included T-shirts and