Page 14 - Business Blunders 1

posters. Within two weeks of the movie’s release, Reese’s

Pieces’ flagging sales had tripled,

Hershey Foods agreed to promote E.T. with $1 million of

advertising; in return, Hershey could use E.T. in its own ads.

After the movie release, sales of Reese’s pieces out sold

M&M’s for the first time ever. Sales of Reese’s Pieces went

up by 65%, and soon they were being sold in theaters,

where they had never been before.

Dowd later calculated that his $1 million investment had
resulted in $15-20 million worth of promotion for the brand.

The rest is history, and the chocolate has since become one

of the most popular of the past three decades, partly due to

this cameo.