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WRIGLEY, PHILIP K. 1894-1977

CHEWING GUM EXECUTIVE AND SALESMAN

Opportunity

During World War II Philip K. Wrigley, the chewing gum manufacturer, seemed an unlikely candidate for success. Initially it seemed that the war would temporarily halt the production of chewing gum, but Wrigley managed to turn it into an opportunity to introduce his company and his product to more people.

Background

Philip Wrigley was the second child and first son of William Wrigley, Jr. He worked in the family soap factory and eventually moved into sales, where he excelled. In sales, according to Paul M. Angle, his "salient traits—unbounded confidence, flair, imagination, industry, and persistence—paid off." He assumed control of the Wrigley Company in February 1932. In coping with the Depression he departed from his father's politics and cautiously embraced President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, making the Wrigley Company one of the first to sign up with the National Recovery Administration. Wrigley also continued to take an interest in sales. Prior to the war the company had emphasized the taste and the "healthful" nature of its Doublemint gum, but a new sales pitch would be necessary during the 1940s.

War Years

Certainly, chewing gum was not an essential war commodity. Gum consisted of 50 percent sugar, which was rationed, and chicle, the rubbery sap of trees, found in Malaysia, Borneo, and South America. The Japanese occupation of Malaysia and Borneo cut off Wrigley's Asian supply of chicle; the South American supply was plentiful, but transportation was difficult, as most ships were committed to transporting war materials. He found a way to overcome obstacles to wartime business and to come out ahead. Rubber trees also grew in South America, and rubber was definitely a war material in short supply, so Wrigley directed his employees in South America to tap both rubber trees and chicle trees. Then he managed to ship some chicle on the same ships that carried the rubber from South America. He shipped about twelve thousand tons a year, enough to keep him in business. He then found a way to obtain sugar. The key to gaining access to sugar was to convince the military that chewing gum was essential to the war effort. Fortunately for Wrigley, the army requested that each K ration, the meal packet issued to many GIs, contain one stick of gum. The Subsistence Research Laboratory of the Chicago Quartermaster came to the conclusion that chewing gum would relieve thirst and serve as a substitute for tobacco at times when smoking was inadvisable. During the early years of the war Wrigley gained little profit from supplying gum for the K rations, but the factories continued to operate, and an increasing number of people used his product. Initially Wrigley used his advertising time on the radio to update listeners on the war. As the war progressed he began glorifying war workers so that those in the factories could hear a show about people like themselves. As the war continued, Wrigley's profits increased. In preparation for the postwar years he stopped his previous advertising campaign and spent more than $2 million on advertisements designed to promote his chewing gum to civilians as a patriotic company manufacturing war materials. Wrigley then went to work on employers, arguing that chewing gum would "help your workers feel better—work better." In a fifteen-minute film for his employees Wrigley depicted thirst and nicotine as agents of Adolf Hitler, with the narrator stating, "Monotony…fatigue…false thirst…nervous tension. Yes—these are the agents of the Axis." Wrigley funded research to help prove that chewing gum relieved tension. He also promised that workers who chewed gum would take fewer trips to the water fountain or to the smoking area. To further the war effort and his company he promised to distribute five sticks of gum to each worker in an essential war industry, but he did so only if the order was accompanied by a letter from a company official on letterhead "stating the need for chewing gum in that particular plant."

Other Ventures

Besides his chewing gum business, Wrigley was best known as the owner of the Chicago Cubs and in the later decades of his life would become chagrined that people were not aware of his other ventures, especially when the Cubs did not do well. Still, he was deeply committed to both baseball and Chicago. His commitment to baseball prompted him to start the AU-American Girls' Baseball League in 1943 for fear that with four thousand male baseball players in the military the professional game would come to an end. The league peaked in 1948, fielding ten teams and attracting one million fans. However, the league never expanded beyond the Midwest. The players did not earn anything near what their male counterparts did, but they did earn good money for the time—$40 to $100 a week.

Success

After the war the Wrigley Company experienced a record demand for Spearmint, Doublemint, and Juicy Fruit gums. In the 1950s he aggressively marketed his products overseas, especially in Europe. With a pervasive campaign Wrigley finally managed to overcome the perception that chewing gum was a crude activity.