“In waking a tiger, use a long stick…

“…of double-good, double-fresh, DoubleMint gum!” -- Mao Tse-Tung

This from the Asian Times.

A billion jaws chewing
By Todd Crowell

The Guangdong Fanyu Candy Co, the once-prosperous maker of Yiqing chewing gum and Dada bubble gum, folded its operations in 2002. Why? Because the company could not compete with the famous gum that comes in the little green package. Since 2000, the Wm Wrigley Jr Co, the world's largest maker and marketer of chewing gum, has quietly become the dominant player in the Chinese market.

It may be that no other American product, save perhaps Coca-Cola, is as widely available and ubiquitous in China as Doublemint gum. The company has extended its reach into almost every corner of the country. In fact, Wrigley has probably the widest distribution and sales network of any food manufacturing and consumer packaging company in China, with a staggering one million sales outlets - 30,000 in Shanghai alone. Wrigley's share of China's chewing gum market is an astounding 60%. Although the company has competitors - primarily South Korea's Lotte and Italian company Perfetti Van Melle - no other gum company, foreign or domestic, comes close to Wrigley's market share or sales volume.

....

In recognition of Wrigley's unassailable position in China, Spanish food conglomerate Agrolimen last year sold its Joyco confectionery division's operations in China and India and several other countries to Wrigley for 220 million euros (US$274 million). Joyco had established the joint venture with Guangdong Fanyu Candy Co that went broke in 2002. But it was still the leading seller of bubble gum and lollipops in China. As part of this deal, Wrigley ended up with Cafosa, Joyco's chewing and bubble gum base business.
…

Fighting the Singapore gum ban
Wrigley's is slowly working its way back into Singapore after having been shut out, along with every other gum maker, after the island country famously banned the import and sale of chewing gum for sanitary reasons in 1992. The company was deeply involved in the negotiations leading to the city-state's 2003 Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Two issues dominated the negotiations: Singapore's participation in the Iraq coalition, and chewing gum. Of the two, gum was the stickiest.

Somewhat grudgingly, Singapore compromised, agreeing to allow the importation and sale of what it called "therapeutic" gum. "They were tough," said former Congressman Philip Crane of Illinois, who was involved in the negotiations.
…
At the moment, Wrigley's gum can only be bought through a licensed pharmacist, and the buyer must provide his name and identity card number. In Singapore, chewing gum is still very much a controlled substance.

Singapore should surrender now and sue for peace

Why?

Because the Wrigley Company also owns the Chicago Cubs, the losingest baseball team in the history of losing teams. Every year they find a new way to break their fan’s hearts, and yet year after year, decade after decade, rain, shine or snow, they pack Wrigley Field to capacity. While at the other end of town a certain other Major League team -- with what is objectively a much better record – plays in an ugly park to rows half-empty seats.

The Wrigley Company know marketing, baby!

The Wrigley Company knows how to fight a twilight struggle over the course of a century, and lose every damn battle, and yet still somehow win.

And most of all, the Wrigley Company knows that this is a Political Battle, and as Mao said:

“Political power grows out of a...

...stick of double-good, double-fresh, DoubleMint gum.”