7 ms·

I'm amazed that Hershey is spending $2B on marketing. I honestly don't think I've seen any advertising for the brand itself at any point in the past decade, and

I'm amazed that Hershey is spending $2B on marketing. I honestly don't think I've seen any advertising for the brand itself at any point in the past decade, and I don't have any positive association with it: it's the "bad" chocolate you buy for cooking? Looking at their subsidiary brands, I don't think I've seen any serious advertising for them either. KitKat is doing viral marketing on social media, but surely, that's not $2B... I've never seen anything for Twizzlers, Pirate's Booty, Milk Duds, Whoppers... the only reason I know these brands is that they're on the shelf in my grocery store. Unless I'm an outlier, I think it's smart of them to stop throwing $2B down whatever hole they're throwing it into right now.

asah 5mo ago
This probably includes "tradespend" - marketing dollars spent on retails and distributors to incentivize premier placement in retail/grocery channels.
malshe 5mo ago
Advertising is a subset of marketing so $2 billion is not all advertising. They probably do a lot of downstream supply chain promotions.
- lacewing 5mo ago
  I understand that there's more to it than TV ads, but Coca-Cola reportedly spends only about 2x as much, and... you'd agree that they get a lot more bang for the buck in terms of selling the brand?
  - malshe 5mo ago
    That's not correct. According to Coca Cola Inc's latest 10-K, the advertising expense for 2025 fiscal year was $5.4 billion. In contrast, Hershey's ad expense was $612 million [1]. That's about 11% of Coke's ad expense. The relevant text from Hershey's latest 10-K (amounts in thousand): Selling, marketing and administrative expense (“SM&A”) represents costs incurred in generating revenues and in managing our business. Such costs include advertising and other marketing expenses, selling expenses, research and development costs, administrative and other indirect overhead costs, amortization of capitalized software and intangible assets and depreciation of administrative facilities. Research and development costs, charged to expense as incurred, totaled $61,655 in 2025, $55,798 in 2024 and $50,030 in 2023. Advertising expense is also charged to expense as incurred and totaled $611,951 in 2025, $600,094 in 2024 and $604,853 in 2023. There was no prepaid advertising expense as of December 31, 2025. Prepaid advertising expense was $1,351 as of December 31, 2024. 1. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47111/000162828026008586/hsy-20251231.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47111/00016282802600...
robot_jesus 5mo ago
Apart from the possible line items others have noted, it's also worth calling out that a ton of the paid media they're talking about is highly targeted digital media. General awareness campaigns are not in vogue these days, especially for CPG companies. You're not seeing a lot of billboards or train wraps for these brands anymore. Instead, you're probably just not deemed by the all-knowing models to be a likely buyer (count yourself lucky--it's probably a good sign for your diet and health). But it's not inconceivable at all that the $2B spend it invisible to a high portion or even a large majority of the population if they can get more ROAS by targeting specific subsets. Edit: one more ps that I thought was funny. The one brand you called out (Kit Kat) is only owned by Hershey in the US so it's entirely possible that the online ads you've seen are actually Nestlé's, depending on what sites you're viewing and/or where you live.
j_w 5mo ago
> it's the "bad" chocolate you buy for cooking? This is crazy to me because I would never use Hershey's for cooking. Hershey's is the childhood candy. Enjoyable for nostalgia only, while also being fairly cheap compared to good chocolate.
etempleton 5mo ago
Advertising may be things we don’t typically think of as advertising such as grocery store end caps and such.

asah 5mo ago

This probably includes "tradespend" - marketing dollars spent on retails and distributors to incentivize premier placement in retail/grocery channels.

malshe 5mo ago

Advertising is a subset of marketing so $2 billion is not all advertising. They probably do a lot of downstream supply chain promotions.

lacewing 5mo ago
I understand that there's more to it than TV ads, but Coca-Cola reportedly spends only about 2x as much, and... you'd agree that they get a lot more bang for the buck in terms of selling the brand?
- malshe 5mo ago
  That's not correct. According to Coca Cola Inc's latest 10-K, the advertising expense for 2025 fiscal year was $5.4 billion. In contrast, Hershey's ad expense was $612 million [1]. That's about 11% of Coke's ad expense. The relevant text from Hershey's latest 10-K (amounts in thousand): Selling, marketing and administrative expense (“SM&A”) represents costs incurred in generating revenues and in managing our business. Such costs include advertising and other marketing expenses, selling expenses, research and development costs, administrative and other indirect overhead costs, amortization of capitalized software and intangible assets and depreciation of administrative facilities. Research and development costs, charged to expense as incurred, totaled $61,655 in 2025, $55,798 in 2024 and $50,030 in 2023. Advertising expense is also charged to expense as incurred and totaled $611,951 in 2025, $600,094 in 2024 and $604,853 in 2023. There was no prepaid advertising expense as of December 31, 2025. Prepaid advertising expense was $1,351 as of December 31, 2024. 1. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47111/000162828026008586/hsy-20251231.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47111/00016282802600...

robot_jesus 5mo ago

Apart from the possible line items others have noted, it's also worth calling out that a ton of the paid media they're talking about is highly targeted digital media. General awareness campaigns are not in vogue these days, especially for CPG companies. You're not seeing a lot of billboards or train wraps for these brands anymore. Instead, you're probably just not deemed by the all-knowing models to be a likely buyer (count yourself lucky--it's probably a good sign for your diet and health). But it's not inconceivable at all that the $2B spend it invisible to a high portion or even a large majority of the population if they can get more ROAS by targeting specific subsets. Edit: one more ps that I thought was funny. The one brand you called out (Kit Kat) is only owned by Hershey in the US so it's entirely possible that the online ads you've seen are actually Nestlé's, depending on what sites you're viewing and/or where you live.

j_w 5mo ago

> it's the "bad" chocolate you buy for cooking? This is crazy to me because I would never use Hershey's for cooking. Hershey's is the childhood candy. Enjoyable for nostalgia only, while also being fairly cheap compared to good chocolate.

etempleton 5mo ago

Advertising may be things we don’t typically think of as advertising such as grocery store end caps and such.