Signs Of Life On Mars

Mars has always been a very private organisation, a $40 billion company that somehow flew under the radar of scrutiny, even though everyone loves what it sells.

There are signs lately of it becoming a bit more press friendly.

That it realises it has to have a net zero plan and has to talk about it. And has to accept not everyone is going to agree with what it says.

This must present opportunities for hacks to get inside a closed, but important business. And for flaks to earn fees fending us off.

Last week Mars even did a publicity stunt. The company said it was planning to remove Bounty bars from the Christmas Celebrations boxes (don’t pretend you’ve never eaten an entire tub, all on your own).

In response, Richard Osman said: “This calls for a mutiny.”

Piers Morgan, who knows a stunt when he sees one, called it “a diabolical decision”.

Mars said the move came after research showed 39% of people wanted the bars removed.

The Guardian noted this was “an awful lot of fuss about a chocolate bar”, especially since “it’s not really happening”. “No Bounty” Celebration tubs will be at a small number of Tesco pop-up stores, otherwise it is as you were.

At Find Out Now we got curious about the results. Is Bounty really unpopular?

No – it scores higher than Milky Way or Snickers.

And eight out of the 12 Quality Street varieties are less popular than Bounty.

We also did in-depth research into how people feel about Cadbury Roses and Cadbury Heroes.

This is all very frivolous, and yes, we need a hobby.

But the point is that until recently collecting market data or doing polls was a faff. A rival was unlikely to run a poll to see if your data is actually correct.

Now they can do it cheaply and quickly.

You can see the full results here

*Simon is a partner at Find Out Now.*