William Wrigley Jr. (September 30, 1861–January 26, 1932) was a U.S. chewing gum industrialist.
Wrigley took over a soap manufacturing company from his father and founded the famous Wrigley Jr. Company in 1891. As an extra incentive to merchants, Mr. Wrigley offered premiums like baking powder. When baking powder proved to be more popular than soap, he switched to the baking powder business. Wrigley gave away two packages of chewing gum with each baking soda purchase until he once again grasped that the premium was more popular than the product. In 1893 he entered the chewing gum production.
Wrigley became known for his creative advertising methods. Much of his company’s budget focused on selling products through advertisements and gimmicks. In 1915 he sent four stripes of chewing gum to every US citizen written in the telephone book. 1,5 Million people received his premium offer. Four years later he repeated this action. At that time 7 Million people had a telefone and got his premium offer.
1920 he build a new headquarter of his company, which became a landmark of the city
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