Inside Mars’ $30 billion purchase of the maker of Pringles and Pop-Tarts
Senior executives with the candy giant and Kellogg spinoff offer lessons on employee communication before a deal closes
Public affairs executive Anders Bering was on vacation in August 2024 when the news broke that his company, candy giant Mars, was in talks to acquire Kellanova, which makes Pringles and Pop-Tarts.
“I remember being in Colorado with my family, desperately trying to find a quiet place at 4 a.m. to talk,” he told Brunswick Review last month. “I ended up sitting in a car in the driveway. And as I was walking to the car in the dark, I remember worrying about two things: waking up the kids, and being eaten by a bear.”
He didn’t get eaten by a bear.
But the nearly $30 billion acquisition turned into a bear of a deal. It took more than 16 months before Mars, known for M&M’s and Snickers, closed the purchase of Kellanova, a 2023 spinoff of cereal-maker Kellogg, as antitrust regulators in the U.S. and European Union scrutinized the transaction.
Three key executives in the transaction look back at the deal in Q&A’s published in Brunswick Review. The magazine is published by corporate relations firm Brunswick Group, which counts both Mars and Kellanova as clients.
Most of the attention paid to M&A communications is after the transaction closes, when the two companies are integrating. The Q&A’s give a rare look at employee communications after a deal is announced and before it’s completed.
We’ve combined quotes from the Q&A’s with our own observations to identify five tips for other internal communication teams who find themselves thrust into a merger or acquisition. But first, some background on the transaction and the two companies.
‘This is huge’
News broke on Aug. 4, 2024, that the two companies were negotiating. Ten days later, the deal was announced.
Kellanova, a 2023 spinoff of cereal maker Kellogg, also makes Cheez-It and Eggo waffles. In addition to its candy business, Mars also has a substantial pet-food business and paid $7.7 billion for a veterinary practice.
“My initial thought was: ‘This is huge — and super exciting,’” said Bering, now Mars’ vice president of global public affairs, external comms and corporate brand.
His Q&A was conducted with his Kellanova counterpart, Kris Bahner, a senior vice president and chief corporate affairs officer.
Her reaction? “We need to start planning — yesterday.”
The companies hoped to close the deal in a year, but European regulators announced on June 24, 2025, an in-depth investigation, citing concerns that the combination would push up consumer prices. That delayed the transaction even though the Trump administration signed off the next day.
Mars eventually closed the purchase on Dec. 11, four days after receiving European approval.
Different comm styles
The two companies had different approaches to communications. Chicago-based Kellanova was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, accustomed to the quarterly disclosures required for publicly traded companies.
McLean, Virginia-based Mars is the fourth largest privately owned company in the U.S., according to Forbes. It’s controlled by the descendants of Franklin Mars, who founded the company in 1911.
“Externally, the cadence and expectations for communications are completely different, and that flowed through internally as well,” Bering said.
1. Learn from the other company. Most acquiring firms look to impose their policies, procedures and practices on the company they’re buying. Mars was different, at least concerning communications.
“I kept saying to the Mars team: Let’s be humble. Kellanova might be doing things better than we are. Let’s try it and learn,” Bering said.
He added: “We really admired the communications tactics Kellanova had built: the frequency, the openness, and the promise to associates that even when you don’t have all the answers, you’ll communicate quickly and transparently.”
2. Hold Town Halls. One result of Mars’ willingness to learn was town halls. Employees look to the leaders to explain the organization’s strategy, to paint the big picture of the future and how to get there. They look to their managers to answer questions, connect the dots between the strategy and the daily activities.
Leadership communication was a strength for Kellanova, but not for Mars.
“We committed to both companies holding monthly parallel global town halls as part of the process,” Bahner said.
The two companies held more than 75 town halls over 16 months, “managed in parallel across both organizations,” Bering said.
“There were moments when we’d get close to the town hall and we might not have a lot new to say, so naturally the question would come up: ‘Do we skip this one?’” Bahner said, “And we’d remind everyone why we made the commitment in the first place.”
“We also asked questions that were genuinely on people’s minds in town halls,” Bering added. “Sometimes we asked the same question multiple times to show that we knew this was on a lot of people’s minds. I think they appreciated that.”
3. Acknowledge how employees feel. Mergers are periods of wrenching change and anxious uncertainty. Jobs change or are lost.
“A transformation of this size is big and exciting, but in the end, it’s about people and their lives,” Bering said. “And we agreed on that from the start.”
Bahner said, “We spent a lot of time understanding where Mars associates were, where Kellanova employees were, what they had been through recently and where we were meeting them emotionally.”
“We recognized openly that the situation might feel frustrating or unsettling,” Bahner said. “That kind of honesty goes a long way.”
4. Tell ’em you don’t know. Leaders are often reluctant to admit to employees they don’t know everything. Communication advisors are usually enablers of this flaw.
“Too often, we underappreciate the value of uncertainty,” journalist Simone Stolzoff wrote for Time this week. “We tend to assume that expressing unwavering conviction breeds credibility.”
The Mars-Kellanova team didn’t fall into this trap.
Bahner, referring to the spinoff from Kellogg, said, “One of the things we learned from the spin that we shared with Mars was that showing up consistently in front of all employees—even when you don’t have new information, even when it feels uncomfortable — builds trust.”
The Mars executive who led the deal, Andrew Clarke, president of the snacking division, understood.
A regular schedule of communication with employees – but also with suppliers, customers and regulators was key, he said in a separate Q&A.
“It allowed us to be consistent about the possibilities of the future and why we believed this was such a complementary, game-changing deal,” he said. “And even if we didn’t have all of the information at the time, the act of being there and being honest about the ambiguity showed our commitment to being transparent.”
Several studies have found that people who admit what they don’t know are perceived as more credible, notes Stolzoff, author of “How Not to Know,” a study of the psychology of uncertainty published this month by W.W. Norton.
5. Don’t compete. Bering and Bahner had never met before the deal was announced. The communications effort is a credit to them.
Bering was asked for advice on how others could build a similar relationship.
“I’m not sure there is one formula,” he said. “In our case it was, I think, how we acted from the beginning, how Kris and I openly deferred to each other in meetings, encouraging our teams to stay curious about the other side and not falling into the trap of ‘we usually do it like this.’”
Bahner added: “I never felt we were competing.”
Have fun
Most corporate communications are boring when they should be entertaining. Clear and concise is important, sure, but what you’re telling people must be memorable.
“I think it’s easy to forget that as a company: You can have fun with your communications,” Clarke said. “Clarifying the logic of a deal—the numbers, the strategic rationale—is obviously important, but so is communicating the emotion of it, actually connecting with people and making them smile.”
Tom Corfman, a senior consultant with Ragan Consulting Group, buys Snickers to give away on Halloween because they are his favorite. Do you need communications help because of a merger or acquisition? Email Tom to set up a free call with him and RCG co-founder and senior partner Jim Ylisela.
