Franklyn Mars bails his son Forrest out of jail. Then Forrest decides to build a bigger company. Mars is an absolute empire. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is ... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Travis Crawford HVAC Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here talking to Stephen Semple, and we're going to talk about business empires that went from nothing and turned into, as we say, empires. Stephen Semple: Yes, sir. Dave Young: Right? That's the premise. Now people know the underlying premise of the podcast. Let's get on with it. You whispered in my ear, as you hit the countdown button, that today we're going to talk about the Mars Corporation. The Mars Corporation. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: But we're not talking about Percival Lowell and his telescope thinking that there were canals on Mars. Stephen Semple: No, no we're not. Dave Young: We're talking about candy bars. Is that right? Stephen Semple: Yeah, we're talking about a lot of candy bars. Dave Young: So I at least got that going for me. I figured out that this is not the Bugs Bunny villain. This is ... Stephen Semple: Dave, you're not feeling well, but you still bring it. I like it. Dave Young: Yeah. Just in this day and age, full transparency, I'm doing this with COVID. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: But fortunately, we record over the internet. Stephen Semple: That's it. Got our virus protection on. Dave Young: I've got a mask sitting right next to my microphone. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Mars is massive. One half of the top candy bar names on the planet are part of Mars: Mars, Snickers, Skittles, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and M&M's. Dave Young: All right, so how far back does this go? Stephen Semple: Well, we're actually going to do two sections of this. We're going to go right back to the beginning, and also we're going to do something around the time that they added some of these extra names that was really kind of interesting. Dave Young: So how many years back? Is there a Mr. Mars or a Mrs. Mars? Stephen Semple: Oh, yes. It was Franklin Mars. Dave Young: All right, all right. Stephen Semple: 1911, Franklin Mars. Dave Young: 1911. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Because what I picture the Mars Corporation full of now is a bunch of suits that are like Slugsworth in Willy Wonka. Stephen Semple: Well, they are $45 billion in revenues. Dave Young: Yeah. Yeah. Stephen Semple: They are 130,000 employees. Dave Young: Dang. Stephen Semple: And they're still owned by the Mars family. Dave Young: Oh. Well, that makes me feel good. Stephen Semple: There you go. Dave Young: That actually does because I just picture that big of a company, nobody in the boardroom actually cares about chocolate, but I'm glad to ... So let's dive in. I'm all ears now. Stephen Semple: And they're literally one of the top five privately-owned companies in the world. But yes ... Dave Young: Amazing. Stephen Semple: It's really remarkable that they're still family-owned. So as we were talking about earlier, founded in 1911 by Franklin Mars in Tacoma, Washington. And the reason why we're sort of taking two looks at this company, there's kind of what Franklin Mars did to start the company, but it was really his son, Forrest Mars, who made it huge. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple:
