# When Marathon became Snickers

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## Summary

Britain and Ireland knew the Snickers bar as Marathon until 1990, when Mars changed the name to match the rest of the world. People still call it Marathon.

## Description

The Snickers bar, peanuts, caramel and nougat covered in milk chocolate, was created by Mars in the United States in 1930 and named after the Mars family's favourite horse. But in Britain and Ireland, for decades, it had a different name: Marathon.
Marathon
Mars sold the bar in Britain and Ireland under the name Marathon. Generations of British children grew up with it, and to many people Marathon was simply what the bar was called. Confusingly, Marathon was also the name of an unrelated bar sold in the United States in the 1970s.
The switch
In 1990 Mars changed the name in both Britain and Ireland to Snickers, so that the bar would have the same name everywhere in the world. Plenty of people still call it a Marathon.
Why companies do it
Global brand names make advertising, packaging and planning simpler for multinational companies: one name, one logo, one campaign. For shoppers, though, the old names carry memories. The same thing happened when Opal Fruits became Starburst in 1998: see Opal Fruits. We have gathered the other renamings in sweets that changed their names.
A retro return
Nostalgia is powerful enough that the old name has come back, briefly. In 2019 a Marathon retro edition was sold exclusively at the supermarket Morrisons for three months.
Named after a horse
The Snickers name itself comes from the stables. Frank Mars, the founder of the company, loved horses and built a vast estate, Milky Way Farm, in Tennessee. The bar was named after the family's favourite horse. See Frank Mars and the Milky Way.
Still a Mars family bar
Snickers is now sold around the world, made by the family firm behind the Mars bar, M&M's and Maltesers. For the story of the family that owns it, see the mystery of the Mars family.

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