Will you be welcoming the Marathon bar back with open arms?

Confectionery giant Mars is reportedly resurrecting the Marathon bar almost 20 years after renaming it Snickers.

The chocolate bar was originally named Snickers in 1930 after one of the Mars family's favourite horses. The company dropped the Marathon name in the UK in 1990 as part of a global standardisation of its portfolio of product names.

However, Marathon now looks set for a comeback joining other recent blasts from the past such as Cadbury's Wispa bar and Mars' Opal Fruits, which have both sought to tap into growing consumer interest in eighties nostalgia. Mars even revived its classic 'work, rest and play' slogan earlier this year.

But is this a trend too far now? Are confectionary companies running out of ideas and cynically exploiting our fondness for yesteryear or is nostalgia for the past a good thing?

I only started becoming comfortable with the name change a few years back, only for Mars to go and move the goalposts again. I could become very confused in my local sweet shop and end up buying a Cadbury's Picnic bar instead.

It's getting dull now. Whoever does it next - and it's inevitable there is a marketing team out there working on it - needs to be more creative than just bring back an old name. Was there anything different about Marathon apart from the name anyway?

When supermarkets swap the food around on the shelves I get very confused the following day when the milk shelf is now stacked with onions. Add this into the mix and we could have some very disorientated shoppers wandering the aisles of British supermarkets.

Retro brand name changes are becoming very tiresome and depressingly familiar. Where's the creativity and imagination? Too many marketeers are risk averse and seek refuge in tried and tested formulas. Dull, dull, dull.

There was a point to bringing back Wispa bars because they had completely disappeared from the shelves but you can still buy Marathons and Opal Fruits just under different names. I'm sure that some consumers will love the nostalgia trip but I agree there should be more creativity.

This shouldn't make any difference, but a Marathon brings to mind a certain image that a Snickers does not. I am bound to pick up a Marathon when they return, but not a Snickers. That is slightly irrational, but a lot of the brand choices we make don't exactly rely on logic. 

But the feeling that it is just a crafty sales ruse obviously niggles. Wouldn't want to fall for that one -;)

Wispa was slightly more interesting as the product had been discontinued. That was a hugely popular story on Brand Republic and generated a bit of debate.

What other chocolaty treats are there to be resurrected?

 

I love the nostalgia brand revival work that's been done. The Wispa campaign was great fun - but it was their ideas and that's where it should stay. These things start as an uncomfortable commercial tactic to drive volume (because they don't have any better ideas), ending with the brand owner cannibalising their own sales and losing money.

Renaming a product might bring about initial exhuberence among consumers but once the dust settles where does it leave a brand? All the work done to capture the 18 years worth of imagination suddenly has to be re-addressed.

Where will it leave the product in a years time? Pretty much exactly where it is now, one would imagine. 

Bring back hanging.

I agree with Gordon, there's different brand associations that have been built up over Snickers, that aren't there for Marathon.  I'm unfortunately far too young to remember those halcyon Marathon days (plus I hate nuts!) but I mustn't be wrong in assuming that people think different things about Marathon than they do for Snickers, despite it being the same thing.  I quite like this retro revival as a vintage fashionista , it's got people talking and revelling in the 'good old days'

The Mr.T advertisement for Snickers was so awful it made me cringe... but this is even worse. Nostalgia overload.

BORING! The Mr T ad was funny for five seconds. Bringing Marathon back is lazy and half arsed. Think of something new to say Mars.

A Mars a day does help you work rest and play. FACT

Wispa returns, Starburst renamed, now Marathon makes a come back. Confectioners buggering around with the brands we love. It's all starting to leave a bitter taste in the mouth.