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Going from public domain toys to Spin Master Originals was a must. How did Harari, Rabi and Verity do it? It wasn't with the devil sticks.
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 Simple 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. Here's one of those.
[Seaside Plumbing Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast recording live this morning from the North Patio at the Wizard Academy classroom tower.
Stephen Semple:
I always get turned around. So this is north, is it?
Dave Young:
That's north.
Stephen Semple:
Okay. All right. I always get turned around here.
Dave Young:
The causeway, the ditch thing that runs-
Stephen Semple:
Oh, right. Of course. That's east-west, of course.
Dave Young:
No, that's north-south.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, right.
Dave Young:
North-South.
Stephen Semple:
Right.
Dave Young:
If you stand in the middle of it and look up, you can see the North Star over the, and so we're on the other side.
Stephen Semple:
Right. Of course we are. Okay.
Dave Young:
Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
I always get turned around.
Dave Young:
Yeah, that's okay.
Stephen Semple:
Okay.
Dave Young:
It has taken me a while. Anyway, we're recording a podcast.
Stephen Semple:
Yes. We talk.
Dave Young:
And we're sitting outdoors. And just as I was hitting the record button, you said Spin Master.
Stephen Semple:
Spin Master.
Dave Young:
This is an exercise bike.
Stephen Semple:
Toy company.
Dave Young:
Toy company. What am I thinking, spin cycle? First of all, I don't play with toys and I don't ride exercise bikes, so I'm at a loss.
Stephen Semple:
They're best known for Paw Patrol. And you wouldn't know about that either 'cause you don't have any little kids in your life.
Dave Young:
No, my little-
Stephen Semple:
Anybody who's got little kids in their life know Paw Patrol.
Dave Young:
All right. Well, I am all ears.
Stephen Semple:
Give you an idea how big the Paw Patrol franchise is, 14 billion.
Dave Young:
Wait. 14 billion?
Stephen Semple:
Billion in sales when you add all their stuff up.
Dave Young:
Wow. Okay.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
And these are toys?
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
They are toys and they are a Canadian company, and my niece used to work for them.
Dave Young:
Really?
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
This was actually a little extra fun to do.
Dave Young:
Some insider info.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Well, not really, but yeah, they're a Canadian company in quite a little success store.
Dave Young:
Little, yeah.
Stephen Semple:
Then we'll talk about later, they also went on to have bought some other brands such as Rubik's Cube. They now own Rubik's Cube.
Dave Young:
All right.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. It was founded by Ronan Harari, Antoine Rabi and Ben Verity. They started the business in the late 1990s. And around that time, patterns of play does not change.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
Toys may change, way kids play with things, the way even adults play with things don't change. And so the key is to find things that fit into those play patterns. That idea has basically led this company to be one of the greatest success stories in the toy space in the last 20 years. Yeah. And this whole idea, the key to find things that fit in those play patterns basically led to the creation of Paw Patrol, -
This is how you go from not wanting to be unhappy to working your passion to Shark Tank to Lipstick Empire. Way to go, Melissa Butler.
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.
[No Bull RV Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here along with Stephen Semple. And today you may say, gosh, they sound a little different. And maybe I hear birds or-
Stephen Semple:
We have no idea what these mics are picking up.
Dave Young:
We don't know what you're going to hear, but we're sitting outdoors. We're sitting on the north patio of the dining hall in the tower at Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas. And for the first time in, I don't know if we've done this before or we've recorded a podcast face-to-face in the same room.
Stephen Semple:
I don't think we have.
Dave Young:
We're always on some either Zoom or Riverside FM or some magical internet based thing.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, no, I don't think we've done in person. I don't think so.
Dave Young:
Well, welcome to my world here. We're at Wizard Academy. I'm the vice chancellor, by the way, and also one of Stephen's business partners with Wizard of Ads. And you're here to teach a class this week.
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
Which is exciting.
Stephen Semple:
Very exciting.
Dave Young:
I don't know if people are going to hear this long after the fact.
Stephen Semple:
Yes. But we're going to do it again.
Dave Young:
We're glad that you're here and excited about the class.
Stephen Semple:
Yes, yes. It's going to be very exciting. How to market professional services, so it's going to be awesome.
Dave Young:
It's going to be fun. I didn't even ask you as I started the countdown, what the topic is.
Stephen Semple:
I know. Because we're used to the countdown thing being on the screen.
Dave Young:
My countdown was, I'm just going to hit the go button and see if this is sticking to the tape. I think it is.
Stephen Semple:
We're going to lean into a category you know really well. Lipstick.
Dave Young:
Lipstick? Is there a particular brand?
Stephen Semple:
Yes. Lip Bar.
Dave Young:
Lip Bar? I'm a total blank.
Stephen Semple:
Well, they've done pretty well. Lipstick's a huge market. Lipstick itself is a $9 billion business.
Dave Young:
Trust me, we wash a lot of it off of wine glasses here.
Stephen Semple:
But Lip Bar was founded by Melissa Butler, and today they're in like 500 stores, Target and things along that line. They're a private company, so I had a really hard time finding actual sales figures for them. But when you're in 500 stores and growing, you're making things happen.
Dave Young:
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
500 stores.
Stephen Semple:
But what was really cool about learning this story is Melissa Butler started making her own lipstick in her apartment.
Dave Young:
Really?
Stephen Semple:
That's how this all started.
Dave Young:
I'm trying to think of how, if I set out ... First of all, I'm not going to, but if I set out to make lipstick, what would I even .... like what's on my shopping list?
Stephen Semple:
Oh, you're melting waxes and you're getting color agents and you're pouring it into tins and you're having to cure the tins and then you're having to get it out of the tins and into the packaging. It's quite a process.
Dave Young:
Do I have to go kill a whale?
Stephen Semple: -
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When you need the chocolate you find creative ways to make the deal work. See the best of both worlds.
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.
[ASAP Commercial Doors Ad]
Stephen Semple:
Welcome to part two of the Mars episode. If you haven't listened to the first part, I suggest you go back and give it a listen because those are really the early days of Mars. But the Mars story was so interesting we had to break it into two parts, and there's some really fun and surprising things that are going to happen in Phase 2 of this story.
The Mars Bar was this big success. He's now had a couple failures. He needs a success. It's 1934. His father, Franklyn, passes away.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
At the age of 50, and the future of the company in the U.S. is now in doubt, and there's a small number of shares go to Forrest. But most of the shares go to his stepmother who does not like Forrest.
Dave Young:
Ouch. Okay.
Stephen Semple:
Forrest is pissed. And basically he decides that what he needs to do is just go on a vacation and cool off. So he takes a vacation to Spain, and he saw these chocolate candies made by Rowntree that are called Smarties.
Dave Young:
Um, okay.
Stephen Semple:
That don't melt, and he had never saw a candy coating on chocolate. So he decides to take Smarties to America. He returns to the U.S., leaves the UK company in the hands of the number two, but he needs a supply of milk chocolate. And where does he need to get that is Hershey's.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
But he's brand new. Hershey's is not super interested in doing it. So what he does is he knows the president of Hershey's. His son Murray, is never going to make it in the Hershey's business. So he offers Murray. He says, "Hey, you guys, sell me this chocolate. I'll make Murray, I'll give him an executive position plus 20% of the company."
Dave Young:
Wow. Okay.
Stephen Semple:
So they go, done. Murray's now set up.
Dave Young:
Murray's out of our hair.
Stephen Semple:
Murray's out of our hair.
Dave Young:
Not our problem anymore.
Stephen Semple:
What they do is they create this candy based upon Smarties.
Dave Young:
Wait a minute, wait a minute. Murray?
Stephen Semple:
Murray.
Dave Young:
Mars.
Stephen Semple:
Mars.
Dave Young:
MM. And the candy-coated chocolate?
Stephen Semple:
Is M&M's.
Dave Young:
M&M's, yeah. Oh, wow. So it was the son of Mars and the son of Hershey's.
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
Who knew?
Stephen Semple:
Right.
Dave Young:
That's amazing.
Stephen Semple:
So they need to build a factory and they want to make it stand out. So how they first package M&M's is instead of in a little bag, remember where they used to always come in a tube?
Dave Young:
Oh, I remember them coming in a tube, but not in my childhood. That was sort of a theater thing later on.
Stephen Semple:
But that's how they first came was in a cardboard tube. That was how they first came.
Dave Young:
Oh. You know, I kind of do remember that with like a folded wadded piece of paper at the end to hold it shut, yeah. Okay.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, it was first in this... In Canada I remember them with a little plastic thing on the end, but yeah, they're originally in the tube. So it's 1941. War breaks out in the United States. Factories all across, all industries are dedicated to the war effort. -
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: -
Daniel Whittington spent 7 months crafting the perfect message and a mere 10 minutes on the the plan of attack. How did it turn out?
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.
[Seaside Plumbing Ad]
Stephen Semple:
Hey, everyone. So we have a special surprise today. We've given Dave Young the day off because Dave works really hard.
Actually, Dave works for this guy, so we know why Dave works so hard. So I'm here with Daniel Whittington, and Daniel is the Chancellor of the Wizard Academy and basically created the Whiskey Marketing School at the academy.
Last time I was down in Austin, Daniel and I were sitting in the vault. We are doing a tasting, and Daniel shared a thought that just like rocked me back on my heels, which doesn't happen that often.
What I loved about it is he compared the marketing of whiskey to the promotion of a band. And the more he talked about it, I said we need to share this idea on the podcast because I'm constantly going down this idea of looking elsewhere.
So Daniel, tell us more about this revelation and the journey you've been on. And at the end, let's make sure we talk about why everyone should actually take a course at the academy and learn about whiskey.
Daniel Whittington:
My explanation of it now sounds just as good as it felt like it did when we were drinking whiskey in the vault together because those two don't always line up. So thanks for having me on, Steve.
The origin of this whole idea was I've got a background in music industry. I spent 20 years as a full-time studio and touring musician and, during that time, did a lot of booking, did a lot of traveling, did a lot of promotion of bands, actually worked with bands, promoting and touring and growing their fan base.
Then I got out of that and stumbled backwards into Wizard Academy where I've spent the last years, 11 years, actually.
Stephen Semple:
Wow. Has it been 11 years?
Daniel Whittington:
Been 11 years.
Stephen Semple:
Holy smokes.
Daniel Whittington:
Basically getting a graduate-level super masters in actual marketing and communications and, during that time, started the Whiskey Marketing School and have now started working with my own clients that are whiskey-related right now.
One of them, they are poised for explosion and growth. They're well set up. They've been winning awards. They've already got a huge fan base that's kind of localized to where they tend to travel to most, not just their town, but in their region. But we're ready to grow them. They've got some investment, they've got some money, they've hiring, they're ready to explode.
So we spent seven months building the marketing strategy, the ethos, the brand voice, the architecture of the personality of the brand and who they are and what they're trying to accomplish. During that time I was thinking, I don't know how to grow these guys because... In other words-
Stephen Semple:
I'm glad this is taking so long because I need more time.
Daniel Whittington:
Yeah. Yeah. Because so much of the way that I've helped grow people has been very particular to my skill set, or it has been brands that could use traditional media. And this distillery, there's no need for... like I'm looking at it, I'm thinking the worst thing we could do is use traditional media because you've already owned your localized areas.
And a whiskey bottle isn't just a local business, isn't HVAC where they can only service customers in a certain mileage, right? -
Alfred Butts worked on this game from 1938 until 1949 and then gave up the rights to James Brunot for royalties.
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.
[JS Pest Control Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to Empire Builders podcast. I'm Dave Young. I'm sitting here with Stephen Semple. Well, I'm not sitting here. We're recording this. He's in wherever he is, and I'm wherever I am. You know this world, you know how it all works, the Zoomee River. Anyway, boy, I've led us right off into the weeds right from the start.
Stephen Semple:
Well done.
Dave Young:
Stephen told me the topic for today. It's another game.
Stephen Semple:
Yes, another game.
Dave Young:
A lot of empires in the game world.
Stephen Semple:
Completely.
Dave Young:
This one, I'm interested in the story. I'm not a very good player of it because I don't have very much experience with it. This is another one of those that we just didn't play that much, but I was aware of, and there are people that are just fanatics for Scrabble. They play all kinds of word games, and I probably got into word games a little late in life. I don't know if my family was ... I don't know what it is, Stephen. Maybe we were just Chinese Checkers people.
Stephen Semple:
And I'm with you. Now it's interesting how you started this podcast because as soon as I said Scrabble, your brain got a little bit scrabbled.
Dave Young:
Sure.
Stephen Semple:
But I didn't play Scrabble much. It's not a game that I enjoyed and I found actually almost frustrating.
Dave Young:
Kind of stressful, right? Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
Yes. But it's surprising how big a game it is. As of 2008, which was the most recent information I could find on this, it was sold in 121 countries, 30 languages. Although how do you do 30 languages? It's like, yeah, but 150 million sets have been sold worldwide. But here's the one that surprised me. It's roughly one third of American homes and half of British homes have a Scrabble set.
Dave Young:
Really?
Stephen Semple:
Yes. And there's 4,000 Scrabble clubs around the world. It is everywhere. It is literally everywhere.
Dave Young:
It really is a game of skill, at least when it comes to having a vocabulary and keeping an eye out for possibilities and the different points on letters and things like that. And just I'm looking for reasons that maybe I didn't play it very much.
Stephen Semple:
And I'm with you. I didn't play it much either.
Dave Young:
I've enjoyed it when I've played it. It's always been somebody else's Scrabble set. I've never owned a set. So tell us how it started.
Stephen Semple:
It's quite an old game, actually. I was surprised when I came across it. It was invented by Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938.
Dave Young:
1938.
Stephen Semple:
So it's actually a very old game. I was quite surprised by that. And he was an architect, and he lost his job because think about 1938, late '20s, early '30s, Great Depression, how many architects, how many buildings are being built?
Dave Young:
By '38, we started thinking about how we're going to have to be building tanks soon.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Well, it would have been a very, very tough time. And so he's struggling to make ends meet, and he starts to notice the increased popularity in board games. But he doesn't have money to go out and do things or money to buy games, so he's trying to find ways to pass time, but he also then starts thinking about, -
J.W. Marriott had a gift for seeing what the public needed and made sure to give it to them. Marriott is the epitome of Entrepreneur to 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, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. Here's one of those.
[ASAP Commercial Doors Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young, sitting here with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about people that built empires. Empires, sir. Not just a little business, an empire. As usual, Stephen whispered the topic into my ear just as we were counting down to start recording. And the word is Marriott. I guess that's a name, the Marriott, I don't know if it was one guy or a family. I know that it ended up being a bunch of Marriott's involved, but the Marriott hotel chain.
Stephen Semple:
The Marriott Hotel chain. Marriott Corporation.
Dave Young:
I'll tell you what I know about them. And this is weird. A Mormon family?
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
And most of the brothers that were involved, maybe in the beginning, but anyway, they were all members of the same college fraternity that I was in.
Stephen Semple:
Is that right?
Dave Young:
I didn't know them, but that was the talk about them, "They're these BYU Sigma Chi's from Utah."
Stephen Semple:
And John Willard Marriott and his wife Alice, very devout Mormons and part of the origin of the Marriott chain actually starts with them doing a mission in New England.
Dave Young:
Cool. Anxious to hear the story.
Stephen Semple:
It started in March 5th, 1927 by John Willard Marriott, which is part of the reason why one of the Marriott's is the JW.
Dave Young:
Sure. This goes back way farther than I knew. I think by the time I was aware of them, this was the eighties. Wow. Big history.
Stephen Semple:
And today they have over 9,000 properties. There's a whole pile of different badges under it.
Dave Young:
Brands.
Stephen Semple:
And million and a half rooms, 400,000 employees. They do like 23 billion in revenue. And look, everyone knows the name Marriott.
Dave Young:
I think it qualifies as an empire.
Stephen Semple:
I think it does. And it starts with JW traveling to D.C, Washington, D.C after doing a mission in New England. And he experiences this really hot, humid summer, and he thinks to himself, "This city needs more places to buy cool drinks." He returns home to Utah. He finishes his degree at the University of Utah and returns to Washington where he buys an A&W franchise in Columbia Heights.
Dave Young:
Good idea. He should have invented air conditioning. I think we've talked about.
Stephen Semple:
That would've been a better idea.
Dave Young:
I always have to slide in some little weird bit of trivia that I know, but back in the days before air conditioning, the British Foreign Service actually paid people tropical pay when they were stationed in Washington, D.C.
Stephen Semple:
Wow, because it is so ugly in the summertime.
Dave Young:
It was dank and humid. Basically it's a city built on a swamp.
Stephen Semple:
It pretty much is.
Dave Young:
He buys an A&W franchise in?
Stephen Semple:
Columbia Heights. It's a suburb of D.C. It's great in the summer. Business is great in summer. Really slow in the winter. Because at the time, A&W did not sell food. They started off, first of all, it's just root beer. Now he gets permission to sell food, but does it under a different name called Hot Shop.
Dave Young:
Hot Shop. Shop or Shot?
Stephen Semple: -
A one point more TMNT action figures where sold than Snickers chocolate bars. Instantly qualifies as an 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, 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.
[Tapper's Jewelry Ad]
Stephen Semple:
Dave, if I say to you the names Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael, what do you think of?
Dave Young:
I'm guessing that we're not talking about Renaissance artists.
Stephen Semple:
Not really.
Dave Young:
We're heading off into Turtleland.
Stephen Semple:
We're heading off into Turtleland, exactly. But isn't it interesting? That speaks to how big Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are. Where you can say to pretty much anybody those names and yeah, you don't go to Renaissance artists. You go, oh, we're talking about the turtles, right?
Dave Young:
Yeah, for sure. Especially people a little bit younger than us, but absolutely.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Well, and they went through a revival just recently. There was another one of the movies out, and it's really interesting. That movie was an illustrated movie, and I went and saw that with my oldest daughter, Crystal, who's an illustrator. Man, the illustration style in it was amazing. When you talk about emotions, they really captured that teenage boy chaotic energy. You could really feel it, but that's what it's supposed to be. It was actually really, really well done. Really well done.
Dave Young:
Well, cool. Now, I have to confess, I don't know, other than I recognize the names and there's the cowabunga thing, the big catchphrase, but honestly, I raised four daughters that weren't into it, and it's after my childhood, so I didn't get into it either so I'm excited to hear the story. I've watched these turtles from afar.
Stephen Semple:
That's even interesting. When you think about that, and yet you still instantaneously knew what I was referring to, which tells you how strong a presence it had in culture given the fact that you've never seen the comics, you've never seen the movie. It didn't hit you at the right time, didn't hit your kids, and yet you were like zero hesitation.
Dave Young:
You couldn't hide from it.
Stephen Semple:
Correct, yes.
Dave Young:
It was so big. You couldn't hide from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Stephen Semple:
But that just in itself captures how big it was.
Dave Young:
I'm trying to think of what else. Oh, they ate pizza. They eat a lot of pizza.
Stephen Semple:
That's it. The first comic was published by Mirage Studios, and Mirage Studios was started by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The first comic was published in 1984. Today, Mirage Studios is like a $17 billion multimedia franchise. In 1990, just give you an idea, at the peak, Target sold more Turtle action figures than Snickers bars. Yeah, isn't that crazy?
Dave Young:
More than Snickers bars.
Stephen Semple:
More than Snickers bars.
Dave Young:
These weren't even chocolate turtles.
Stephen Semple:
No, these were the action figures. No, not the chocolate turtles. Very good.
Dave Young:
See what I did there?
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, yeah, I did. In 2009, it was sold to Viacom for $60 million bucks.
Dave Young:
Man. All right.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, so Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, they did well. They were artists, and they wanted to create this comic and it sort of started as a joke. In the eighties, if you think in the eighties, there was these tacky martial arts movies that ran overnight. -
Dave
Dave Young had no recollection of this game. Really, he didn't know. But after hearing this story he applauds Howard Wexler for knowing himself.
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, 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.
[JS Pest Control Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple. And we're telling the stories of empires that were built up by people with an idea, business people. And Stephen just whispered today's topic into my ear and I don't know.
Stephen Semple:
You know the game. Connect Four.
Dave Young:
Connect Four. I don't think I've ever played Connect Four. It's a game?
Stephen Semple:
You've never played.
Dave Young:
You're telling me it's a game.
Stephen Semple:
It's a game. I'm telling you it's a game.
Dave Young:
Is it a computer game?
Stephen Semple:
No.
Dave Young:
It's a board game.
Stephen Semple:
No, no, it's not a board game either. And that's what makes it interesting. It's the one which is a vertical game and you connect four, you drop them in the top and you connect ...
Dave Young:
Oh, you drop those little things. Yeah. No, I've never played that.
Stephen Semple:
You've never played it? Okay.
Dave Young:
No, I never have. I've seen people doing it and I thought it was, well, it's just sort like cornhole or some stupid thing.
Stephen Semple:
But now you the game ...
Dave Young:
I've seen people playing it with a giant set and beers in their hands.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Okay.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
All right.
Dave Young:
It's that game.
Stephen Semple:
It's that game. Well, despite the fact you've never played ...
Dave Young:
Let me guess, let me guess.
Stephen Semple:
It's done pretty well.
Dave Young:
Let me guess. You have to have four colors in a row.
Stephen Semple:
You have to have four colors in a row. That's it. That's it. Connect Four.
Dave Young:
All right.
Stephen Semple:
Despite the fact that you've never played the game, it has done pretty well. Sorry.
Dave Young:
How many do they sell? Let's get that in.
Stephen Semple:
About 10 million a year.
Dave Young:
All right. That's it. Thanks for joining us on the Empire Builders.
Stephen Semple:
Wow. It's amazing how many times we do this stuff and you know something about the company. I would never have guessed that this is the one that you would not know it.
Dave Young:
Look, I don't even know if I want to admit this, but yeah, I don't have friends that invite me to play games.
Stephen Semple:
But I would've thought you would've at least remembered the advertisement. It's a pretty iconic ad that has been done. It was back in the late seventies and it was two kids playing.
Dave Young:
This was around in the 70s?
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
Did I just wake up from a coma?
Stephen Semple:
You must have. There was a really iconic advertisement where the two little kids would be playing and the girl would say, "I won." And the boy would go, "I can't see it. Where?" And then she would point out the four in a row and he'd be like, "Pretty sneaky sis," and then pull a little thing and all the pieces would fall.
Dave Young:
Yeah. I have no memory of this.
Stephen Semple:
Where were you from? Nebraska.
Dave Young:
That's basically it. We were too busy working on cornhole technology.
Stephen Semple:
I guess. Anyway, -
Conrad Hilton, despite being unlucky, created what we now know to be the hotel experience. Always improving customer experience.
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.
[Tommy Cool HVAC Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome back To the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and we're telling the stories of empires, people that started with a little idea that ended up being huge. And as we got started here, Stephen whispered in my ear that we're going to talk about Hilton.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
And we're not talking about Conrad's granddaughter Paris Hilton who made a big name what in the '90s?
Stephen Semple:
I was wondering if you were going to go there.
Dave Young:
She's like chapter three of this story, I think.
Stephen Semple:
We don't have time for that story.
Dave Young:
For her to have that lifestyle, grandpa's got to make a lot of money.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Well, Conrad Hilton, I mean, Hilton is huge.
Dave Young:
Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
They now have over a million rooms. They have like 7,500 locations in 124 countries. But the interesting thing is Conrad Hilton really invented how we look at hotels today.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
He really is the founder of that idea. And as we go through this story, one of the things that really captivated me about this story, a lot of times when we're covering these things, yes, people have an observation, and yes, they're brilliant. But there's always this bit of element of luck. There's a little bit of this catching lightning in a bottle. Conrad Hilton was terribly unlucky and it's amazing the things that he had to overcome.
Dave Young:
Oh wow.
Stephen Semple:
This guy did not have luck on his side. So I want you to keep that in mind as we go through this story, which makes me admire him more actually.
Dave Young:
Sure. And as I think about what that brand means to me, before I know the story. I don't think in my youth I had a whole lot of experience staying at a Hilton hotel, but there were certain hotel brands that meant something, that people understood.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
If you knew if you were staying at a Holiday Inn on an interstate highway, if it had the word Holidome on it, you're in for a nice swim and a good time in an air-conditioned big space.
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
And if you had the money and you were traveling for business or something, you knew that the Hilton brand-
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
Would be a consistently better experience than most one-off hotels. Most. But there was always, every downtown always had one grand hotel.
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
But then if they had a Hilton too, you'd say, "Oh, well the Hilton, right?" Because the other ones have their quirks.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. And I think-
Dave Young:
The Hilton was always going to be a traveler, a business traveler's hotel.
Stephen Semple:
I travel a fair bit and I like staying in Hiltons, but I think before we go into the story, I think there's one mistake though that the, and hopefully somebody from Hilton listens to this and calls us and we can help them clean this up for them. They have one mistake that I think they've all done because they all now have all sorts of different brands. Hilton's got like 24 different labels or whatever. Here's the thing that they need to do. They need to look at each one of them and make them ... -
Would you remortgaging the house, driving around the country and put your home address in the public for Millions?
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 Sample 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.
[JS Pest Control Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Sample and we're talking about empires and ideas that people had that turned into something big. And as Steve started the countdown for the recording, he told me that today we're going to talk about UNO, the card game UNO. And I got to admit that I didn't play UNO as a kid.
Stephen Sample:
Oh, you didn't? Okay.
Dave Young:
I didn't know anything about UNO until I got married and my wife liked UNO and we taught it to our kids.
Stephen Sample:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
And I learned-
Stephen Sample:
So you played it with your daughters then, did you?
Dave Young:
Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Sample:
Yeah. My nephew-
Dave Young:
It's a vicious game.
Stephen Sample:
It is a vicious game. My nephew used to love playing UNO, so I'd play it with my niece and nephew, but what would be funny is, for whatever reason, he would end up being the one getting all the cards and you have these little hands and he'd be holding-
Dave Young:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Sample:
Now the funny thing is he would think it was hilarious that he would have all these. So it was kind of fun because he would find it funny that he'd have, "Well I clearly had the advantage because I've got all the great cards because I have half the deck in my hand."
Dave Young:
Yeah. How can I lose?
Stephen Sample:
How can-
Dave Young:
How could I lose? That's like me on a golf course. I've got way more golf experience than you do because I hit the ball a lot more than you do.
Stephen Sample:
So as soon as I got looking into UNO, I couldn't help but have all these really great memories of Jeffrey and Robin and playing UNO with them because it really is a great game to play with kids.
Dave Young:
Yeah. It's fun and, like I said, I always feel bad giving somebody a card that loads their hand up. I don't know why. That's just-
Stephen Sample:
The way you are.
Dave Young:
I don't have that killer instinct.
Stephen Sample:
So just to put in perspective how big UNO is, UNO is the best-selling card game in history.
Dave Young:
Really?
Stephen Sample:
Yes. Number one.
Dave Young:
Okay. By defined as a game specifically with those like that?
Stephen Sample:
With cards, like a card game.
Dave Young:
Yeah, but not-
Stephen Sample:
Selling card game.
Dave Young:
They haven't sold more cards than Bicycle playing card company.
Stephen Sample:
No. No because-
Dave Young:
But just a specific game.
Stephen Sample:
Yes. They've sold 150 million packs in 80 countries.
Dave Young:
That's a lot of UNO cards.
Stephen Sample:
That's a lot of UNO cards. It sure is.
Dave Young:
And 80 countries?
Stephen Sample:
Yes.
Dave Young:
See, that makes sense because you don't need to speak English to play UNO.
Stephen Sample:
Right. It's very simple. Right. You don't need instructions for it.
Dave Young:
It's numbers and colors. Yeah.
Stephen Sample:
Yeah. So it was invented by Merle Robbins in 1971 in Cincinnati. So the 1970s-
Dave Young:
'71. Okay.
Stephen Sample:
Yeah. It was 1970s. Lots of tension. Gas prices are crazy. Gas rationing, Vietnam, the stuff going on with Nixon, -
Anthony Pratt wanted to elevate playing board games from games of chance to thinking games. His wife was responsible for keeping it random.
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.
[JS Pest Control Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple.
Today, Stephen told me we're going to talk about the board game Clue, Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. Something like that.
Stephen Semple:
There you go.
Dave Young:
It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I've played Clue.
Stephen Semple:
Did you play Clue much as a kid?
Dave Young:
Not really.
Stephen Semple:
No? Okay.
Dave Young:
It was never my type of game, and I'm not sure why.
Stephen Semple:
Okay. Well, because you would've had to play it with your sisters. That's probably the problem.
Dave Young:
Yeah, that's probably it.
Stephen Semple:
More therapy for Dave about to [inaudible 00:02:01] right now.
Dave Young:
Yeah, you had to think. There was that thinking involved and eliminating things and...
Stephen Semple:
Well, it's interesting that you bring up the whole concept of thinking because when Clue came out, so it was created in 1949, when Clue came out, pre-World War II games, especially for kids, were like these mindless games of chance or things that required a little bit of a degree of skill. That was sort of all the games. There were not really any games that were thinking games. And Clue was sort of one of the first ones to come along to break into that whole genre of how do we make a game that's more of a thinking game and, frankly, it's not just a kid game as an adult game.
Dave Young:
Sure, yeah. And then it became a movie and all kinds of things.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, all kinds of things. And the original name was not Clue. The original name was Cluedo, so C-L-U-E-D-O, Cluedo.
Dave Young:
Cluedo.
Stephen Semple:
And it was created by Andrew Pratt. Today it's owned by Hasbro, and they sold like 150 million games. So it's gone on to become like a really big deal and, look, if you ask most people about Clue, they know what it is.
Dave Young:
Surely. Yeah. We all played it.
Stephen Semple:
So it's pre-World War II and games were mindless games of chance and whatnot, and there's nothing in between, and Anthony Pratt decides he wants to develop a game.
Now, he was a pianist before the war, and he often did entertainment at murder mystery parties, and he remembers people love the murder mystery parties.
Dave Young:
Murder mystery parties have been going on that long?
Stephen Semple:
Yes. Yeah.
Dave Young:
See, I had no idea about that.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
And they were really hugely popular. It was driven by, remember there's Agatha Christie, when she was writing in her prime, was just huge. There was a whole Agatha Christie thing, and so that fueled a lot of these murder mystery parties.
So here he is, it's World War II, they're in bunkers, killing time, trying to figure out how to create things that are fun. He starts thinking about, like, how could you build a murder mystery game that you could play. He's reading Agatha Christie books and discovers there's all these archetypes and whatnot. That's how he came up with the idea about, well, how about a colonel and a professor and a femme fatale and an entitled rich and a servant? -
Sylvester Stallone was not making it, trying to be an actor. So, instead of giving up, he tried a different path.
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.
[ASAP Commercial Doors Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young. That's Stephen Semple sitting to your right, however you're facing your podcast listening device. As we normally do, Stephen whispered the topic into my ear just as the countdown thing was going, and I'm a little flustered and confused because I'm not sure what we're talking about. He said, "We're going to talk about the Rocky franchise." And literally, the first thing that came to my mind was Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, no, no, no. Not Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Dave Young:
And I'm like, really? That's an empire? Really?
Stephen Semple:
No, no, no, no, no.
Dave Young:
No, you're talking about Sylvester Stallone.
Stephen Semple:
I'm talking about Sylvester Stallone.
Dave Young:
Yo, Adrian, and all of that.
Stephen Semple:
All that stuff. All that stuff, yeah. That movie is almost 50 years old.
Dave Young:
Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
Came out in 1976. There's been five Rockys. There was, then, Rocky Balboa, there's been three Creeds, there's another Creed coming out.
Dave Young:
Really?
Stephen Semple:
There's plans for a prequel to be done on one of the streaming ones. There's a spinoff that's being talked about to be done on Drago. Remember the Russian, the Russian fighter?
Dave Young:
Oh, sure, yeah.
Stephen Semple:
When you go to Philadelphia, there's the Rocky statue in Philadelphia of him holding his hands up near the stairs that he ran up.
Dave Young:
Sure.
Stephen Semple:
And today, there is a lineup. There's a lineup of people to take their picture with that statue. And it's 50 years ago. 50 years ago. Amazing.
Dave Young:
Well, Sylvester Stallone, he's got to fund his retirement somehow.
Stephen Semple:
The story was first shared with me by Tony Robbins, and it blew me away. And I did a little bit of additional look into it like, is this an urban legend? And it turns out much of this is true, although some of the details, I don't know the exact numbers, but it is actually really speaks to Sylvester Stallone's determination and understanding and ability to get things done that I believe every entrepreneur needs to embrace and understand.
Dave Young:
Awesome.
Stephen Semple:
And that's why I wanted to talk about Rocky. One of the other things I want to talk about when it comes to Rocky, it won best picture, best director, best film editing. It's considered, by many, one of the greatest sports films of all time. Stallone was nominated for best actor, and also was nominated for best supporting actor in Creed. And is wild today that when you're at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you still see people who run up the stairs and do the whole thing.
Dave Young:
Sure.
Stephen Semple:
And it's that, the statue is there, and there's a lineup. There's a lineup to take your picture with the Rocky statue. And yes, I have a picture of myself with the Rocky statue. I had to do it.
Dave Young:
How long was the line?
Stephen Semple:
Actually, I was there during the week on a weekday, so it was not too bad. It was probably about 15 minutes.
But here's the story behind Rocky that I find remarkable. So Sylvester Stallone found himself, like many in Hollywood, wanting to be an actor, -
Sol Price had and idea that he was not going to let go of. No matter how many times others tried to take it away.
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.
[ASAP Commercial Doors Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to The Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple. And Stephen, shoot, just as you hit the button, I was compiling a list because Julie and I, we've got to go pick some stuff up and you reminded me about it.
Stephen Semple:
Glad I can help.
Dave Young:
Right? We have a Google Keep list. I don't know if you use Google Keep. It's just sort of a list software that you can share with other people. And so that's where we keep our Costco list.
Stephen Semple:
Right.
Dave Young:
And it's actually a Costco/Sam's list, but we hardly ever pick up anything from Sam's. Sam's has some things that Costco doesn't and vice versa. Anyway, we're going to talk about Costco, to try to make a short story long.
Stephen Semple:
I hope we still have some listeners at this point.
Dave Young:
Right? Come on, we're only a minute in, so I think we're okay.
Stephen Semple:
Here's the thing I find it's really interesting about Costco. Today, they have basically almost 900 locations. They do like 243 billion in revenue. They have over 130 million members, and they have over 300,000 employees. They have a reputation of paying and treating employees very, very well, especially for a discount outlet. But to put in perspective, they do a little bit more than half the revenue of Walmart. But Walmart has like 10,000 locations. Costco is like 900.
Dave Young:
Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
Think about that volume that they do.
Dave Young:
Do. The product turn has to be amazing. Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
Unbelievable. It's just mind-boggling. It's just mind-boggling. And it's really interesting to stand outside of Costco and just look at carts full of stuff. Nobody goes to Costco and buys two things, right? It's just incredible. There's some legal things that we need to talk about to really understand the history of Costco, because back in 1936, there was this Robinson-Patman Act that was passed and it prevented the discounting of goods below the manufactured list price. So when we see manufacturers list price, it used to mean something. And what it used to mean is you could not go below that price. And this was to protect manufacturers and small retailers, and you could not do large purchases at discounts. It didn't matter how much you were buying, couldn't go below that price. And in the 1960s, these laws started to change, but large retailers still resisted this idea of lowering prices, because they'd sort of gotten very used to that.
Along comes Sol Price, and it's the early 1950s and he's working as a lawyer in San Diego, and he has a client in a jewelry business that's selling watches to non-profit member owned retail operation in LA called Fedco. And Fedco was a non-profit, like basically it was founded by 800 postal workers in LA, and they were leveraging the buying power to negotiate with distributors and eliminate store markups. And there was a membership fee. It was $5 for a lifetime membership for federal employees. And Sol visited Fedco and he noticed that the property was really similar to one that his mother-in-law had inherited in San Diego that sat empty. So he suggested the location to the client of his and his mother-in-law, and they agreed, and they opened under a different name instead of Fedco. -
Seeing that the world was getting faster and smaller, Howard Johnson started a hospitality empire. The first restaurant franchise.
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.
[Out of This World Plumbing Ad]
Dave Young:
So, are you going to actually tell me the topic, because the countdown is done?
Stephen Semple:
Oh, right. Howard Johnson.
Dave Young:
Howard Johnson, HoJo's. Right on.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
Right on. The aqua building with the orange roof. We stayed at some when I was a little kid.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, is that right?
Dave Young:
Howard Johnson's, all right.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah.
Dave Young:
Hey, let me do something real quick. Hey, welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, it's Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and today we're going to talk about Howard Johnson's as seen in Mad Men.
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
It was a monster. It sort of preceded the Holidome trend that Holiday Inn... I think Holiday Inn kind of kicked their ass with the Holidome concept.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, yeah.
Dave Young:
That's my guess.
Stephen Semple:
Here's the thing, in 1965 sales of Howard Johnson's exceeded that of McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC combined.
Dave Young:
Wow, that's many exceeds.
Stephen Semple:
Yes. When we talk about how it used to be a powerhouse, it was a monster that just seems to have disappeared. You see the odd one here and there.
Dave Young:
Yeah. If I had to guess the trend of, as I mentioned, Holiday Inn, Holidome sort of things, but my guess is that HoJo's, Howard Johnson's big rise was before the Interstate Highway system was built or right along with it-
Stephen Semple:
Right along with it.
Dave Young:
... in some places.
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
But in the East probably predates it.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, because there's a couple of really interesting things. As we mentioned, it's not a big powerhouse today. There may even be people that we're talking to that might not even know what the heck Howard Johnson is. At its peak, it was massive, and basically it was a motor hotel along with a restaurant. They would have both. They had the restaurant, they had the motor hotel along with it.
Dave Young:
Right.
Stephen Semple:
Now, it started on the restaurant side. That's where it started. In fact, it was the first ever restaurant franchise. They were the first ones to do franchising for a restaurant.
Dave Young:
So it was the prototype for Denny's and all of those.
Stephen Semple:
All of those, yeah.
Dave Young:
Howard Johnson's was there.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, and the type of restaurant it was was that fast casual dining. Yeah, really. It was kind of like a diner. It was the first ever franchise and the first location, this wasn't the franchise location, but the first location was Arlene Cape Cod, right at the intersection of Route 28 and Route 6A. Howard Dearing Johnson grew up outside of Boston in Quincy, and his first business was a drug store that he inherited from his father in 1925, along with a whole pile of debt.
The business was a money-loser. It had a soda fountain, a newsstand, and sold ice cream. Again, very much like those 1920s drugstores. We think about a drugstore today, and it's not a place that you hung out. In the 1920s, it was a place that you hung out, and I said there was soda fountain, all that other stuff. They sold three flavors of ice cream, -
Even if you make an awesome product, if you don't help your perfect customer identify with your brand, it won't sell.
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.
[Tapper's Jewelry Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, and we talk about brands, building big brands, big, exciting, profitable brands, and yet, during the countdown, Stephen didn't mention which brand we're going to be talking about, but he did mention a category. Somebody built an empire so big that their product actually created the category of light beer.
Stephen Semple:
Yes, and the reason why I have to look at it that way is it's a big company that made it happen, but it's still a pretty interesting story, because light beer, look, it's a huge category in the beer business, and it was not always that way. In fact, when light beer was first launched, it was a huge failure. It bombed, and it was Miller that created the first success in this space and really created this as a category. At its peak in 1977, Miller Lite was the number two beer in America.
Dave Young:
We've talked about Miller Lite and their campaign, and they had the world by the tail with Miller Lite.
Stephen Semple:
They really did, yeah.
Dave Young:
Then somebody talked him into changing the campaign.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Yep.
Dave Young:
Because it was at their peak, when it was the Less Filling, Tastes Great.
Stephen Semple:
Yes. That's what made it, and we're going to talk about how that came about, because it's a really interesting story. Because calorie-reduced beer was introduced in the market in New York by Rheingold Brewery as Gablister's Diet Beer.
Dave Young:
Yum.
Stephen Semple:
Sorry. Gablinger's Diet. It was introduced as a diet beer, and it was made using a process developed by chemist Herscher Gablinger of Basel, Switzerland, so it's this Swiss chemist created the process. The version used by Rheingold was developed by Joseph Owades. Now, Joseph then offered the recipe to Peter Hand Brewery, which created Meister Brau Light, so the second one that came out was Meister Brau Light. Now Peter Hand Brewery got into financial trouble in 1972 and sold several of their labels to Miller, and Miller relaunched the light beer as Lite Beer from Miller, not Miller Lite at first, it was Lite Beer from Miller, and Lite being L-I-T-E. It didn't do well. In fact, it was a dud. Around the same time, another brewery was struggling with a light calorie-reduced beer, and the category was simply not working. The problem was the ads were aimed at dieters.
Dave Young:
This was the era of Tab soft drink. There were diet things. Everything was diet, diet. My guess is they steered the diet industry in a different direction.
Stephen Semple:
The whole diet thing, just for the beer category, didn't work, but here's when things get strange. When they were doing market research on it, because Miller really believed there was an opportunity here, and when they did market research on it, it showed that 90% of Miller drinkers had tried the light beer once, they had tried it. They didn't say they disliked it, but they didn't buy it again. On one hand, you can go, "Well, the advertising's working, the promotion's working, our drinkers are trying it. They're not saying they dislike it, but they're not buying it again." Here's basically where they landed. The Miller beer drinker at that time was really described as the two-fisted drinker, -
David McConnell ditched his door to door book selling gig to pursue the bribe that he we giving for attention.
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]
Stephen Semple:
Ding dong. What makes you think of when the doorbell rings, what ad? Ding dong.
Dave Young:
Ding dong. Well, I was expecting a topic, first of all.
Stephen Semple:
Okay, well work with me here. What do you recall?
Dave Young:
Shoot, in the last five years, just chasing people away from my front porch.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, okay.
Dave Young:
Avon calling.
Stephen Semple:
There you go. Avon calling. That's who we're going to talk about.
Dave Young:
Yeah, I don't think they're doing that anymore.
Stephen Semple:
No, they aren't. But that recall is really, really interesting from the fact that you were able to remember those ads. Because those ads have not run, they stopped running in the late sixties. We were like...
Dave Young:
Oh my gosh.
Stephen Semple:
We were really young when those ads stopped, and yet you were still able to recall it.
Dave Young:
And I'm probably recalling it as a persistent meme in our culture that Avon calling, it became, not, it was woven into probably movies and TV and mass culture, so that for the next decade or decade and a half, it was still echoing, right?
Stephen Semple:
Correct.
Dave Young:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Stephen Semple:
So think about how powerful that was. We're going to talk about Origin, a little bit about Avon.
Dave Young:
I think that's a fascinating phenomenon. I'm anxious to hear the Avon story. It reminds me of cigarette jingles as well that ended when they banned cigarette advertising in the mid-seventies. Yet for the next 20, 30 years, I mean, anybody that was alive then could still tell you Winston tastes good like a cigarette should, right? There's so many of those. So yeah, they just become a part of us.
Stephen Semple:
And they're powerful enough that they're, as you said, spoofing them on Simpsons and things along that lines. But back to Avon. So Avon's a really old company. It was founded in 1886 by David McConnell, and today, it's still around today. They do 9 billion in sales, they have 23,000 employees. There's over 6 million representatives of Avon, and it's still privately held by Natura Holdings out of Brazil. And they're giving you an idea, there are four Avon lipsticks sold every second.
Dave Young:
Dang, that's a lot of lipstick.
Stephen Semple:
Boom four, boom four, boom four. Isn't that incredible? Isn't that amazing? Avon's founder, David McConnell, started in sales back in the 1880s as a door to door book salesman. And so we've heard this happen with other businesses because he then used a popular gimmick. Remember Wrigley's? Remember how Wrigley's didn't start by selling gum? The gum was the free giveaway? McConnell offered a free gift in exchange for a moment of the customer's time. So it was a gift with appointment. And guess what he gave away? Perfume.
Dave Young:
Oh, okay.
Stephen Semple:
Most of the customers McConnell dealt with were housewives who were home in the afternoon hours while their husband was away at work. And so he decided to work with a local pharmacy to create a fragrance that he could give away, little quantities for anybody who was willing to listen to the book pitch. But a funny thing happened, they were way more interested in the perfume than the books. So just like Wrigley, -
Do not confuse Strategy with Best Practices. Creating a great strategy will allow you to stand out, not fit in.
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. Here's one of those.
[Colair Cooling & Heating Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, with Stephen Semple. The topic you whispered in my ear today is not a brand name, it's not a service, it's not an invention. My favorite word to describe this is President Bush, the young one, the W.
Stephen Semple:
Okay.
Dave Young:
He called it strategery.
Stephen Semple:
Strategery.
Dave Young:
You want to talk about strategy today.
Stephen Semple:
I do.
Dave Young:
Or strategery.
Stephen Semple:
Strategery. Well if you think about it, this whole podcast, every episode is really about looking at a business and strategically, what did it do that made itself really successful. I get a bit frustrated because, a lot of times, businesses don't invest in strategy. They don't want to have a strategic session and invest in that. We all know that strategy ends up becoming really important. Then there's lots of things that are being paraded around as strategy, that frankly, aren't strategy, they're other things.
What I wanted to do is talk a little bit about what strategy is, isn't, and how you create it, and why it's important. Basically, I think it distills down to this. When people sit around in a group and go, "Hey, let's think about this thing that we can then parade out to people in an industry, we have this idea." That's not strategy. That's best practices.
Dave Young:
Okay, yeah.
Stephen Semple:
They're best practices because they're looking at, "Oh, here's the best things that have gone on in the industry." Those are best practices. If it's something that's really common, it's a tactic. It's not a strategy because a strategy can't be repurposed.
What a strategy is, is a business looks at its problem, "I've got this problem. I have these assets that I can leverage. Here's a creative way in which I can use these assets to solve this problem." Now what often ends up happening is it solves the problem so well, that they then systematize the solution, and now it becomes a best practice. Then that best practice gets so adopted in the industry, it becomes a common tactic that everyone does. That's what happens.
But for it to be a strategy, it can really only be used in that situation.
Dave Young:
Okay. Can you give me some examples?
Stephen Semple:
Great examples. M.M. LaFleur. They invented this whole idea of mailing out clothing to people on this subscription basis, where they then try it on and send it back. They didn't start off going, "Hey, let's do this." They had a problem. They had clothing and they couldn't find a place to store it. But because they had been doing these private fittings, they had an asset. The asset was, "We have the contact information of all these customers, along with their sizes, and their preferences. We can actually send clothing out to them that we think they would like." They did it to solve a problem, and in the process, made more sales in a month than they had done in the entire history of the company. They then went, "Huh, let's turn this into a thing. Let's systemize it and make it actually our business.?"
Dave Young:
Yeah. I looked it up, it's episode 54.
Stephen Semple:
Thank you. That was looking at their problem, looking at these unleveraged assets, and solving it in a way in which it had not been solv... -
What do you d
What do you drink when water is not good for you and your only other option is alcohol? Well, you rename root tea to root beer.
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.
[Tapper's Jewelers Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, Dave Young here along with Stephen Semple, and we are sharing stories about empires, business empires, brands that were built and grew really big, and figuring out what they did to make them grow really big. And Stephen just mentioned today's topic, whispered it in my ear as the recorder was counting down, and you said that I probably haven't seen this in a while. But I feel like it's maybe still around, but it's Hires Root Beer.
Stephen Semple:
Hires Root Beer, yes.
Dave Young:
Hires Root Beer, and I was kind of a root beer snob when I was a kid.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, were you?
Dave Young:
Not so much anymore, right? But I knew the difference between Hires and Dad's and A&W and all the big root beer brands.
Stephen Semple:
Which was your favorite?
Dave Young:
There was nothing that compared to an A&W root beer coming out of a fountain, not a can.
Stephen Semple:
Yep.
Dave Young:
Going to A&W and having a root beer in a giant glass cold mug. But we're here to talk about Hires Root Beer.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, which is now owned by A&W. I do not believe that Hires is still available in the US. You can get it still in Canada. But at one point, they were the largest in the United States. And Hires is actually kind of the inventor of the root beer business. And today it's like $600 million a year of root beer sold.
Dave Young:
Wow.
Stephen Semple:
So I thought-
Dave Young:
That's a lot of root beer.
Stephen Semple:
I thought it was worth exploring.
Dave Young:
Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
Because this is the origin of root beer.
Dave Young:
Okay.
Stephen Semple:
So it's the early 1870s, and the population in the United States is booming due to massive immigration. And sanitation is becoming a huge problem in cities. Polluted water is spreading disease and people frankly turn to alcohol for safe drinking. The average American at that time was consuming seven gallons of alcohol a year.
Dave Young:
Wow.
Stephen Semple:
Primarily beer and things along that lines, but part of it was because of water. So in 1874, protests start around alcohol, the anti-alcohol movements start. But the challenge is there's no good alternative to water. And so, Charles Hires is a pharmacist, and he always had these little side hustles and was always looking for opportunities. And while he's on his honeymoon, he is served this beverage called root tea. And it's made by fermenting, so it's carbonated, but the fermentation is cut off before alcohol forms. And it's really popular in these rural areas, but not in urban areas.
And he's a member of the Temperance Movement, so he knew it was hard to find good alternatives to alcohol. So he starts to experiment on recipes for root tea. And he felt this could be a temperance drink because it had the feeling of a beer, and it could be sold in stores. And it was delicious, and he felt he could create a shelf-stable version. The first version of it was this powdered mix that you would boil, add water, add sugar, add yeast, let it ferment, cut it short, and there it would be. Right? And so, he met with this local Reverend, Russell Conwell, and he was sharing with him this idea of this root tea. -
The secret to creating something viable is you better be highly engaged in it. Tope Awatona learned this lesson the hard way.
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.
[No Bull RV Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple. Today, Stephen mentioned, it's the app, Calendly, C-A-L-E-N-D-L-Y, Calendly. I've used it. We still use it for a couple of things. It's a way that you can give people a link to sign up for a time on your calendar to talk to you or make an appointment with you or make an appointment to get their haircut, or I think all kinds of things now.
Stephen Semple:
The first time I was exposed to it was through you-
Dave Young:
Oh, all right.
Stephen Semple:
... where you had sent me this link, and I was like, "What the heck? What the heck is this?" which then caused me, after experiencing it as a customer, because the cool thing as a customer, it's just a link you click on, there's no software or anything, and then it sends you something that immediately populate your Google or iCal or whatever, that I ended up exploring it. Now I use it for absolutely everything because it even has automated follow-ups and all this other stuff I'll do. I found, especially if you're trying to get a group of people together, it's a complete game-changer because you can also put all your calendars on it. It'll look at everybody's calendar and find the free spot. This experience I've just talked about, hold that in your head because it becomes important to the story. Calendly was founded by Awotona, I'm sure I'm pronouncing it wrong, in Atlanta in 2013. Today, it has over 400 employees and is valued at $3 billion.
Dave Young:
A real unicorn of a startup.
Stephen Semple:
Really, really is. Interestingly, in 2021, Calendly moved to a completely remote workforce. They have no office space anywhere any longer. Tope was born in Nigeria and immigrated to the United States when he was 15. He went to the University of Georgia where he did computer science, and he graduated with business. During school, he was working for a while at CVS as a cashier. Then he got a job doing door-to-door selling alarm systems in Athens, Georgia, on full commission. One of the things he learned was the best time to knock on doors is right before dinner. He's one of those guys, right before dinner.
Dave Young:
Yeah, right before dinner because everybody's home.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Now, he made good money, way more than CVS. On the first day, he made like 500 bucks because he sold two units. But the rest of the week there were no sales. But he still liked doing it because he understood there was a hit rate. He also liked that he could influence how much he could make, become better, work harder, make more. And it was a different outlet for him than coding.
He graduates from university. He had a few offers. He landed a sales job at a luxury travel company and then IBM. But he started looking for a small, fast-growing company to work for because there'd be more advancement opportunities than a big company like IBM. So gets a job where he moves to Kansas City, and he's working for a company that digitized files and managed content. Now, this was an interesting experience for him. Because while there, one of the onboarding things that they did for all the new employees was they would meet the founders of this company where the founders shared their story of starting this company and growing this company. For him, - もっと表示する
