97 Fun Facts About Brand

Which children's toy was first sold as a cleaner for removing soot from wallpaper?

Play-Doh: as the story goes, a preschool teacher's pupils loved modeling with the cleaner, so its maker reworked it and sold it as a toy.

How much was design student Carolyn Davidson paid in 1971 for creating the Nike Swoosh?

$35: Knight told her he didn't love the design but it would grow on him, and years later he gave Davidson a diamond Swoosh ring and Nike stock.

Which 3M product grew from a low-tack glue nobody wanted, until a colleague used it on hymnal bookmarks?

Post-it Notes: Spencer Silver was trying to make a super-strong adhesive in 1968, and Art Fry's slipping choir bookmarks finally gave his weak glue a use in 1974.

Which spray lubricant was first used by aerospace contractor Convair to keep the Atlas missile's skin from rusting?

WD-40: after it proved itself on the missile, Rocket Chemical put it into aerosol cans for consumers, and it reached San Diego store shelves in 1958.

When the Dassler brothers fell out, Rudolf founded a rival shoe firm that became which brand?

Puma: the feud split their hometown, Herzogenaurach, into 'the town of bent necks', where locals looked down at a stranger's shoes before starting a conversation.

Apple's forgotten third co-founder sold his stake back to Jobs and Wozniak for how much?

$800: Wayne, whose slot-machine business had already left him in debt, feared he would be personally liable if the young partnership ran up debts it could not pay.

What did Steve Jobs sell to help finance production of the Apple I?

His Volkswagen bus: soon after, the Byte Shop, a computer store in Mountain View, ordered 50 Apple I computers from the young company.

Which online retailer was founded in 1994 as Cadabra?

Amazon: Bezos dropped Cadabra because it sounded too much like 'cadaver', and picked the name of the huge river to suggest a vast selection.

Which luxury house began in 1837 as a workshop making saddles and other gear for horses?

Hermès: as cars made carriages obsolete, Émile-Maurice Hermès turned the firm's saddle-stitching skills to luggage and handbags.

Google's first outside investment, $100,000 in 1998, came from a co-founder of which company?

Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote the $100,000 check to Google Inc. before that company legally existed, and the founders incorporated soon after.

Starbucks opened in 1971 at which Seattle landmark?

Pike Place Market: for its first decade the shop sold coffee beans and equipment, not drinks, until Howard Schultz, inspired by Milan's espresso bars, pushed for cafés.

The creature on the Starbucks logo is what?

A twin-tailed siren: Starbucks credits a 16th-century Norse woodcut, though scholars trace her through Cirlot's Dictionary of Symbols to a 15th-century image.

Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald's in 1940 in which California city?

San Bernardino: in 1948 the brothers replaced carhops with walk-up service, trimmed the menu and cut prices, rebuilding the stand around an assembly-line Speedee Service System.

Which jeans brand patented copper-riveted work pants in 1873 with Reno tailor Jacob Davis?

Levi's: Davis first riveted a pair for a woman whose husband needed sturdy pants for chopping wood, then asked his cloth supplier, Levi Strauss, to help patent the idea.

After New Coke flopped in 1985, what word did Coca-Cola add to the original formula's name?

Classic: New Coke had won taste tests, but a public outcry brought the original back as Coca-Cola Classic after just 79 days.

Caleb Bradham, who invented Pepsi as Brad's Drink, went bankrupt in 1923 after betting on the price of what?

Sugar: after World War I he stockpiled it at about 28 cents a pound, prices then crashed, and Pepsi-Cola's assets sold for just $30,000.

IKEA's I and K stand for Ingvar Kamprad; what do its E and A stand for?

His family farm and his home village, Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd: Kamprad was 17 when he founded IKEA, selling pens, wallets and picture frames rather than furniture.

The name Lego comes from a Danish phrase meaning what?

Play well: carpenter Ole Kirk Kristiansen had been making ladders, ironing boards and stools before he turned to the wooden toys that became Lego.

Which video game company started out in 1889 making playing cards?

Nintendo: Fusajiro Yamauchi's Kyoto workshop made hanafuda cards, and in 1959 the firm began selling playing cards featuring Disney characters.

Which company, once called Haloid, bought the rights to a copying process named from the Greek for 'dry writing'?

Xerox: its copiers were such a hit that Haloid renamed itself Xerox, a name that became synonymous with photocopying.

Which carmaker grew out of the loom company that sold its automatic loom patent to Britain's Platt Brothers in 1929?

Toyota: Sakichi Toyoda's Type G loom could stop itself when a thread broke, and his son Kiichiro later turned the loom works' car department into Toyota.

The Mercedes car name comes from the daughter of which businessman?

Emil Jellinek raced Daimler cars under the pseudonym 'Mercédès', and after his April 1900 sales deal with the firm, Mercedes became the name for its cars.

Which slogan did Mercedes-Benz use in the 2010s?

The Best or Nothing: the phrase goes back to the company's founders, including Gottlieb Daimler, who held to 'Das Beste oder nichts'.

Ferrari's Prancing Horse is a black horse on a background of what colour?

Yellow, the colour of Enzo Ferrari's hometown, Modena; in his telling, the horse came from flying ace Francesco Baracca's plane, and Baracca's mother urged Enzo to use it for luck.

Which tire company launched a free guidebook in 1900, hoping drivers would wear out more tires?

Michelin: the guide stayed free until André Michelin, the company says, saw copies propping up a bench, and the firm began charging for it.

Rolex's first ambassador, Mercedes Gleitze, wore one of its watches in 1927 while doing what?

Swimming the English Channel: the watch was still working at the end of the swim, and Rolex built an advertising campaign around it.

Which art-supply brand's maker started out selling industrial pigments such as red barn paint?

Crayola: Binney & Smith moved into school chalk and crayons, and in 2007 the company renamed itself after its most famous brand.

The Band-Aid was invented in 1920 by a Johnson & Johnson employee for whom?

His accident-prone wife, Josephine, kept cutting and burning her fingers while cooking, and Johnson & Johnson later made Dickson a vice president for his invention.

Which tissue brand was first sold in 1924 as a way to remove cold cream and makeup?

Kleenex: its lead researcher pushed for ads pitching the tissues as handkerchiefs for hay fever, and by the 1930s that use had taken over.

What gave Swiss engineer George de Mestral the idea for Velcro after a 1941 hunting trip?

Burrs on his dog's fur: he studied their tiny hooks, and named his fastener from the French velours and crochet, meaning 'velvet' and 'hook'.

Which tub brand grew from a pump its family built to soothe a child's rheumatoid arthritis?

Jacuzzi: the immigrant brothers had built aircraft parts and agricultural pumps before their portable J-300 hydrotherapy pump turned an ordinary bathtub into a spa.

Bill Bowerman's 1972 waffle-tread Nike shoe was nicknamed after what, because of its prints?

Astronauts on the Moon: Bowerman made the grippy sole by pouring rubber into a kitchen waffle iron, and its tread was said to leave prints like theirs.

Which US optical company created the Ray-Ban brand of sunglasses?

Bausch & Lomb developed the anti-glare lenses after Army Air Corps pilot John Macready sought a way to cut the blinding glare pilots faced at high altitude.

IKEA's first store opened in 1958 in which Swedish town?

Älmhult: the 1958 building served as an IKEA store for more than 50 years before it was turned into the IKEA Museum.

Pepsi-Cola got its name in 1898 from what supposed benefit?

Aiding digestion: early ads pitched Pepsi-Cola as a digestive aid, and the name probably nods to pepsin, a digestive enzyme, or to dyspepsia, meaning indigestion.

Which French fashion house hired Karl Lagerfeld as its creative director in 1983?

Chanel: Coco Chanel had closed her couture house during World War II and revived it after years of living in Switzerland.

Which camera brand's name was invented from scratch and trademarked in 1888?

Kodak: its first camera went on sale that year with the slogan 'You press the button, we do the rest', and snapshots by amateurs took off.

According to its founder, the Korean name Samsung means what?

Three stars: founder Lee Byung-chul wanted his company to be big and powerful, and to last forever, like stars in the sky.

Which phone maker began in 1865 as a single paper mill?

Nokia: it later sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2014 and remade itself mainly as a maker of network equipment.

Which supercar maker's founder had grown rich building tractors?

Lamborghini: Ferruccio built his first tractors from surplus military vehicles, and after mechanical trouble with his own Ferrari he set out to make a rival.

The made-up name Häagen-Dazs was meant to sound like it came from which country?

Bronx ice-cream maker Reuben Mattus said it honoured Denmark's treatment of Jews in WWII, though neither 'ä' nor 'zs' exists in Danish.

The camera brand Canon takes its name from Kannon, who is what?

A Buddhist bodhisattva: the 1934 prototype camera was named Kwanon, and in 1935 the firm switched to the similar-sounding Canon, a word meaning 'standard', for world markets.

Which convenience chain was called Tote'm Stores, for the purchases customers toted away, until 1946?

7-Eleven: the Dallas company chose the new name to advertise its long opening hours, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Which software company is named after a creek that ran behind co-founder John Warnock's house?

Adobe: Warnock and Charles Geschke started it in Warnock's garage in 1982 to sell PostScript, and Steve Jobs soon tried to buy the firm for $5 million.

The name Sony blends the Latin word 'sonus' with which bit of 1950s American slang?

Sonny: founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka wanted a short, simple name that people in any country could read and pronounce in much the same way.

Pringles packaging inventor Fredric Baur asked for his ashes to be placed where?

In one of his cans: his children buried part of his ashes in a Pringles can in his grave, honouring the design his daughter called his proudest accomplishment.

Which toy does Hasbro call the first ever advertised on television, in 1952?

Mr. Potato Head: the early kits were just plastic parts to push into a real potato or other vegetable, until Hasbro added a plastic potato body in 1964.

Which restaurant chain became a Christmas dinner tradition in Japan after a 1974 ad campaign?

KFC's first manager in Japan pitched 'party barrels' of fried chicken as a substitute for the American turkey dinner. The holiday had few traditions of its own in Japan at the time.

Which soft drink was created in wartime Germany after an embargo cut off Coca-Cola syrup imports?

Fanta was mixed from what Germany had on hand, including whey and apple pomace. Its name came from a salesman's reply when the boss urged his team to use their Fantasie, German for imagination.

Which sweet treat was developed in Italy's Piedmont because post-war rationing left cocoa scarce?

Nutella grew from a hazelnut paste that baker Pietro Ferrero first sold in 1946 as a solid block. A creamy version that could be spread followed in 1951.

Which carmaker introduced the three-point seat belt in 1959, then let rivals use the patent free?

Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin, who had earlier worked on aircraft ejection seats, designed the belt. The company opened the patent to other manufacturers in the interest of safety.

Which company did video-rental giant Blockbuster decline to buy for $50 million in 2000?

Netflix was then a three-year-old service that rented DVDs through the mail. Blockbuster passed on the deal and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010.

Which doll, modeled on Germany's Bild Lilli, was named after creator Ruth Handler's daughter?

Barbie was named after Barbara Handler, and Ken, who arrived in 1961, after her brother Kenneth. Barbara is said to have hated being known as the inspiration for the doll.

Which delivery company's logo, redesigned in 1994, hides an arrow between its last two letters?

FedEx's arrow appeared when designer Lindon Leader blended two typefaces, Univers and Futura, to shape the space between the E and the x. He meant it to signal speed and precision.

Which snack began at a Disneyland restaurant that cut up and fried its surplus tortillas?

Doritos started at Casa de Fritos, a restaurant run by Frito-Lay inside the theme park, as a way to use up leftover tortillas. In 1966 they became the first tortilla chip sold across the United States.

Which tech standard is named after a tenth-century Viking king who united warring tribes?

Bluetooth was the nickname of King Harald, and an Intel engineer picked it because the technology would likewise unite rival communication standards. The logo joins the runes for his initials, H and B.

Which lollipop brand has a logo designed in 1969 by the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí?

Chupa Chups takes its name from the Spanish verb chupar, 'to suck'. In 1995 it became the first candy sent to the Mir space station.

Which food company adopted the slogan '57 Varieties' in 1896 while already selling more than 60 products?

Heinz founder Henry Heinz got the idea from a shoe store sign boasting 21 styles. He picked 5 because it was his lucky number and 7 because it was his wife's.

Which energy drink was adapted from Krating Daeng, a tonic popular with truck drivers in Thailand?

Red Bull began after Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz tried the Thai drink on a business trip and found it eased his jet lag. He partnered with its creator and carbonated it for Western tastes.

Which clothing brand's crocodile logo comes from the nickname of its founder, a 1920s tennis champion?

Lacoste founder René Lacoste is said to have been dubbed 'the Crocodile' by an American journalist in 1923, after a bet with his team captain that had a crocodile-skin suitcase as the stake.

Which carmaker, once a builder of aircraft engines, adopted the slogan 'The Ultimate Driving Machine' in the 1970s?

BMW took up the line for its American advertising in the mid-1970s. Most other markets use 'Sheer Driving Pleasure', the English form of its German slogan 'Freude am Fahren'.

Which website made its first sale in 1995 when a broken laser pointer was bought for $14.83?

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar asked the buyer if he understood that the pointer was broken. 'I'm a collector of broken laser pointers,' the man explained.

Which vacuum brand's founder built about 5,127 prototypes in five years before his bagless design worked?

Dyson founder James Dyson had to launch his cleaner in Japan, in bright pink, because no British firm would handle it. They feared it would end their sales of replacement dust bags.

Which beer brand's founder signed a 9,000-year lease on a disused brewery in 1759, at £45 a year?

Guinness founder Arthur Guinness took on the St. James's Gate site in Dublin on the last day of 1759. The lease no longer applies, because the company went on to buy the land outright.

Which shoe brand added the signature of Chuck Taylor, a basketball player it had hired as a salesman?

Converse put Taylor's name on the ankle patch of its All Star after he asked for a shoe with more support and flexibility. By the 1960s it accounted for 70 to 80 percent of basketball shoe sales.

Which company named the bird in its logo Larry, after Boston Celtics basketball star Larry Bird?

Twitter's bird was redrawn several times, and the final 2012 version was shaped more like a mountain bluebird. The logo was retired after the service was rebranded as X in 2023.

Which chocolate bar, long sold in Britain as Marathon, was named after the Mars family's favorite horse?

Snickers came out of the Mars factory in Chicago in 1930. British and Irish shoppers knew it as Marathon until 1990, when the name was changed to match the rest of the world.

Which carmaker's name is a Latin translation of its founder's surname, Horch, the German for 'listen'?

Audi got its name after August Horch left his first firm and was barred from using his own surname on a new one. A friend's son, studying Latin in a corner of the room, suggested the translation.

Which food-container brand took off in the 1950s when Brownie Wise sold it at parties in people's homes?

Tupperware parties let women of the 1950s earn an income of their own without holding a regular job. Wise, a former Stanley Home Products saleswoman, became vice president of marketing in 1951.

Which company began when two San Francisco roommates rented out inflatable mattresses in their living room?

Airbnb is short for AirBed & Breakfast, the name Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia gave their idea in 2007. A design conference had left visitors struggling to find a room in the city.

Which fast-food chain trades as Hungry Jack's in Australia because its own name was already registered there?

Burger King's Australian franchisee, Jack Cowin, found the name held by an Adelaide takeaway. He chose Hungry Jack, a pancake mix owned by parent company Pillsbury, from a list of spare trademarks.

Which sports drink was developed in 1965 by University of Florida scientists for the school's football team?

Gatorade was nearly called 'Gator-Aid', after the Florida Gators players who tested it in practices and games. Its inventors dropped the 'Aid' spelling, wary that it would count as a medical claim.

Which New York jeweler has used a robin's-egg blue since the 1845 cover of its catalog, the Blue Book?

Tiffany & Co. registered the shade as a color trademark in 1998, and it is widely known as Tiffany Blue. Its custom Pantone number, 1837, is the year the firm was founded.

Which skin-care brand began with 'rod wax', a residue oil workers scraped off rig pumps and rubbed on burns?

Vaseline was the name chemist Robert Chesebrough gave the jelly he refined from the wax in Brooklyn. He had gone to Pennsylvania's oil fields because petroleum was ruining his whale-oil business.

Which website, founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees, opened with a 19-second clip filmed at a zoo?

YouTube's first video, 'Me at the zoo', shows co-founder Jawed Karim in front of two elephants in San Diego, remarking on the length of their trunks.

Which Italian scooter was named on the spot when its maker's boss said the prototype looked like a wasp?

Vespa is Italian for wasp, a nod to the scooter's narrow waist and antenna-like steering rod. Audrey Hepburn's ride on one in the film Roman Holiday is credited with more than 100,000 sales.

Which cereal maker grew out of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where two brothers created corn flakes for patients?

Kellogg's began with a falling-out: W.K. Kellogg launched the cereal firm in 1906, and his brother John, who ran the sanitarium, sued him over the right to use their surname.

Which fast-food chain, founded by Dave Thomas in Columbus, Ohio, is known for its square hamburger patties?

Wendy's patties were cut square so the corners stuck out of the round bun and made the meat look plentiful. Thomas borrowed the shape from Kewpee Hamburgers in his Michigan hometown.

Which Italian fashion house was founded by a former bellhop at London's Savoy Hotel?

Gucci began in 1921 as a Florence shop selling imported leather luggage. Its founder, Guccio Gucci, had learned wealthy travelers' tastes while loading and unloading their bags.

Which camera brand was born after its inventor's young daughter asked why she couldn't see a photo right away?

Polaroid founder Edwin Land was on vacation in Santa Fe when three-year-old Jennifer asked the question. Within an hour he had the idea for an instant camera, which reached shops in 1948.

Which hot sauce has been produced by the McIlhenny Company on Avery Island, Louisiana, since the 1860s?

Tabasco starts as pepper mash that is packed with salt into white oak barrels and aged in warehouses on the island. Its creator, Edmund McIlhenny, was a former banker from Maryland.

Which software company was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1975 to write programs for the Altair 8800?

Microsoft was first spelled 'Micro-Soft', Paul Allen's blend of microcomputer and software. The company left for Washington state in 1979 because top programmers were hard to recruit to Albuquerque.

Which sportswear brand is named after an African antelope, found in a dictionary a founder won in a sprint race?

Reebok is the Afrikaans name for the grey rhebok. Brothers Jeff and Joe Foster picked it in 1958 for an offshoot of their grandfather's running-shoe firm in Bolton, England.

Which pen brand's Cristal ballpoint, launched in 1950, is in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection?

Bic founder Marcel Bich bought the rights to László Bíró's ballpoint, then paired a precision-made steel tip with ink that neither leaked nor clogged. The 100 billionth Cristal was sold in 2006.

Which luxury carmaker's hood ornament, the Spirit of Ecstasy, was modeled on a nobleman's secret lover?

Rolls-Royce's flying lady was modeled on Eleanor Thornton, the secret love of motoring pioneer Lord Montagu. An earlier figurine, The Whisper, shows her with a finger pressed to her lips.

Which gum brand began when a Chicago salesman's free sticks proved more popular than the baking powder he sold?

Wrigley's founder William Wrigley Jr. arrived in Chicago with $32 to sell soap, then switched to baking powder. He gave away two packs of gum with each purchase, and the freebie became the business.

Which photo app began as Burbn, a check-in app its founders dropped for being too similar to Foursquare?

Instagram kept the one part of Burbn that users loved, sharing photos. Its new name blended instant camera and telegram.

Which British carmaker traded as SS Cars until 1945, when it adopted the name of one of its own models?

Jaguar started out in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company, building sidecars for motorcycles before moving on to car bodies. Its two founders were both motorcycle enthusiasts.

Which oral-care brand, named after a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, was once sold as a floor cleaner?

Listerine only took off in the 1920s, when adverts pitched it as a cure for 'chronic halitosis', a then obscure medical term for bad breath.

Which German candy company, named from founder Hans Riegel and his home city of Bonn, created the gummy bear?

Haribo's first bears, sold in 1922, were called Tanzbären, or dancing bears. They were bigger and softer than the Goldbears that came later.

Which outdoor clothing brand's logo is inspired by Half Dome, the rock formation in Yosemite National Park?

The North Face started out in San Francisco selling rock climbing and camping gear, and the Grateful Dead played at its store's grand opening in 1966.

Which Japanese sportswear brand's name is an acronym of a Latin phrase meaning 'a sound mind in a sound body'?

Asics stands for anima sana in corpore sano. The firm grew out of a sports-shoe business that Kihachiro Onitsuka started in Kobe in 1949 with two employees.

Which Italian carmaker's trident badge is based on the statue atop the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna?

Maserati was founded in Bologna in 1914, and the badge was drawn by Mario Maserati, the one brother who chose art over racing. The company later moved to nearby Modena.

Which tea company has used the same logo since 1787 and the same shop on London's Strand since 1706?

Twinings is London's longest-standing ratepayer thanks to its three centuries at 216 Strand. Its logo is claimed as the world's oldest in continuous use.

Which video game company took its name from Service Games, a firm that supplied slot machines to US military bases?

Sega's story began in Honolulu in 1940 with a firm set up to entertain wartime troops. When the US outlawed slot machines in its territories in 1952, the business was sent to Tokyo.

Which tech company, nicknamed Big Blue, was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company?

IBM took its present name in 1924. Its boss, Thomas Watson Sr., had joined a decade earlier after being fired by National Cash Register, and its early products included scales and meat slicers.

Which SUV brand descends from the Willys MB, a light four-wheel-drive built for the US Army in World War II?

Jeep became a trademark after Willys-Overland applied for the name in 1943, and civilian models followed from Toledo, Ohio, in 1945. The wartime original also inspired Britain's first Land Rover.