Brand Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
This brand trivia quiz has 97 free questions with answers and covers the stories behind the names and logos you see every day: how Nike got its Swoosh for $35, why the Dassler brothers' feud gave the world both Adidas and Puma, what IKEA and Lego actually stand for, the drink that started life as Brad's Drink, the third Apple founder who sold out for $800, and the loom patent that paid for the first Toyota. There are questions on Google, Amazon, Starbucks, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Mercedes, Ferrari, Rolex, Chanel and the trademarks that became everyday words: Band-Aid, Kleenex, Velcro and Jacuzzi. It runs from easy questions anyone who shops can answer to details only marketing nerds know, and works for a pub quiz, an office team-building round or a marketing class. Difficulty is marked on every question. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia article on the company or product and each question shows its citation.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which children's toy was first sold as a cleaner for removing soot from wallpaper?
Play-Doh
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.
Q 02How much was design student Carolyn Davidson paid in 1971 for creating the Nike Swoosh?
$35
$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.
Q 03Which 3M product grew from a low-tack glue nobody wanted, until a colleague used it on hymnal bookmarks?
Post-it Notes
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.
Q 04Which spray lubricant was first used by aerospace contractor Convair to keep the Atlas missile's skin from rusting?
WD-40
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.
Q 05When the Dassler brothers fell out, Rudolf founded a rival shoe firm that became which brand?
Puma
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.
Q 06Apple's forgotten third co-founder sold his stake back to Jobs and Wozniak for how much?
$800
$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.
Q 07What did Steve Jobs sell to help finance production of the Apple I?
His Volkswagen bus
His Volkswagen bus: soon after, the Byte Shop, a computer store in Mountain View, ordered 50 Apple I computers from the young company.
Q 08Which online retailer was founded in 1994 as Cadabra?
Amazon
Amazon: Bezos dropped Cadabra because it sounded too much like 'cadaver', and picked the name of the huge river to suggest a vast selection.
Q 09Which luxury house began in 1837 as a workshop making saddles and other gear for horses?
Hermès
Hermès: as cars made carriages obsolete, Émile-Maurice Hermès turned the firm's saddle-stitching skills to luggage and handbags.
Q 10Google's first outside investment, $100,000 in 1998, came from a co-founder of which company?
Sun Microsystems
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.
Q 11Starbucks opened in 1971 at which Seattle landmark?
Pike Place Market
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.
Q 12The creature on the Starbucks logo is what?
A twin-tailed siren
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.
Q 13Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald's in 1940 in which California city?
San Bernardino
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.
Q 21Which carmaker grew out of the loom company that sold its automatic loom patent to Britain's Platt Brothers in 1929?
Toyota
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.
Q 22The Mercedes car name comes from the daughter of which businessman?
Emil Jellinek
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.
Q 23Which slogan did Mercedes-Benz use in the 2010s?
The Best or Nothing
The Best or Nothing: the phrase goes back to the company's founders, including Gottlieb Daimler, who held to 'Das Beste oder nichts'.
Q 14Which jeans brand patented copper-riveted work pants in 1873 with Reno tailor Jacob Davis?
Levi's
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.
Q 15After New Coke flopped in 1985, what word did Coca-Cola add to the original formula's name?
Classic
Classic: New Coke had won taste tests, but a public outcry brought the original back as Coca-Cola Classic after just 79 days.
Q 16Caleb Bradham, who invented Pepsi as Brad's Drink, went bankrupt in 1923 after betting on the price of what?
Sugar
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.
Q 17IKEA's I and K stand for Ingvar Kamprad; what do its E and A stand for?
His family farm and his home village
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.
Q 18The name Lego comes from a Danish phrase meaning what?
Play well
Play well: carpenter Ole Kirk Kristiansen had been making ladders, ironing boards and stools before he turned to the wooden toys that became Lego.
Q 19Which video game company started out in 1889 making playing cards?
Nintendo
Nintendo: Fusajiro Yamauchi's Kyoto workshop made hanafuda cards, and in 1959 the firm began selling playing cards featuring Disney characters.
Q 20Which company, once called Haloid, bought the rights to a copying process named from the Greek for 'dry writing'?
Xerox
Xerox: its copiers were such a hit that Haloid renamed itself Xerox, a name that became synonymous with photocopying.
Q 24Ferrari's Prancing Horse is a black horse on a background of what colour?
Yellow
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.
Q 25Which tire company launched a free guidebook in 1900, hoping drivers would wear out more tires?
Michelin
Michelin: the guide stayed free until André Michelin, the company says, saw copies propping up a bench, and the firm began charging for it.
Q 26Rolex's first ambassador, Mercedes Gleitze, wore one of its watches in 1927 while doing what?
Swimming the English Channel
Swimming the English Channel: the watch was still working at the end of the swim, and Rolex built an advertising campaign around it.
Q 27Which art-supply brand's maker started out selling industrial pigments such as red barn paint?
Crayola
Crayola: Binney & Smith moved into school chalk and crayons, and in 2007 the company renamed itself after its most famous brand.
Q 28The Band-Aid was invented in 1920 by a Johnson & Johnson employee for whom?
His accident-prone wife
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.
Q 29Which tissue brand was first sold in 1924 as a way to remove cold cream and makeup?
Kleenex
Kleenex: its lead researcher pushed for ads pitching the tissues as handkerchiefs for hay fever, and by the 1930s that use had taken over.
Q 30What gave Swiss engineer George de Mestral the idea for Velcro after a 1941 hunting trip?
Burrs on his dog's fur
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'.