The Prisoner & The Penguin

Herbert Johnston, an engineer at the Hobart Manufacturing Company was a curious man, or rather he was a man who was constantly curious. He was one of that band of engineers who want to use their practical skills to solve other people’s problems.

So, when in 1908 he saw an over-worked baker working away to mix bread dough with nothing but an iron spoon and brute force, he thought that there must be a better and more efficient way of doing it.

It took him nearly seven years to develop an 80-quart electrical stand mixer but when it was introduced sales grew rapidly, saving bakers’ arms up and down the country. It came to the notice of the procurement department of the US Navy and they ordered mixers for two new Tennessee-class battleships, the California and the Tennessee, as well as the U.S. Navy’s first dreadnought battleship, the South Carolina. By 1917, the stand mixer had become “regular equipment” on all U.S. Navy ships.

The product’s overwhelming success prompted Johnson and the other Hobart engineers to think about the potential for a smaller model that might be used in the home kitchens. World War I interfered, and while the battleships benefited from the mixers, the American public had to wait until peacetime returned.

It wasn’t until 1919 that the Model H-5, the first stand mixer for the home, was introduced. It came not only with an array of attachments, but with a new brand name too. According to the brand’s official history the name was given to it but one of the Hobart executive’s wives whom having tried a prototype, is supposed to have exclaimed, “I don’t care what you call it, but I know it’s the best kitchen aid I’ve ever had!”  

The KitchenAid trademark was quickly registered with the U.S. Patent Office.

The H-5 was also the first in what was to be a long line of KitchenAid stand mixers that utilized a “planetary action,” a revolutionary design that rotated the beater in one direction while moving it around the bowl in the opposite path.

It wasn’t a small unit though, standing about 26 inches (33cm) high and weighing approximately 65 pounds (29.5kg).

Many retailers were initially hesitant to carry the unique product so the company turned to its own largely female sales force, who set out to sell the 65-pound H-5 door to door. They gave in-home demonstrations to groups of women demonstrating how the machine could mix, beat, cut, cream, slice, chop, grind, strain, and freeze and sales quickly grew.

 

In 1927 the Model G stand mixer was introduced. Lighter and more compact than the H-5, it sells 20,000 units in its first three years on the market. Early adopters of the Model G included John Barrymore, Henry Ford, and Ginger Rogers

Then in the 1930s the company hired Egmont Arens to design three new, more affordable stand mixer models. Arens was the Art Editor of Vanity Fair, as well as being a world-renowned artist, designer, and “industrial humaneer” championing a consumer-centric approach to product design and packaging.

His client list included G.E., Fairchild Aircraft, and the General American Transportation Company and indeed the Hobart company for whom he had designed a meat slicer.

Arens’ design for the 4½-quart-capacity Model K45 was sleek and modernistic, far ahead of its time. It remains virtually unchanged to this day.  It was released in 1937 to huge success. All KitchenAid components are compatible with the front attachment hub of every mixer made since that day.

One final and famous innovation wasn’t actually introduced till 1955, when at the Atlantic City Housewares Show, KitchenAid unveiled a range of colours including Petal Pink, Sunny Yellow, Island Green, Satin Chrome, and Antique Copper. 

So if you are like Herbert Johnston, and are naturally curious and you had ever wondered about the origins of your KitchenAid, now you know.

 

 

How does a brand that sells kitchen gadgets by that most impersonal of channels, direct mail, and conducts no market research become a beacon for best practice when it comes to customer service?

Well it starts with a founder’s belief that you should ‘always look after the customer and the business will look after itself’, it goes on to include an inspirational customer service director and continues with a truly dedicated and committed sales force and a loyal group of brand advocates.

Alan Rayner was the founder and his initial business was selling agricultural plastics; covers for haystacks, silage sheeting, Lammacs – plastic coats to protect new-born lambs and, most famously, plastic bags for chickens. The business, originally known as Lakeland Poultry Packers, is now known simply as Lakeland.

In 1974, when Alan retired, his three sons, Sam, Martin and Julian Rayner, took over the business.

One of the first things they did was to change the direction of the business. It was a decision that laid the real foundation of the brand today.

 Home freezing was the ‘in thing’ in the 1970s and the brothers had “A moment of inspiration [that] told us people who froze food also cooked it! So along came the ‘Everything for Home Cooking’ catalogue. We scaled down the agricultural side and headed in the direction of all things kitchenware”. It was to prove to be a great decision.

Although they admit that they never got on particularly well as children, the brothers seem to be a harmonious team, each with a distinct role suited to his talents. Julian Rayner, who describes himself as ‘very visual’ is the company’s marketing director and takes charge of catalogues and shop design. He describes Sam as the brains: “He understands the computer system” and so he was the natural choice for managing director. Martin is ‘a man of infinite patience’, which makes him ideal for running the buying side.

It’s a company constantly looking for and bringing new products to the market. It puts out up to 18 catalogues a year, containing 3,500 products related to homeware, cleaning, crafts and Christmas. It has about 70 stores in the UK and a thriving internet business.

Unlike some other companies though, they have a commitment to nurturing new suppliers. When they found what Julian called ‘the best fudge in the world’ in Penrith, they guaranteed to buy it in enough quantities so that the manufacturer could build  bigger premises. Convinced that the Ramoska, an electric saucepan that does everything from slow-cooked stews to bread, would sell, they arranged for flexes, plugs and elements to be 

sent to the Czech manufacturer and trucks to fetch the product.

Not long after the brothers took over the business, Michelle Kershaw joined them. She quickly learned everything there was to know about home freezing and kitchenware and became their resident expert and the face of Lakeland.

She went on to become their Customer Director but, as Julian readily admits, “Michelle was Lakeland. She had a huge personality, huge confidence. You couldn’t replace her. If something wasn’t right, you knew about it from Michelle. She would speak up for the customer.”

Never much of a cook, Michelle had a passion for cleaning. Every Friday, she would take home a bag full of products and test them over the weekend. If she thought something was ‘crap’, she would say so, but, if it did its job, she wanted to tell her customers.

Michelle would always be in the office at 7am brewing a litre of coffee. “She never looked less than perfect and had a room the same size as her bedroom full of glitzy clothes,” says her PA, Barbara Shepherd. “You had to be careful about admiring anything because she would give it to you – she was that generous.”

Lakeland customers were her friends. They rang her when their dogs died, they came to visit her in Windermere and sent cards. If they found a wonderful product on holiday, they couldn’t wait to get back and tell her – the soft liquorice from Australia that is selling by the ton started as a customer suggestion.

This meant that the company didn’t, and doesn’t, need to conduct formal market research as it talks and listens to its customers on the phone, constantly.

Michelle was diagnosed with lung cancer in March 2003 yet, despite her illness, she continued working long hours. She was told that she needn’t and shouldn’t come in before 8.30am, but she came in early as always.

Later that year she was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the home shopping industry.

On the day before she died in 2004, Michelle was driven to the office in the afternoon. Too weak to get out of the car, she checked proofs in the car park. Next morning, her last act was to finish a customer letter.

When told of her death there was a huge, heartfelt out-pouring of grief from customers. 

One of the most famous American brand icons of all time wouldn’t exist today if it wasn’t for the Russians, or more particularly one specific Russian – Jacob Youphes.

Even those amongst you who might have correctly guessed at the brand being Levi’s 501s and who know their jeans history would be forgiven for still being confused; didn’t Levi Strauss create Levi 501s?

Well the correct answer is yes …and no.

501s were and are produced by Levi Strauss, but the distinctive and differentiating features of the brass rivets and the double orange threaded stitching were innovations of Jacob Davis.

Davis doesn’t sound very Russian, but then again he wasn’t born Jacob Davis. Jacob was born in 1831 in the city of Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, now the capital of Latvia. He was christened Jacob Youphes and was trained and worked as a tailor.

In 1854 he emigrated to the United States where, shortly after arriving in New York, he decided to change his name and became Jacob Davis.

After a number of years travelling and working in various states he finally settled in Reno where he opened a tailor’s shop in 1869.

Much of his trade was in practical hard-wearing items such as tents, horse blankets and wagon covers for the railway workers on the Central Pacific Railroad. The fabrics he worked with were a heavy-duty cotton “duck” cloth and a heavy-duty cotton “denim” cloth.

He bought this latter fabric from a certain Levi Strauss & Co., a dry goods company in San Francisco.

In December 1870 Davis was asked by a customer to make a pair of strong working pants for her husband who was a woodcutter.

 

Thinking how to create suitably robust pants for working he decided to use the duck cloth and then he had an idea to apply an approach he was already following on his tents and wagon covers. He decided to reinforce the potentially weaker points with the copper rivets, putting them in the seams and pockets in his new trousers.

His customer and her husband were delighted and told their friends and colleagues. Word spread throughout the labourers along the railroad. Davis was soon making more and more of his working pants in both duck cotton and, as early as 1871, in denim cotton too.

Realising the potential value in his reinforced jeans concept, but recognising he would need help and capital if his new pants were going to be a success, he approached Levi Strauss in 1872, asking for his financial backing in the filing of a patent application.

Strauss too could see the potential, and on May 20, 1873, US Patent No. 139,121 for “Improvements in fastening pocket openings” was issued in the name of Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss and Company.

That same year, Davis started sewing a double orange threaded stitched design onto the back pocket of the jeans to distinguish them from those made by any of his competitors. This feature would be registered too; U.S. Trade Mark No.1,339,254.

Strauss set up a new and sizeable tailor’s shop in San Francisco for the production of Davis’s working pants and asked Jacob and his family to come to the city and run this shop.

As demand continued to grow, the shop was superseded by a manufacturing plant that Davis was then asked to manage. Davis continued to work there for the remainder of his life, overseeing production of the work pants as well as other lines including work shirts and overalls.

The brand however resided with Strauss and over time Jacob’s contribution has become less well-known.

Nowadays the Russian’s contribution is known only by fashion and brand historians … and you.

Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barnum is often considered to be the world’s greatest showman but another 19^th Century entrepreneur who used a number of the same techniques and whose name is still known right around the world was Thomas J. Lipton.

Lipton was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1850. At the age of fifteen, he travelled to the United States. There he worked on a Virginia tobacco farm, a rice plantation in South Carolina, a streetcar in New Orleans before finding a job in a department store’s grocery section in New York City. It was here he witnessed “American” merchandising and advertising in action and learnt the lessons he would employ so successfully later in life.

Unlike millions of others who had left for the United States never to return, Lipton saved up his earnings and went back to Scotland. After briefly working in the family grocery store, he opened his own in 1871. Lipton’s Market opened its doors at 101 Stobcross Street in the Anderston area of Glasgow.

To announce the launch he organised a headline-grabbing parade of what he called the “largest hogs in captivity”, each of which carried a sign proclaiming: “I’m going to Lipton’s. The best shop in town for Irish bacon!”

Other publicity-generating stunts included importing the world’s largest cheese and issuing ‘Lipton Currency Notes’. The store was a huge success and he quickly expanded. By 1880, Lipton had twenty stores, and by 1890 he had three hundred. He was a household name throughout Britain, renowned for his innovative retailing and promotional techniques.

Rather than resting on his laurels Lipton moved onto and into new things; as well as starting to challenge for the Americas Cup, something he would win five times between 1899 and 1930, he decided to get into the tea business.

He felt there was an opportunity to make tea universally accessible with guaranteed quality at acceptable prices. He chose to bypass the traditional trading and wholesale distribution channels (most UK tea-trading was at that time focused in London’s Mincing Lane). At that time tea was a drink for the wealthy, with the price around three shillings a pound (15p). Lipton would price his tea at the equivalent of one shilling sevenpence a pound (7.5p)

Tea had traditionally arrived in crates and was sold loose, but Lipton would change that as his tea was now pre-packed at multiple weight options and standardised to guarantee quality. Later, Lipton would be the first brand to sell tea leaves in tea bags.

The arrival of his first shipment of tea was done in traditional Lipton style with an accompanying parade of brass bands and bagpipers.

 

The next big change happened when Lipton went on “vacation” to Australia. In fact, he never planned on going to Australia, the story was a cover for a trip to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). There a recent blight had ruined the English coffee planters, and the survivors were now planting tea. With land prices low, Lipton had spotted another opportunity and bought five of the bankrupt plantations. This and his subsequent acquisition of about a further dozen sites allowed him to unveil a new slogan, “Direct from the Tea Gardens to the Teapot.”

In 1893, he officially established the Thomas J Lipton Co. and the Lipton brand of teas.

Lipton® teas were an immediate success in the United Kingdom and the United States where, for his headquarters, he chose a warehouse in Hoboken, New Jersey. True to form he was backwards in announcing his arrival and built a huge Lipton’s Tea sign that could clearly be read from any point in New York harbour.

In recognition of his exceptional contribution to the country, Thomas Lipton was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1898, and became Sir Thomas Lipton at the age of forty-eight.

Lipton® is now the world’s leading tea brand, sold in more than 150 countries.

 

 

Wherever I go my constant curiosity means that a visit to the supermarket is a chance to introduce myself to some of the local brands. On a recent trip to Sri Lanka I couldn’t help but notice the dominance of CBL (Ceylon Biscuit Limited) and its Munchee brand in the biscuit aisle.

I wondered what the story behind the brand was. My research led me to Mineka Wickramasingha, a multi-talented entrepreneur who helped establish the business through a combination of product innovation and commercial good sense.

The story however starts with the first biscuit factory in Sri Lanka. It was a small-scale handmade biscuit venture in Dehiwela owned by a local businessman called Williams.  In 1939, Simon Arthur Wickramasingha, Mineka’s father, acquired this factory, launching ‘Williams Confectionery’ with just 10 employees.

It performed well and grew steadily. In 1957, the factory was upgraded and mechanized using old Baker Perkins lines from the UK. When Simon Wickramasingha died in 1961, M.P. (Mineka) and his three brothers N. P. (Pali), R. L. (Ranjith) and R. S. (Ramya) took over the business.

In the 1960s the Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka, with the assistance of the US based organisation, CARE, provided schoolchildren with a cup of milk and a bun as nutritional supplements to their midday meal. However due to an inability to maintain the quality of the bun, CARE began assessing alternatives.

Mineka Wickramasingha identified this as a major opportunity and using his skill, developed while studying for his Bakery Science degree from the Borough Polytechnic, (now known as the University of South Banks, UK), he developed a tasty high protein biscuit. This and a single-minded pursuit led to them winning the contract. His recipe has subsequently been adopted and used internationally by CARE.

 

As the existing factory in Dehiwala was restricted in its capacity, the company opened a new biscuit factory at Pannipitiya in July 1968. The factory was operated by the newly formed Ceylon Biscuits Limited, a subsidiary of Williams (Williams owned 30%, the Wickramasingha family 30%, E. B. Creasy (an English trading company) 30%, the workers 5% and other shareholders 5%).

The funding from the contract allowed CBL to import two biscuit manufacturing lines from Germany, one of which was to be used for the new nutritional biscuit and the other would allow the company to expand further into the consumer market. A new range of biscuits comprising some generic biscuits like Nice and Ginger Nuts and two of its own innovations, Hawaiian Cookies and Milk Short Cake was launched under the brand name, Munchee. The brand now has about 60% of the domestic market. 

Mineka is now the president emeritus focused on quality improvements and innovation. He has set up other companies in confectionery, canning and hospitality. He has served as the chairman of the Southern Regional Economic Development Commission.

He is also a writer and his short story ‘Play Mate’ won the State Literary Award in 1996. His latest publication is the novel ‘E-danda’.

 

I have previously published my version of the story about how Sir Allan Lane was inspired to launch Penguin books, when returning to London after visiting the author Agatha Christie in Devon. He had found only a very narrow choice of things to read at Exeter railway station and felt there was an opportunity in making inexpensive but high-quality paperbacks available to the mass market

While the story traditionally focuses on this moment of inspiration and the subsequent despatch of the office junior, Edward Young, to London Zoo to sketch the penguin that would become the brand logo, further research uncovers others stories around the birth of the brand.

Two revolve around the inconvenient fact that sales were initially slow and Lane even privately admitted to friends that the venture might fail.

His first solution was the ingenious “Penguincubator” which appears to have been the first-ever (or possibly according to one source the second-ever) vending machine for books. Once built, it was installed outside Henderson’s at 66 Charing Cross Road, London and the books contained in it could be purchased for 6d. (Old English pence for anyone young enough not to get the reference – 2.5p and probably equivalent to c£2.50 now). However it wasn’t an overnight success and it drew complaints from nearby booksellers so didn’t solve Lane’s problem.

The ultimate solution and the second story is a variation on the classic ‘chairman’s wife’ tale.

 

Still looking for ways to build distribution and drive sales, Lane decided to try his luck with Woolworth’s, which at the time was the largest chain store in the UK. Provided he was patient he knew he would eventually been seen, as the retailer was famous for its open door policy, promising that any personal caller would get a friendly welcome and could meet the relevant buyer if they were prepared to wait.

He duly called at the headquarters at 1-5 New Bond Street in the heart of London’s fashionable Mayfair and within an hour of arrival, at about twelve noon, Lane was greeted by E. Clifford Prescott. Prescott explained that the store classified books as “Fancy Goods”, and that this was one of his ranges

Lane’s luck however seemed to have run out as his sales pitch appeared to be falling on deaf ears. Prescott didn’t seem that interested, shuffled in his seat and looked out of the window. The problem it appeared was that while the books who sell for 6d and so fall within Woolworth’s promise to sell nothing that cost more than sixpence, Prescott felt they weren’t ‘fancy’ enough to compete with the colouring books and job novels printed on low-grade paper with brightly coloured dust jackets the store already stocked.

Then just as he was about to pack up and leave Lane’s luck changed. Prescott’s wife who was on a rare visit to London poked her head around the door. She had finished her shopping and was now ready to be taken to lunch in nearby Regent Street.

It was then that Mrs Prescott spotted the Agatha Christie Poirot Book “The Peculiar Affair at Styles” lying amongst the assorted titles spread around her husband’s meeting table. She enquired whether the firm was considering selling the softcover books, and announced that she would buy several a week if the price were sixpence or less.

Prescott’s ears pricked up and suddenly he was interested. He decided to place an initial order of 36,000, each of the firm’s 600 stores were sent a crate of 500 books, and an additional thousand should be sent to the outlets at the major seaside resorts of Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Southsea, Margate, Blackpool and Skegness.

Sales went well and by the end of the summer season, top-up orders from the branches brought the total sale to 63,000 books.

On the basis of these are other sales which picked up too, Lane was able to establish Penguin as a separate business from Bodley Head.

 

(…and finally for any regular visitors, apologies for the short break in posting, a combination of too much work and too much play – holiday!)

 

 

Who would have guessed that perhaps the most famous British fighter plane of World War II would prove to be the inspiration for the world’s first and most popular baby buggy?

The connection between the two is Owen Finlay Maclaren and a design he “pulled out of the air”.

Born in 1907, McLaren grew up to become an aeronautical engineer and test pilot. Working for Maclaren Undercarriage Company Ltd he invented the undercarriage for the Supermarine Spitfire. His design allowed this famous aircraft to have great manoeuvrability. It allowed the plane to be steered and swivelled easily whilst on the ground and still be folded away neatly and simply when the plane was in the air.

He married and became father to two children, Janet and Colin. Janet married an American airline director and moved to the U.S. and Colin lived in the U.K.

As he neared retirement age, Owen began what he thought would become a slow wind down to a more leisurely lifestyle. All that changed when Janet visited the U.K. bringing her daughter to see him.

He was delighted and, like many grandparents, spent time taking his granddaughter out and about, to show her off. It was then that he got to experience just how difficult and frustrating it was to manoeuvre a bulky pram.

It got him thinking about how he could rethink, reimagine and reinvent baby transportation. He decided to use his knowledge of aeronautical engineering and applied aviation principles to creating a new ‘buggy’.

 

He decided to use aluminium rods, which had been used in aeroplanes but until then had not been used for household equipment.

He based the framework’s structure on triangles for their strength, resilience and flexibility, a trick used widely in airplane production.

He choose the doublewheels which was a feature of landing gear for their manoeuvrability

Incorporating his own experience of looking after young children and borrowing from another everyday piece of equipment, he used an innovative one-step umbrella-fold type construction. This easy-to-use functionality meant mothers could quickly fold the buggy with one hand, while holding baby in the other. It was to prove a godsend for parents.

It was finished with a durable blue and white striped fabric.

Seeing its potential, he applied for a patent on July 20th, 1965, for his 6lb prototype receiving Patent No. 1,154,362. On July 18th, 1966 he filed for an American patent, receiving Patent No. 3,390,893.

The Maclaren brand was born.

The first buggy – the Maclaren B-01 – went on sale in 1967. It was an immediate success and has become a design icon. It has served as the blueprint for every buggy that has been produced since.

Talking about his work a number of years later, he would perhaps subconsciously reference his debt to his aeronautical engineering background, saying; “I very much enjoy my mechanical toys, to be quite honest. It’s great fun making new things, dragging some new shape out of the air and then making it work, and then making it. It’s the greatest possible fun in my way of thinking”.

The notion of a brand having a noble purpose, something more than just profit or return on shareholders’ investment, is very much in vogue but as the story of FAO Schwarz shows it is nothing new.

In 1856, Frederick, the youngest of three Schwarz brothers, emigrated to the U.S. from Germany, joining his brothers in Baltimore, Maryland. A few years later in 1862, the brothers opened ”Toy Bazaar” a specialist toy retailer.

It was a success but wasn’t quite all what young Frederick had dreamed of. He had a bigger bolder vision of a magical toy emporium with one-of-a-kind toys from all over the world presented as a lavish theatrical experience.

So leaving his brothers to run separate stores in Baltimore and Boston, Frederick moved to New York City where in 1870 he opened ”Schwarz Brothers – Importers” which he stocked with beautiful toys and playthings from Europe. The business grew rapidly and became the destination for unique, high-quality toys in New York.

Frederick opened a second New York City location in 1876 to meet increased demand. He also moved into the catalogue business, creating one of the first mail order businesses in the country. Over the next 30 years, the store moved to larger, more prominent locations throughout New York City several times. By 1900, Frederick had renamed the stores ”FAO Schwarz.” They were considered by many to be the largest toy dealer in the world.

Sadly, Frederick August Otto Schwarz passed away in 1911, but his beloved brand lives on.

Towards the end of his life, he spoke about what drove him and not surprisingly, it wasn’t just money.

“I have made toys my life study … It is a splendid issue, and aside from the commercial question, there is more solid satisfaction in dealing with childhood playthings, and in knowing the joy one is sending out into the hearts of the little ones, than in selling any other commodity in the world.”

 

Footnote: In 1986 FAO Schwarz moved to its famous site at 767 Fifth Avenue at 58th Street, complete with its iconic greeters, the real life toy soldiers and the large floor piano that has featured in a number of Hollywood films. To the dismay of many New Yorkers, it has recently announced that this store will close in July 2015 due to the rising rents costs.

 

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Most companies don’t have a mission statement which explicitly states that their aim is to get you doing something other than what the brand is about all, but then Pinterest isn’t ‘most companies’.

Its origins however can be traced back to Des Monies in the early noughties when Ben Silbermann abandoned his long held plans to follow his parents and both of his sisters and become a doctor. Instead, inspired by entrepreneurs like George Eastman, Walt Disney, he decided he should to get into “business.”

By chance, he was put in the company’s IT group, simply because that’s where there were openings. Amongst the monotony of preparing spreadsheet after spreadsheet, he found himself reading TechCrunch and as he told the Alt Summit in a speech in 2012; “I remember [I] had this feeling that this was the story of my time and I was in the wrong place.”

No long after he saw the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and decided that he needed to go west as “being close to people that inspire you is a very good first step.”

Ben got a job at Google in customer support, because as he recalls it “I was more excited than the previous applicant.” However, the job wasn’t very different from his previous one; it involved analysing lots of data and making product design recommendations. It was basically preparing lots of spreadsheets all over again. Ben wanted to make products and build stiff but Google didn’t seem interested. He started complaining. Finally, his girlfriend paraphrasing Nike said, “Stop complaining and just go do it”. Looking back Ben sees this as a turning point and is eternally grateful to her: “If you’re really lucky in life you have someone to call you out on your own bullshit.”

Though at first it did seem that Ben’s timing was off; “A week later, the entire economy collapsed” and the friends who were going to join him were suddenly felt that maybe their jobs at Google weren’t so bad after all.

So Ben teamed up with a friend from college who was living in New York, Paul Sciarra and they came up with a product called Tote, which Ben describes as “a catalogue that was on the phone.”

While the concept was in many at the leading edge, “Everything seemed really hard. We couldn’t’ get money. Apps had just been released so the approval process was taking months.”

Finally, their luck changed and one investor came through with a cheque. Ben used it as an excuse to call all the investors who’d said no previously; “You’re going to miss out, this is the hot deal.” It worked and they got more investment.

While Tote was moderately successful Ben and Paul were developing another idea “I’d always thought that the things you collect say so much about who you are.” Ben says his childhood bug collection is really “Pinterest 1.0.”

 

Then on a visit to New York, Ben met a friend of a friend, Evan Sharp. They talked about the Pinterest concept. Ben remembers “It was like he was the only who understands what [I] was saying.”

Ben asked Evan to join them and he is now credited as the third a cofounder of Pinterest. It was Evan who came up with the grid layout for Pinterest.

The very first “pin” was put on the site, in January 2010.

It was picture of a Valentine’s day present that Ben was thinking of buying for his girlfriend.

Ben sent details of his new venture to all his friends in California but the reaction wasn’t quite what he had hoped for – “actually, no one got it.”

Well that wasn’t exactly true, users began to grow though Ben reckons that most early users came from Des Moines. “I suspect because my Mom was telling all her patients.”

Then in May 2010, a woman named Victoria helped organize a programme called “Pin It Forward” – a virtual “chain letter” where bloggers would exchange pinboards about what home meant to them. It was to prove a tipping point.

Suddenly people started using Pinterest in ways Ben, Paul and Evan 

Victoria, who is now the company’s community manager organised the first Pinterest meet-up and looking back Ben remembers thinking “That was the moment where I was like; ‘We’ve got it.'”hadn’t expected. One of the unexpected early boards was “Things That Look like the Deathstar” which included pictures of old teapots, puffball skirts and all manner of vaguely spherical things.

And indeed they had, the brand went from strength to strength

Nine months after the launch the website had 10,000 users.

The launch of an iPhone app in early March 2011, then brought in a more than expected number of downloads and on 16 August of that same year, Time magazine listed Pinterest in its “50 Best Websites of 2011” article.

According to Experian Hitwise, the site became the third largest social network in the United States in March 2012, behind Facebook and Twitter

And while the company sees itself as “the place to plan the most important projects in your life”, the brand’s mission “is not to keep you online, it’s to get you offline. Pinterest should inspire you to go out and do the things you love”

It is May 1970 and the classic pop song “Lola” by the Kinks is about to be released. A lot is riding on the song, the Kinks haven’t had a top ten hit for a number of years. 

It’s a great song and it begins…

I met her in a club down in old Soho

Where you drink champagne, and it tastes just like Coca-Cola

See-oh-el-aye cola

She walked up to me and she asked me to dance

I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice, she said Lola

El-oh-el-aye Lola la-la-la-la Lola

And ends…

Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man

But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man

And so is Lola

La-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola

Lola la-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola

But on the eve of its release, the band were informed that the BBC were going to ban it.

Given this was back in 1970 and the song is all about a romantic encounter between a young man and a transvestite you might well suspect that it was the storyline that was the cause of all the fuss.

 

However, the real reason was a completely different one. The BBC had decided that it wouldn’t play it because of the clear reference to “Coca-Cola”, which went against their “no product placement” policy.

Given that Davies had written the song to be a comeback hit for the band ; as he was to say in his autobiography, he wanted something that would “sell in the first five seconds”, he wasn’t about to let it be banned.

The problem was, back in those pre-internet, pre-sound-file days, the Kinks were on tour in the U.S. while the ‘Lola’ master tapes were back in U.K.

The only solution was for Ray to get on a plane back to London and record some new lyrics.

With a one-day gap in their schedule, Ray left after the band’s May 23^rd gig in Minnesota and flew back to the UK to record what was in the end a minimal change. The brand name “Coca-Cola” was replaced with the generic product descriptor “cherry cola”. Ray caught another flight back to the States re-joining the tour for their next gig in Chicago

The revised version, now brand-less, was approved and duly played on the BBC. It went on to be #2 in the U.K. and #9 in the US chart, the massive worldwide hit, Ray and the band so desperately wanted.

 

 

Footnotes:

Davies describes the piece as: “‘Lola’ was a love song, and the person they fall in love with is a transvestite. It’s not their fault – they didn’t know – but you know it’s not going to last. It was based on a story about my manager.” Supposedly one night, the Kinks’ manager got drunk at a club and started dancing with what he thought was a woman. Toward the end of the night, the transvestite’s stubble started showing, but their manager was too drunk to notice.

As for the champagne that was supposed to taste like Coca-Cola, Ray Davies insists it was real. Asked by a “Q” reader if he’d actually tried it, he replied “I have. I had a Californian champagne that tasted like it, in some kind of L.A. bordello tourist trap.”

Cherry Coke w though tested before was launched in 1985.