October 6, 2011
http://www.history.com/news/2011/10/06/great-american-garage-entrepreneurs
Setting up shop in a garage may sound like a cliché, but did you know that a number of thriving American businesses really got their start that way? One of the most famous examples is, of course, Apple Inc., founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56, and his friend Steve Wozniak. Find out about their brainchild and other major companies that trace their roots to humble birthplaces.
Apple Inc.
On April Fool’s Day in 1976, 21-year-old Steve Jobs and 25-year-old Steve Wozniak established Apple Computer, later known simply as Apple Inc. Pioneers in the burgeoning world of personal computers, the pair worked out of Jobs’ parents’ garage in Los Altos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Jobs, a college dropout, became one of the great innovators of the digital age, transforming not just his original field but also music, animation and mobile communications. He died at 56 on October 5, 2011, after a long struggle with cancer. Apple’s notable products include the Macintosh computer line, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, iTunes, the Mac OS X operating system and Final Cut Studio.
Hewlett-Packard
Considered the first American technology business to launch behind a garage door, Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939 by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who had scraped together an initial capital investment of $538. At the time, Packard and his new wife Lucile lived in an apartment next door and Hewlett camped out in a shed on the property, located in Palo Alto, California. After developing a range of electronic products, the company entered the computer market in 1966 and is now one of the world’s largest technology corporations. The one-car garage where it all began is a designated California historic landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Walt Disney Company
In 1923, the Missouri-born cartoonist Walt Disney moved to Los Angeles with his brother Roy to make short films that combined animation and live action. They spent several months producing their first series, the “Alice Comedies,” out of their uncle Robert’s garage before relocating to the back of a realty office and finally to a studio. Now the world’s largest media conglomerate, the Walt Disney Company became a leader in film, television, travel, leisure, music and publishing. In 2006, it acquired Pixar Studios from another veteran of a California garage: Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer. Robert Disney’s garage was saved from demolition in 1984 and donated to the Stanley Ranch Museum.
Mattel
When Ruth and Elliot Handler, who had met in an industrial design course, started making picture frames in their California garage, they probably never thought their venture—Mattel—would grow into the world’s biggest toy manufacturer. More or less by accident, they wound up crafting dollhouse furniture and later children’s playthings out of spare wood scraps. In the late 1950s, Ruth determined there was a market for dolls that looked like “grown-ups”; ignoring her husband’s objections, she designed a prototype and named it after their daughter, Barbie. (Ken, named for their son, followed soon after.) Mattel struck gold with the new line, and in 1968 Ruth became the company’s president.
Google
Long after Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer made their unpretentious debuts, another technology powerhouse came screeching out of a Silicon Valley garage. After developing a groundbreaking search engine for a research project, Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in a garage owned by Susan Wojcicki, a friend and future employee. The company, which has since branched out into numerous other areas, now runs the most visited websites on the Internet and boasts locations around the world. In 2006, Google bought Wojcicki’s house—and the garage where its vast empire began.
Yankee Candle Company
In 1969, 17-year-old Michael Kittredge of South Hadley, Massachusetts, couldn’t dig up enough cash to buy his mother a Christmas present. On a whim, he melted down some crayons in his parents’ garage and made her a scented candle. When neighbors began expressing interest, Kittredge, who needed a hobby since his rock band had just broken up, recruited some friends and began churning out candles. By the following year, the booming business had taken over the Kittredge home, so the young entrepreneurs moved into a dilapidated mill. Today, the Yankee Candle Company is the leading U.S. candle manufacturer, with hundreds of retail locations, international distribution and multiple product lines.
Showing posts with label Mattel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mattel. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Monday, February 4, 2008
Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1707379,00.html
Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building
By Leo Cendrowicz
For devotees, Monday sees the 50th anniversary of an event in Copenhagen that transformed toys and revolutionized childhood itself.
It was at 1:58 p.m. on January 28, 1958, that then-Lego head Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed a patent for the iconic plastic brick with its stud-and-hole design. Since then, the company has made a staggering 400 billion Lego elements, or 62 bricks for every person on the planet. And if stacked on top of one another, the pieces would form 10 towers reaching all the way from the Earth to the Moon.
But Lego's legacy lies less in numbers than in its creative influence. The colorful bricks have littered playroom floors for generations of families. But they have also spurred ingenuity among children that few toys can claim before and since. The company has always emphasized the importance of free-form play, and Lego's popularity can be attributed to the amount of imagination children use to build with the bricks.
The Lego company was founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund who had a sideline in wooden toys. He named the company after an amalgamation of the Danish phrase "leg godt," which means "play well."
The basic eight-stud red Lego brick was first sold in Denmark in 1949. But it took a further nine years for Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred Kirk, to file the patent for the versatile "Automatic Binding Brick" with its interlocking 2x4 studs. The plastic bricks are part of a unique system: tiny tubes inside give the knobs on top of other blocks more places to grip. They hold together well but can be taken apart easily by a child. And consistency has been key: the bricks produced today have the same bumps and holes, and can still interlock with those produced back in 1958. Fifty years on and the Lego Group is the world's fifth largest toymaker in terms of sales, after Mattel, Hasbro, Bandai and MGA Entertainment.
Over the years, the Lego group has built up the brand. It developed the larger Duplo series in the 1960s for younger children who had trouble handling the original tiny Lego bricks (Duplo is still going strong too). In 1968, the company opened its first Legoland theme parks, near its Billund birthplace. Parks in Windsor, England, Carlsbad, California and Günzburg, Germany followed, each using around 50 million bricks to create replicas of monuments and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Sydney Opera House. Each park receives around 1.4 million visitors per year.
But over the past decade, the group has struggled to keep pace with changing toy trends: the basic plastic bricks find it particularly tough to compete with games consoles like XBox and PlayStation to attract kids' attention. After years of eroding sales, the company posted its first-ever losses in 1998.
Radical remedies were needed to restore the brick's reputation. Tie-ins helped: the company's link-up with Star Wars revived the brand, and even led to its own video games: Lego Star Wars II sold 1.1 million units in its first week of release in 2006. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, it would seem.
In recent years, a series of brutal job cuts, asset sales and cost-cutting measures have pruned the company down. Staff numbers have fallen from 6,000 in 2004 to some 4,500 today. The Legoland parks were sold in 2005 to Merlin Entertainments, part of the Blackstone private equity group, which owns Madame Tussauds and Sea Life. And critically, distribution, packaging and production has been outsourced to Eastern Europe and Mexico. As a result, the Lego Group turned a $374 million loss in 2004 into a $281 million profit in 2006.
The group itself is only planning low-key celebrations of the patent anniversary: a special-edition of its 1950s-style Town Plan set with three gold bricks, and a worldwide building contest with a grand finale at Legoland Billund. And for most Google users — itself a website which keeps building and growing in size — the homepage spelling of the company name in Lego blocks Monday will come across as just another of the web giant's quirks. But for the millions who grew up on the brick — and the millions more still fitting them together — that lunchtime visit to the patent office proved priceless.
Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building
By Leo Cendrowicz
For devotees, Monday sees the 50th anniversary of an event in Copenhagen that transformed toys and revolutionized childhood itself.
It was at 1:58 p.m. on January 28, 1958, that then-Lego head Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed a patent for the iconic plastic brick with its stud-and-hole design. Since then, the company has made a staggering 400 billion Lego elements, or 62 bricks for every person on the planet. And if stacked on top of one another, the pieces would form 10 towers reaching all the way from the Earth to the Moon.
But Lego's legacy lies less in numbers than in its creative influence. The colorful bricks have littered playroom floors for generations of families. But they have also spurred ingenuity among children that few toys can claim before and since. The company has always emphasized the importance of free-form play, and Lego's popularity can be attributed to the amount of imagination children use to build with the bricks.
The Lego company was founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund who had a sideline in wooden toys. He named the company after an amalgamation of the Danish phrase "leg godt," which means "play well."
The basic eight-stud red Lego brick was first sold in Denmark in 1949. But it took a further nine years for Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred Kirk, to file the patent for the versatile "Automatic Binding Brick" with its interlocking 2x4 studs. The plastic bricks are part of a unique system: tiny tubes inside give the knobs on top of other blocks more places to grip. They hold together well but can be taken apart easily by a child. And consistency has been key: the bricks produced today have the same bumps and holes, and can still interlock with those produced back in 1958. Fifty years on and the Lego Group is the world's fifth largest toymaker in terms of sales, after Mattel, Hasbro, Bandai and MGA Entertainment.
Over the years, the Lego group has built up the brand. It developed the larger Duplo series in the 1960s for younger children who had trouble handling the original tiny Lego bricks (Duplo is still going strong too). In 1968, the company opened its first Legoland theme parks, near its Billund birthplace. Parks in Windsor, England, Carlsbad, California and Günzburg, Germany followed, each using around 50 million bricks to create replicas of monuments and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Sydney Opera House. Each park receives around 1.4 million visitors per year.
But over the past decade, the group has struggled to keep pace with changing toy trends: the basic plastic bricks find it particularly tough to compete with games consoles like XBox and PlayStation to attract kids' attention. After years of eroding sales, the company posted its first-ever losses in 1998.
Radical remedies were needed to restore the brick's reputation. Tie-ins helped: the company's link-up with Star Wars revived the brand, and even led to its own video games: Lego Star Wars II sold 1.1 million units in its first week of release in 2006. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, it would seem.
In recent years, a series of brutal job cuts, asset sales and cost-cutting measures have pruned the company down. Staff numbers have fallen from 6,000 in 2004 to some 4,500 today. The Legoland parks were sold in 2005 to Merlin Entertainments, part of the Blackstone private equity group, which owns Madame Tussauds and Sea Life. And critically, distribution, packaging and production has been outsourced to Eastern Europe and Mexico. As a result, the Lego Group turned a $374 million loss in 2004 into a $281 million profit in 2006.
The group itself is only planning low-key celebrations of the patent anniversary: a special-edition of its 1950s-style Town Plan set with three gold bricks, and a worldwide building contest with a grand finale at Legoland Billund. And for most Google users — itself a website which keeps building and growing in size — the homepage spelling of the company name in Lego blocks Monday will come across as just another of the web giant's quirks. But for the millions who grew up on the brick — and the millions more still fitting them together — that lunchtime visit to the patent office proved priceless.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071030/ts_afp/consumerhealthfoodchildren
Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products
Tue Oct 30, 2007
Sleeping pills advertised for children, dangerous toys and bottled water taken from local reservoirs are among the world's worst products, a global consumer group said Monday.
In announcing its bad products awards for 2007, Consumers International said the top prize went to the US subsidiary of Japanese firm Takeda Pharmaceuticals for promoting a sleeping drug for children.
The company ran a television advertisement in the United States which used images of children, chalk boards and a school bus to sell its drug Rozerem.
The "back-to-school" advertisements, which complied with US law, promoted the sleeping pills to parents without including health warnings for children, Consumers International said.
"This case demonstrates the lengths to which some drug companies will go to increase sales of their products, how direct to consumer advertising can promote irrational drug use, and how weak regulation can foster irresponsible corporate behaviour," the group said.
Another award went to drinks giant Coca-Cola for pushing marketing "into the realms of the ridiculous" in the United States and South America with its Dasani bottled water which is sourced from the same reservoirs as local tap water.
Kellogg's, best known for its cereals, was given a bad food award for the worldwide use of cartoon characters and marketing aimed at children despite the high levels of salt and sugar in some foods.
"Kellogg's are one of a number of international food companies that make money by selling products high in fat, sugar and/or salt," Consumers International said.
"Threatened with litigation in the US, Kellogg's have agreed to change some of their marketing practices, however we believe they are doing too little, too late."
Toymaker Mattel was also named over the global recall of more than 19 million products made in China because of high lead levels and small magnets.
Last month the US toymaker apologised to China, saying the vast majority of recalls were due to design flaws and had nothing to do with where the toys were manufactured.
"This is a classic case of avoiding accountability and shifting responsibility on a global scale," Consumers International said.
"Wherever the fault lies, the safety of consumers was compromised and this should be the full focus of Mattel's attention, not finger pointing and not blame dodging."
Consumers International, a global federation of consumer advocate organisations, said the awards aimed to highlight the abuse of consumer trust.
"These multi-billion dollar companies are global brands with a responsibility to be honest, accountable and responsible," the group's director general Richard Lloyd said.
"In highlighting their shortcomings, Consumers International and its 220 member organisations are holding corporations to account and demanding businesses take social responsibility seriously."
The awards, which were announced at Consumers International's World Congress in Sydney, were whittled down from submissions by consumer organisations around the world.
Criteria for final selection included the size of the company, the scale of sales and marketing, the impact on consumers, and the potential for change by the corporation.
Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products
Tue Oct 30, 2007
Sleeping pills advertised for children, dangerous toys and bottled water taken from local reservoirs are among the world's worst products, a global consumer group said Monday.
In announcing its bad products awards for 2007, Consumers International said the top prize went to the US subsidiary of Japanese firm Takeda Pharmaceuticals for promoting a sleeping drug for children.
The company ran a television advertisement in the United States which used images of children, chalk boards and a school bus to sell its drug Rozerem.
The "back-to-school" advertisements, which complied with US law, promoted the sleeping pills to parents without including health warnings for children, Consumers International said.
"This case demonstrates the lengths to which some drug companies will go to increase sales of their products, how direct to consumer advertising can promote irrational drug use, and how weak regulation can foster irresponsible corporate behaviour," the group said.
Another award went to drinks giant Coca-Cola for pushing marketing "into the realms of the ridiculous" in the United States and South America with its Dasani bottled water which is sourced from the same reservoirs as local tap water.
Kellogg's, best known for its cereals, was given a bad food award for the worldwide use of cartoon characters and marketing aimed at children despite the high levels of salt and sugar in some foods.
"Kellogg's are one of a number of international food companies that make money by selling products high in fat, sugar and/or salt," Consumers International said.
"Threatened with litigation in the US, Kellogg's have agreed to change some of their marketing practices, however we believe they are doing too little, too late."
Toymaker Mattel was also named over the global recall of more than 19 million products made in China because of high lead levels and small magnets.
Last month the US toymaker apologised to China, saying the vast majority of recalls were due to design flaws and had nothing to do with where the toys were manufactured.
"This is a classic case of avoiding accountability and shifting responsibility on a global scale," Consumers International said.
"Wherever the fault lies, the safety of consumers was compromised and this should be the full focus of Mattel's attention, not finger pointing and not blame dodging."
Consumers International, a global federation of consumer advocate organisations, said the awards aimed to highlight the abuse of consumer trust.
"These multi-billion dollar companies are global brands with a responsibility to be honest, accountable and responsible," the group's director general Richard Lloyd said.
"In highlighting their shortcomings, Consumers International and its 220 member organisations are holding corporations to account and demanding businesses take social responsibility seriously."
The awards, which were announced at Consumers International's World Congress in Sydney, were whittled down from submissions by consumer organisations around the world.
Criteria for final selection included the size of the company, the scale of sales and marketing, the impact on consumers, and the potential for change by the corporation.
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