Do you know the story of Play-Doh? …
Probably not… Let me enlighten you. Play-Doh, as you probably know, is a world-famous modelling dough, used by millions of kids to create whatever their tiny imaginations can come up with. It comes in different colours, with a multitude of accessories to help make creation more fun. Ice cream factories, playful pies, make & play ponies and Rex The Chomper to name a few… If you’ve got kids, you’ve probably got some, or had some, in your house yourself.
Doh is big business with Hasbro, the brand’s owner, generating over $5.86 billion (yes that’s billion with a B!) in revenue each year and the Play-Doh brand playing a big part in that. But did you know that Play-Doh didn’t start out as a kids’ toy? In fact, its initial invention was a wallpaper cleaner!
Back in the 1920s, a failing soap company, invented the doughy substance to help remove the soot that coal-burning furnaces and fires left on the walls. And it worked for a while… But come the 1940s and the invention of cleaner gas fires and vinyl wallpaper that easily wiped clean, the brand was soon struggling again. It seemed no one really needed wallpaper cleaner anymore.
Around the same time, the CEO’s sister-in-law had been using the dough as an inexpensive material for little kids at her nursery to make Christmas decorations from. And that planted the seed of an idea… So they pivoted. Rebranded. Relaunched. And the world-famous brand as we know it today was born.
Crazy story huh? I bet you’ve made a fair few fried eggs and snails from a pot of Play-Doh in your time, and I bet you never knew you were playing with wallpaper cleaner! But there’s an important moral to this story too.
Never before have we been in a position of such fast and inevitable change. Tech and AI are changing huge industries and revolutionising sectors. Yours and mine will be no different. We need to be on our toes. We need to be keeping up with developments, adopting these new technologies into our businesses and be ready to pivot if a huge disruption occurs. I bet many a “wallpaper cleaning” business owner thought that they’d never be out of business, because well, people will always want clean wallpaper?! Then the gas fire, vinyl wallpaper and even central heating came along… But that’s the thing isn’t it – we don’t know what inventions are just around the corner.
So be ready. Stay current. And don’t be afraid to pivot if your industry suddenly changes…
What do you think? Have you seen any AI disruption in your industry? How do you plan to keep current? Send me your thoughts! I do love to read them…