Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S5E16 - Brand Envy 2016

Episode Date: April 22, 2016

This is our annual episode where Terry tells some interesting stories about the brands he admires. This year, it includes the very first toy ever advertised on television in 1952, a teen magazine dedicated to heartthrobs, the only trailer people can name-check on highways, and a book that can be found in every hotel room.Each of these brands has a special reason why it has survived and thrived. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 5, 2016. You're so king in it. Scores of it in an instant. Your teeth look whiter than noon, noon, noon. You're not you when you're hungry. You're in good hands with us.

You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. George Lerner wanted to solve an age-old problem, namely, how to get kids to eat their vegetables. So in 1949, he decided to turn vegetables into toys. He created a set of plastic plug-in facial features that kids could stick into vegetables to create funny faces. Lerner brought his invention to a cereal company who started putting the toys into their boxes. But Lerner thought the idea was bigger than that.

So he pitched it to the Hassenfeld Brothers Toy Company. They liked what they saw, offered the cereal company $7,000 to buy the idea, and created what became Mr. Potato Head. The Hassenfeld brothers soon shortened their name to Hasbro, and Mr. Potato Head became a runaway success. It was a genius idea. Just supply 28 small pointy-backed facial features,

and customers would supply the actual Potato. Hasbro sold $4 million worth of Mr. Potato Head parts in the first few months of 1952 alone. But there was a reason for that. Mr. Potato Head was the first toy ever advertised on television. What's new, Hasbro? Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head with their own cars and trailers. That's what's new.

Take any fruit or vegetable. Just stick in eyes, then ears, and then the mouth. You can make the funniest looking people in the whole world. Potato Head people look different every time you make them. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head with cars and trailers come in one and two dollar sizes. Television was a brand new medium in 1952

and kids could not get enough of the new toy they saw flickering on the magical screen in their living room. However, there was one problem with the toy. Parents weren't thrilled when they tracked down a moldy Mr. Potato Head that had rolled under the couch four months earlier. If you catch my drift.

So, in 1964, Mr. Potato Head was given a plastic body. The days of sticking noses and ears into a real potato were now a thing of the past. Ten years later, new regulations about choking hazards forced Hasbro to merge the head and body into one piece. From that point on,

toy sales slowed, and Mr. Potato Head quietly simmered in the toy aisle. Until 1995. This holiday season, the adventure takes off. When toys come to life. To infinity and beyond. Toy Story.

With a co-starring role in Pixar's Toy Story, sales of Mr. Potato had jumped 800%. And to this day, the spud hasn't looked back. Over 100 million have been sold over 67 years. And it continues to evolve even now, with special editions

like Darth Tater, Luke Frywalker, and Idaho Jones. Mr. Potato Head is a mighty brand, the star of the first ever toy commercial in 19522 and still relevant today. Welcome to our annual episode where I tip my hat to some powerful brands.

My list may not include the coolest brands, the newest brands, or even the hippest ones, but I admire them for other reasons. Maybe it's because they've lasted so long in this disposable world, or they made a big impression on me when I was a kid, or maybe just because they are so utterly unique. But whatever the case,

each of the brands I talk about today gives me some serious brand envy. You're under the influence. Charles Lawfer was teaching high school in California in 1955. When his female students told him they were bored and had nothing good to read, Lawfer saw an opportunity. So he created a magazine called Coaster. It didn't seem to catch on, so he changed the title to Teen. The magazine was aimed directly at young girls aged 8 to 14, or tweens as they're now called,

and it was filled with what Lawford thought young girls would want to read about, namely, the teen idols that were emerging from TV, movies, and music in the late 50s. For the first time ever, teenagers were becoming a viable market, and their tastes were remarkably different from their parents. While Lawford had a great instinct for what teenagers were interested in, he had no feel for business and ended up selling the struggling teen magazine in 1957. Then, the Beatles hit in 1964. Suddenly, teens were in a frenzy.

So Chuck Loeffer issued a one-off magazine filled with photos and trivia about the Beatles and sold 750,000 copies in just a few days. That reignited his belief that a teen magazine could be successful if he could find the right formula. He noticed the classic Hollywood fan magazines like Photo Play and Modern Screen were also trying to jump on the teen train by featuring young, good-looking actors.

But those magazines were firmly linked with old Hollywood and moms, which was kryptonite to teenagers. With that in mind, Lawford created Tiger Beat magazine in 1965. He chose the name carefully as Tiger was slang for

cute boy and beat signified the editorial thrust of the new magazine. It would be all about music. He began by putting the faces of top billboard bands on the cover, but then realized something. Putting a band on the cover didn't necessarily mean young girls were going to buy the magazine. This lesson came into focus when he put the monkeys on the cover.

Girls liked the monkeys, but they loved Davy Jones. When he put Paul Revere and the Raiders on the cover, the girls went crazy for lead singer Mark Lindsay. That was the key. There had to be one cute face the girls could stare at, not four. It was an insight that shaped the magazine covers from that day forward. Inside, the writing wasn't scandalous or spicy, just PG-rated stories about a singer's favorite foods or clothes

or what he hoped to find in a girlfriend. Lawford understood that a young girl's fascination with a heartthrob wasn't necessarily sexual. It was more of an obsession with the details of a singer's life. But Tiger Beat told that content in breathless detail, sometimes with as many as 50 exclamation points per page. Lawford's success with Tiger Beat was built on other insights as well. The price was fixed at 75 cents per issue, the same price as a chocolate sundae.

It was a price kids could afford with allowances, and it positioned the magazine as a treat. It was printed on glossy paper, unlike rival magazine 16, which was on newsprint. That was important, because Tiger Beat offered readers full-size pull-out posters. Those glossy posters would grace the bedroom walls of millions of teenage girls all over the country. This, more than anything, was the secret sauce to Tiger Beat magazine. Oversized, full-color posters of heartthrobs like Bobby Sherman, Donny Osmond, or David Cassidy. Laufer also cultivated relationships

with celebrity management and record labels. That gave him first pick of new photo sessions, stories, and new song release dates. It was a symbiotic relationship because it kept the stars in the spotlight and it gave Tiger Beat a non-stop stream of content. So, when David Cassidy's star waned, it could feature the next idol, like Tony DeFranco of the DeFranco family, who hailed from Port Coburn, Ontario. Lawford quickly realized $5 subscription fees and advertising wasn't going to generate big

profits. So, he fueled his readers' obsessions with additional offers, like David Cassidy fan club memberships, Donny Osmond t-shirts, Davy Jones love beads, Bobby Sherman rings, and all sorts of other affordable fan trinkets. With readership peaking at 800,000 per issue, Lawford sold Tiger Beat in 1978 for $15 million. From that point on, Tiger Beat ebbed and flowed while changing hands several times. I assumed it had ceased publication years ago. But to my surprise, Tiger Beat is still around.

Its website is still full of singing idols at tigerbeat.com, but it survives for one other unusual reason. It has remained a stubbornly print publication. The reason for that is the same reason that stood out all those years ago. Teens still love to pull out those full-color glossy posters and put them on their bedroom walls. So, until

you can rip a poster out of your smartphone or tablet, it will remain a print magazine. Tiger Beat succeeds in a digital world because it is print. It's the most successful 51-year-old teenager around. I travel often for business. I stay in a lot of hotel rooms over the course of a year. And it never fails to amaze me that in each of those hotel rooms,

almost without fail, is a Gideon Bible. As with most of the stories on Under the Influence, it all started with marketing. One night back in 1898, two traveling salesmen checked into the very crowded Central Hotel in Bosco Bell, Wisconsin. But there was only one double room left. Although they didn't know each other, John Nicholson and Samuel Hill decided to share the room. The two got to talking and discovered they also shared a common faith. And both had toyed with the idea

of creating an association for Christian businessmen. So they decided to try it together. One year later, they held an open meeting for any men who were interested in joining a Christian association for traveling salesmen. Only one

person showed up. His name was William Knights. So the three of them formed an association and decided to call themselves the Christian Traveling Men of the United States of America. Then they decided traveling businessmen didn't have time for a name that long. Knights had an inspiration. We shall be called Gideons,

he exclaimed. The reference was to an Old Testament judge named Gideon who had led a small group of men to defeat a much larger army. So Gideons, it was. In its first four decades

of existence, only traveling sales and marketing men could join. One of the things they all shared in common, beyond their faith, was the fact they spent many nights in hotel rooms. That led them to the idea of providing Bibles to hotels across the land. Not only would the books be of use to fellow traveling Gideons, but also to any other guests who needed them.

They called it the Bible Project, and the first Gideon Bibles were put into the 25 rooms of the Superior Hotel in Superior, Montana in 1908. It would be the start of a journey that continues today. The Gideons don't sneak into hotel rooms and slip Bibles into bedside drawers, by the way.

Instead, when a new hotel opens, local Gideons will present a Bible to the hotel manager in a small ceremony. Then, we'll give the hotel enough books for every room, free of charge. Because the Gideons were originally sales and marketing men, they have a strong operational foundation. And they've done their research. For example, they know that the Bibles have a six-year lifespan. When they wear out, they get refurbished and sent to prisons for distribution. They know 25% of the people who check into a hotel room will read that Bible.

Therefore, each Bible will potentially reach 2,300 people. The Gideons aren't upset if you break the thou shalt not steal rule either. If you need the Bible, take it. They will happily replace it. Perhaps the biggest reason for the Gideon's success is the group's impressive funding and support system. According to their financial statements, the association, and by the way,

the Gideons are not a religion, they are an association, received $114 million from donations, membership dues, and investment income last year. $99 million of that will be used for purchase and placement of Bibles in over 190 countries in 95 languages. The most distant hotel room with a Gideon Bible? That would be 384,400 kilometers,

or 239,000 miles away, when Apollo 8 had one on board as it circled the moon in 1968. The Gideons have a rolling counter on their website that keeps track of the number of Bibles distributed. That number is over 2 billion and counting. For nearly 110 years, the Gideons have survived and thrived. They offer a unique service, and virtually everyone knows what a Gideon Bible is.

And maybe, more importantly, where it is. That is amazing branding. We'll be right back to our show. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative and that's where felix comes in felix is redefining weight loss for canadians with a smarter more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year losing weight is about more than diet and exercise it can also be about our genetics hormones metabolism felix connects you with online licensed healthcare practitioners

who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X.ca. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push.

Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Ever spotted an Airstream trailer sailing past you on the highway? Ever wished you owned one? I know I have. The silver aluminum design is timeless. Guess who invented Airstream trailers? An ad man.

When Wally Byam was a teenager, his grandfather bought a herd of sheep and put teenage Wally in charge of leading the flock to summer pastures in the mountains of Oregon. Young Wally lived out of a small two-wheeled wagon covered with cloth, pulled by a donkey. That experience would influence his life many years later. In 1923, Wally graduated from Stanford with a law degree, but he didn't go on to practice law. Instead, he went to work for the LA Times as an advertising copywriter.

He liked advertising so much, he left to start his own ad agency. While there, he created a how-to magazine on the side. He published an article on how to build a trailer and decided to try to construct one himself. It was a crude, boxy structure that sat on a Model A frame. Soon, people began asking Wally to build more trailers. And before he knew it, he had enough customers to start a new business.

Wally began designing teardrop-shaped trailers in 1934 and dubbed them Airstreams. Because that's the way they travel, Wally said, like a stream of air. In 1936, Wally Byam hit upon what would be the classic Airstream look, using an aircraft-like design with shiny hand-riveted aluminum. World War II interrupted the growth of the company, but after the war, Wally bought an old bazooka factory and formed Airstream Trailers, Inc. Soon, Airstream became a major business enterprise,

due to the fact highways were being built and more and more people were buying automobiles. Airstream trailers, or Silver Bullets as they were nicknamed, were the right product at the right time. Wally Byam died in 1962, but his dream has been kept alive to this day. The factory in Ohio is selling five times as many Airstream trailers than it did just a few years ago. Many Airstreams are used for reasons other than traveling. Kate Pearson, singer for the B-52s, has an Airstream motel in Joshua Tree National Park,

where you can rent one of six silver bullets for $200 a night Tom Hanks owns one Matthew McConaughey owns two there are Airstream restaurants juice bars and offices an ad agency in Toronto uses one as a recording studio the average age of an Airstream buyer is 65. But the company is not worried about that, because for the next 20 years, 10,000 people will turn 65 every day. Airstream trailers. Absolutely distinct, instantly recognizable, still in demand after 80 years. I gotta get me one of those.

Not many 99-year-olds are hip. They may have a hip issue, but they aren't hip. That's why Converse sneakers are so interesting. One day, a man named Marquis Mills Converse started the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in Malden, Massachusetts. The year was 1908, the same year the first Gideon Bible went into a hotel room. The company specialized in winterized rubber-soled shoes and boots. A few years later, it branched out into athletic footwear

and created a basketball shoe called the Converse All-Star in 1917. When basketball player Chuck Taylor joined the company in 1922, he transformed the business and the sneaker. He put on basketball clinics across the country. He got to know every basketball coach in the nation. And he created the first high top,

extending the canvas all the way around the ankle for additional support. Because Chuck was so instrumental in the marketing of the sneaker, Converse named the shoe after him in 1932. Four years later, the U.S. basketball team won the gold medal at the 1936 Olympics while wearing Chuck Taylor high tops.

That made it a slam dunk. Converse were now the sneaker of choice for aspiring basketball players everywhere. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Converse controlled a remarkable 80% of the North American sneaker market. Then, in the 1970s, the jogging fad arrived, and competing brands capitalized on the idea that you needed a special shoe for every sport. Tennis needed tennis shoes, sprinters needed track shoes, etc. That opened the door for Nike, Puma, and Adidas to invade the sneaker market.

Suddenly, Converse wasn't flying as high now. Even though Rocky Balboa wore them when he reached the top of the stairs in 1976, and Kevin Bacon wore them in Footloose in 1984, and even though grunge rockers wore them on stage in the 90s, it couldn't stop the slide. By 2001, Converse declared bankruptcy. Two years later, rival Nike came to the rescue and purchased the company.

But how Nike turned Converse around was surprising. The key was to abandon sports. That was a very tough decision for Converse Management because the brand's entire DNA was rooted in basketball. But when it finally let go of its sports heritage and instead embraced its counterculture appeal, its fortunes started to turn around. James Dean had worn them.

Sid Vicious had worn them. Kurt Cobain had worn them. Converse found a second life as a cool fashion statement. It no longer needed expensive R&D. The sneakers didn't need to be lighter or stronger. The brand didn't need an expensive celebrity endorser. It became a symbol

of individuality and independence. Designers like John Varvatos created a black leather studded version. Hudson's Bay developed a woolen high top. There was a Beatles edition. By 2011,

Converse was selling 70 million pairs worldwide. That's more than 190,000 per day. It is now a $2 billion brand for Nike. Converse has survived in one of the most competitive categories in all of retail. And what I find most amazing of all is the fact I have a pair in my closet, and so does my 21-year-old daughter. It's one of those rare brands that spans generations.

Like all the other products we've talked about today, Converse has figured out the secret. Life isn't a sprint. It's a marathon. The lifespan of a brand is always interesting to me. Some brands, like Apple and Microsoft, are so complicated that the beauty is in the complexity. Then there's Mr. Potato Head. It began life as just a bag of 28 small plastic pieces.

It didn't even come with the potato. Yet the beauty lay in the simplicity. As with most successful brands, it always comes down to focus. Tiger Beat magazine succeeded because it squeezed its aperture down to just music idols. And isn't it fascinating that paper stock is its saving grace in a world that is relentlessly digital? When the Gideons searched for their purpose, who knew they would find it in hotel

rooms? The founder of Airstream knew life was a highway, so he took a piece of aluminum and shaped it into the only trailer people can still name-check 80 years later. And then, there's Converse. It once owned 80% of the sneaker market,

then was assaulted by competitors from all sides, only to find redemption in the hands of its biggest rival, but must abandon sports to do it. The most powerful ideas can't be stopped by hungry competitors or world wars or technology or impossible goals. You just have to tip your hat to their stubborn persistence. Be it a magazine, a Bible, a trailer, or Darth Tater. When you're under the influence.

I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode brought to you by Odor Eaters. Tastes as good as it smells every time. Under the Influence was recorded at Pirate Toronto. Series producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineer, Keith Oman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre.

Research, Jillian Gora. Um, do you wear clothes when you listen to our show? If so, have we got a t-shirt for you. Go to terryoreilly.ca

slash shop. See you next week.