Not Just for Walls

Joe did.

Joe’s dad and uncle had started a little company in Cincinnati … and it did two things … manufacture soap and produce a revolutionary wallpaper cleaner. The cleaner was a reusable and mouldable substance and it made the job easy. Before long they were largest wallpaper cleaner manufacturer in the whole world and were making a lot of dough. However, by the 1950s the demand for wallpaper cleaning products was rapidly declining. Then tragedy struck and Joe’s dad died in a plane crash … so Joe stepped in to run the struggling company and with his uncle. Things were not looking good … but then Joe learned about something he found very hard to believe, his sister-in-law was using the wallpaper cleaner in her nursery school during class time … for arts & crafts. After some investigation and testing Joe realised that maybe the reusable and mouldable substance could have a play in whole new market. So that’s how they started marketing it.

Today, over 60 years later, that wallpaper cleaner is a staple in virtually every school having sold more than 2 billion cans since it first hit the market. And it’s in the Toy Hall of Fame … Play-Doh

Play-Doh is a great idea … because taking an existing product and moulding it into something for a brand new market … can help you make a lot of dough.