Wham-O's Wisdom
Marketing moves that made toy biz history
By Tim Walsh -- Gifts and Dec, 1/1/2009 12:00:00 AM
Toy historian Tim Walsh recently published a book, Wham-O Super Book (pictured), about the history of one of the toy business' most clever companies. Playthings asked Walsh for his insights into what made Wham-O so successful. Here's his take on the toymaker's secrets of success.
Get the name right
In 1956, the “Pluto Platter Flying Saucer” was a plastic disc without an identity. As Frisbee, it would become one of the most recognizable trademarks in history. In 1958, Wham-O almost released the “Whoopee Hoop” before settling on the name Hula Hoop. In 1960, it bought the rights to the “Fun Gun,” then re-released it as the Air Blaster, a toy that could propel a blast of air nearly 20 feet. When asked why they changed the name, Wham-O co-founder Rich Knerr said, “Well, one name said what it was and the other didn't.”
Costs can kill
At the height of the hoop craze, Wham-O was making 20,000 Hula Hoops a week. Then, without warning, the floodgates slammed shut. “It was born in January and dead as a doornail in October,” Knerr said. “We got stuck with a lot of them. [So] after Hula Hoop, when we'd get an idea for a product, we'd hire the production of it out. We didn't want a whole bunch of money in machinery to build a product if we didn't know it would sell.” Had it not been for Frisbee taking up the slack right as the Hula Hoop rattled to the ground, Wham-O may have gone bankrupt under the weight of excess inventory and idle machinery.
Don't bite the fan that feeds
On the underside of every early Frisbee disc were the words, “Play Catch—Invent Games.” Players did just that, creating the sports of Guts Frisbee, Frisbee Golf, Ultimate Frisbee, Canine Frisbee and more. Today these disc sports are called Guts, Disc Golf, Ultimate and Disc Dog. Where's the Frisbee name? By squashing unauthorized use of the Frisbee trademark and avoiding the sponsorship of disc events, Wham-O irked many a Frisbee fan. This culminated in the disbanding of the International Frisbee Association in 1982. Today, disc companies like Innova and Discraft dominate the very same sports that the Wham-O Frisbee originally spawned.
Be original
Wham-O's first product was a homemade slingshot. Success spawned a line full of projectiles. “We did throwing knives, blowguns and crossbows because they were different,” Knerr said. “You couldn't buy those things just anywhere.”
Later, Wham-O became famous for its “never-before-seen” toys—a fantastic piece of plastic that appeared to “fly on invisible wires,” a twirling hoop that defied gravity and a ball that bounced higher than any ball anyone had ever seen. Wham-O toys were so low-tech, it's actually easy to miss how original they were.
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