Untold Stories Of The World Most Famous Brands: Google,eBay,Bic,Adidas,
Before it ran the universe, Google was a plain search box that crawled the internet better than anything else. Sony was once largely an audio manufacturer. Macs looked like Jellybeans, Fords were tough, and McDonald’s didn’t know what a “salad” was. Digging into the closet of the world’s biggest brands reveals some shocking roots. Here’s the backstory on the world’s most infamous, famous brands.
via searchengineland.com
Not only a search engine that has become a global phenomenon, Google was actually called “Backrub” at one point. Then, they were going to call it “Googol” as in the number, but a misspelling gave us the company we know today.
Boeing
via wikimedia.org
William E. Boeing bought a plane for fun, then cracked it playing around in the skies. He went to get replacement parts, but were told they would take months to arrive. Incensed, he set out to build a better plane made of superior parts, creating the immense airline maker we know today.
Coca-Cola
via independent.co.uk
Though perhaps one of the most famous secret recipes in the world, and formerly filled with cocaine, Coke actually began as a way to fight morphine addiction. It was called “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca" and was made by a wounded veteran of the civil war who was hooked on painkillers.
General Motors
via empresa-journal.com
Founded largely out of a fear of cars, rather than a love for them, GM came to be when a horse-drawn carriage company wanted to make safer automobiles to help save lives, as even then the death toll associated with horseless buggies was frighteningly high.
Adidas
via gq.com
Adolf Dassler – for whom “Adidas” is named – was famous for not only his hatred of his brother, Puma’s founder Rudi Dassler, but also of most people in general. Adolf was a famous member of the Nazi party who helped create weapons and goods for Hitler’s military.
It’s thought that only by providing Jesse Owens with gear for the Olympics was the brand able to survive the defeat of Axis powers.
BIC
via bicworld.com
The founder of Bic is Marcel Bich, who opted to drop the “H” off of his last name, since the English pronunciation sounds a little too insulting. Not many would want to carry around a “Bich” lighter or pen.
Mattel
via summer-creative.com
Founded after WWII with the intent of selling picture frames, the couple who founded mattel also made doll houses out of scrap wood. These houses became more popular and profitable than the picture frames, which led the pair to focus on toys, creating one of the biggest brands in the world.
eBay
via marketingland.com
Originally named “Echo Bay” the famous auction site was part of Echo Bay Technology Group, which wasn’t able to get the name EchoBay.com, since it had already been taken by Echo Bay mining. Thus, eBay was born.
Yahoo!
via businessinsider.com
The pair behind Yahoo! tended to think of themselves as uncouth, unrefined characters. That’s how Jonathan Swift describes the Yahoo race in Gulliver’s Travels, which is why the name stuck. Originally it was going to be named “David and Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” which doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Apple
via ibtimes.co.uk
Steve Jobs periodically went on frutarian diets and spent time working at an apple orchard, both of which led to his naming of the company. He wanted something simple to compete with the complex machines of the time, with names like “IBM.” Now that adroit simplicity comes with a sufficiently overblown “minimalist” price tag.
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