The Story
The Post-it Note had a rather long gestation period at 3M, the multinational conglomerate behind the product. It was back in the late sixties that chemist, and 3M employee, Dr. Spencer Silver was working on a range of new adhesives. One of the substances he developed was a new, but deeply flawed, sticky substance. Silver’s adhesive was unable to achieve a complete bond with the surfaces it came into contact with, essentially rendering it useless for any kind of permanent sticking. However, instead of discarding the substance, Silver set about trying to find a use for such a mild adhesive. Trialled uses for the substance included a product called the Post-it Bulletin Board – a simple notice board covered with a layer of Silver’s adhesive which could house memos and flyers without the need for pins.
Although the product was launched, sales never really took off, but it did keep Silver tinkering with his substance and, more importantly, gave him cause to discuss it with his colleagues. One such colleague was Art Fry who took an immediate interest after seeing one of Silver’s product presentations. Chemical engineering graduate Fry had started out as a salesman before working his way up the ranks at 3M, eventually landing a role within the product development division. He instantly saw the potential in Silver’s adhesive, and set about thinking up better uses for it. The eureka moment came during a church service. Fry, a member of the choir, was constantly looking for better methods of bookmarking hymns. The tiny pieces of paper he used were forever falling out of his hymn book, but with a small amount of Silver’s adhesive, the strips of paper stayed in place thus forming the perfect bookmark.
3M’s policy of allowing staff a percentage of their working hours to tinker with their own projects meant Fry had time to start developing his bookmarks idea. He adjusted the adhesive’s properties so that it left no residue on book pages and started to hand out prototypes to colleagues for feedback. The trouble was, the bookmarks proved too durable. Everyone he gave them to just used the same one over and over, meaning there was no need to consume more. It wasn’t until he used one of his bookmarks to annotate a report he was reading that he discovered the full-potential of using Silver’s adhesive on strips of paper.
Between them, Fry and Silver had come up with a mobile notice board, and an entirely new office communication method. Fry started handing out stacks of the sticky paper sheets to colleagues and very soon, the whole company was using them, and 3M decided to give Fry the resources he needed to develop the product commercially.
Commercial Impact
Nearly a decade after Silver had first developed the basis for the Post-it Note adhesive, 3M started test-marketing Fry’s invention under the name ‘Press & Peel Pads’ in four cities – Denver, Richmond, Tampa and Tulsa. Reception was muted to say the least. But both Fry and 3M were reluctant to give up on the product, given that it had been so popular with the company’s own staff. In a last ditch attempt to generate a buzz around Press & Peel Pads, 3M launched a more focused and resource intensive campaign in Boise, Idaho. Samples were handed out to offices, stationery stores were persuaded to put up point-of-sale displays, local newspapers were convinced to run stories on the product, and most importantly, 3M sales temps were sent out to do demonstrations. The extra marketing resource proved worthwhile, and the city responded with great enthusiasm, giving 3M the confidence to commit to a full commercial launch in 1980.
The initial product was launched in two sizes – 3×5 and 1.5×2 inches with a price tag of just under a dollar for each 100-sheet pad. 3M management were still unhappy with the name however, and it was at this point the product was changed to Post-it Notes, in an attempt to tie them in with the Post-it Bulletin Board. It was thought that aligning the products in terms of branding would create better consumer awareness of both.
Once the full weight of 3M commercial team was behind the product it became profitable within a year, in spite of the massive quantity of free samples being given away. By 1984, sales had reached $45m and 15 years later revenue topped the $1bn mark. The product’s patent ended more than a decade ago, and several copycat products have since been introduced to the market, but the product name, and famous ‘canary yellow’, the colour of some scrap paper used during prototype stage, are still trademarks of 3M.
This extract was taken from 50 Best Business Ideas, edited by Ian Wallis (Crimson Publishing)
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