Sony was once largely an audio manufacturer.
Macs looked like Jellybeans, Fords were tough, and McDonalds didnt know what a salad was.
Digging into the closet of the worlds biggest brands reveals some shocking roots.
via searchengineland.com
Heres the backstory on the worlds most infamous, famous brands.
Boeing
William E. Boeing bought aplane 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.
Adolf was a famous member of theNazi partywho helped create weapons and goods for Hitlers military.
Not many would want to carry around a Bich lighteror pen.
Thus,eBay was born.
The pairbehind Yahoo!tended to think of themselves as uncouth, unrefined characters.
Thats how Jonathan Swift describes the Yahoo race in Gullivers Travels, which is why the name stuck.
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.
Trader Joes
Really, all Joe Coulombe wanted to do was make a chain like 7-11.
The problem he had was that there already was a 7-11.
So, he began making his stores with atradewinds feel, and offered unusual food from around the world.
The odd mixture enticed the touristy set and provided fare far from traditional.
IKEA
As with putting together the furniture, IKEAs name and foundation are both complicated.
Thus, the name IKEA is technically an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.
Then it became a gum company that cornered the market onchewing thingsyou cant swallow.
It wasmeant for laborers, not gentlemen, according to Strauss.
Pepe Jeans
Though popular in Europe, Pepe was actually founded by three brothers from India.
Theybegan the brandin London, so theres nothing authentic about these pants.
That led to his cloud-based storage solution with across-platform sync.
In this case, it means Svenska Aeroplan AB (aktiebolag) and belongs to theairplane manufacturing bodyof Saab.
