Great brands started with great stories: such as the two strangers (Procter & Gamble) who married two sisters in Cincinnati and the elderly pensioner with a passion for chicken (Harland Sanders). Here's a classic: in 1891 salesman King Gillette's life changed. His new boss, who had invented a little cork-lined cap that was crimped over the top of glass bottles, told him: "King, why don't you try to think of something that when once used, is thrown away, and the customer keeps coming back for more."
Gillette found his big idea while travelling hundreds of miles in Pullman coaches, swaying around the railroad tracks of young America. Every morning on the train, he shaved with a long cutthroat razor that had to be stropped on a piece of leather. He began to wonder if he could put that razor sharp edge on a smaller, safer piece of steel, just one millimetre thick, gripped in a detachable handle.
He experimented with razor blade holders in his basement, while his business partner, an engineer with the unlikely name of Nickerson, perfected interchangeable blades using ribbon steel. In July, 1903, the fledgling Gillette Safety Razor Company charged five dollars for a razor and one dollar for 20 blades.
When Gillette reduced the number of blades in a pack to 12 for a dollar, his profit margin increased by 40 per cent. Most of his profit went on advertising, which Gillette wrote himself. His proposition wasn't safety but convenience: "No stropping. No honing." In 1903, he sold 51 razors and 168 blades. In 1904, he sold 90,844 razors and 123,648 blades. By 1917, blade sales exceeded 120 million annually.
In the 1830s, long before marketing textbooks were written, Englishman William Procter and Irishman James Gamble rafted down the Ohio River looking for jobs and met by accident in Cincinnati. They fell in love with the daughters of a local businessman who suggested that his two sons-in-law should go into business together. They made soap, lard and candles, the Gambles running the factory and the Procters running the office. Their humble address: East Side Main Street, 2nd door off 6th Street.
In 1875, James Gamble Jnr, a chemistry graduate, invented white soap.
History was made when an employee's mistake resulted in the soap being so light it could float. And when one of the Procter cousins was in church, a word in the 45th Psalm caught his imagination: "Ivory". Thus, P&G had its first brand name. It then perfected the ingredients of its success: mass advertising and continuous product R&D.
Finally, Harland Sanders: streetcar conductor, soldier, railroad fireman, insurance salesman, who had cooked for his family from the age of six.
Years later, and then running a Kentucky gas station, he invited hungry travellers to the dining room in his private quarters and whipped up meals for them. Later, he opened a chicken restaurant where he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the cooking technique used to this day. He was appointed a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 for his contribution to the state's cuisine.
But in the 1950s, his restaurant folded when a new interstate highway bypassed it. Reduced to a monthly $105 social security cheque, the sprightly 65-year old hit on the idea of franchising his secret chicken recipe.
He travelled from one restaurant to another across America, cooking up a batch of his chicken for each owner to try. If the owner liked it, Sanders entered into a handshake deal that paid him a nickel for each chicken sold by the restaurant. By 1976, the Colonel was ranked the world's second most recognisable celebrity.
Such inspiring stories remind us that the basics of branding have always been people, courage, and great ideas. And luck.