Wham O

Corporate history

Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin, two University of Southern California college graduates unhappy with their employment, began the company in 1948 as "WHAM-O Mfg. Co." in the Knerr family garage in South Pasadena. Their first product was the Wham-O slingshot, made of ash wood, which Knerr and Melin would promote by showing off their own skills at demonstrations. The powerful slingshot was used by clubs for competitive target shooting, as well as for small game hunting. The name "Wham-O" was based on the sound of the slingshot's shot hitting the target. When they outgrew the garage they rented a building on S. Marengo Ave in Alhambra, California, in 1955, the company eventually moved its manufacturing plant to neighboring San Gabriel, California.

Timeline

Products and marketing

In 1957, Wham-O, still a fledgling company, took the idea of Australian bamboo "exercise hoops" and manufactured them with Marlex. The new Hula Hoop was born (the name "hula hoop" has been used since the 18th century). Knerr and Melin had created the biggest fad to date. Twenty-five million were sold in less than four months, and in two years sales reached more than 100 million units. By the end of 1959, after US$45 million in profits (US$346M adjusted for inflation to 2012), the fad slowly was dying out.

Shortly after, they got lucky again with the Frisbee. In 1955 Fred Morrison began marketing a plastic flying disc which he called the "Pluto Platter Putt-Putt". He sold the design to Wham-O in 1957 and the design was modified, the product renamed "Frisbee" and sales took off in 1959.

In the early 1960s, Wham-O created the Super Ball. It was made of a relatively hard elastomer Polybutadiene alloy dubbed Zectron, exhibiting a remarkable 0.92 coefficient of restitution when bounced on hard surfaces. The company sold some 20 million of these during the 1960s, and the NFL named the Super Bowl games after it.

The Frisbee and Hula Hoop created fads. Other products tried to take advantage of existing national trends. In the 1960s, Wham-O came out with a US$119 do-it-yourself bomb shelter cover. In 1962, they sold a limbo dance kit to take advantage of that fad, and in 1975 when the movie Jaws was released, they sold plastic shark teeth.

Many products, of course, were not successful. One such product came as a result of Melin's safari to Africa in the early 1960s. While camping, he discovered a species of fish that laid eggs in the mud during Africa's dry season. When the rains came, the eggs hatched and fish emerged overnight. Melin turned this into the Instant Fish product, an aquarium kit that consisted of some of the fish eggs and some mud in which to hatch them. Its debut at a New York toy fair made it wildly popular, but the fish could not produce eggs fast enough, so the idea was dropped.

Since its inception, Wham-O has differentiated itself by creating products that are innovative and unconventional. More recently, Wham-O has dedicated itself to the creation of products that seek to revolutionize user experience as well as striking a balance between classic recreational activities and contemporary technological advancements. These products seek to create feelings of nostalgia while at the same time remaining relevant in technology driven societies. The goal of these products is to motivate kids to be more active in ways that promote collaboration and teamwork as opposed to competition. Wham-O's current focus is on creating games that do not have a concrete set of rules in the hopes that youth will collaborate to think creatively and create their own set of rules. Additionally, Wham-O is working on integrating technology into their products as a means of better connecting with younger consumers and allowing those consumers to share ideas amongst themselves on the company website.

Other products

Strategy

Wham-O's initial success can be seen as a result of the insight of its founders. Knerr and Melin aimed their products directly at kids, going to playgrounds to reach them. They did extensive research to find new product ideas, including traveling around the world.

For many years, the company's strategy was to have eight to twelve simple and inexpensive products, such as Frisbees, Band-Aids, Super Balls, and Hula Hoops. New products would be developed and added to the line for a tryout period, and old ones retired (either for a few years or permanently) as their popularity waned. Since the toys were not expensive or complicated, they were sold by a wide variety of retailers, from large department stores to five and dime stores.

After the sale of the company, the various new owners experimented with changes to this formula. The toy industry was changing, with more complicated products and fewer sales outlets.

As of 2006, the portfolio of product lines includes several groups of related items which use licensed brand names. For example, Sea-Doo is a brand name by the manufacturer Bombardier of personal water craft; Wham-O makes a "Sea-Doo" product line of small inflatable rafts designed to be towed behind watercraft.

Product lines are also more complex, and are grouped into related categories; the Sea-Doo line has approximately a dozen products, there are several Slip 'N Slide variations, a group of "lawn games" and so on.

On January 31, 2011, Wham-O announced its arrangement with ICM, the company that represents Atari video games, to represent the Wham-O company in various media. The expected result will be movies, television, music, and online content based around the toy products of the Wham-O company.

As of 2017, Wham-O is focused on creating recreational products that are fun to use and motivate youth to be more active outdoors. Their hope is that through Wham-O products, kids will learn to be more adventurous and inventive while creating unforgettable memories along the way. Yet, in order to effectively reach young consumers in a modern marketplace, Wham-O is realistic about its need to technology in its marketing strategies. Wham-O's marketing strategy focuses on reaching consumers on various digital platforms, namely social media, as a means of motivating them to play outside and share their experiences with others online.