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What
is it?
Gillette is a brand of men's and
women's safety razors and other personal care products including shaving
supplies, owned by the multi-national corporation Procter & Gamble
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Origin:
· While working as a
salesman for the Crown Cork and Seal Company in the 1890s, King Camp Gillette
(1855-1932) saw bottle caps, with the cork seal he sold, thrown away after
the bottle was opened. This made him recognise the value in basing a business
on a product that was used a few times, then discarded.
· At that time men
either went to barber shops to be shaved or used straight razors that needed sharpening every
day using a leather strop.
· Safety razors had
been developed in the mid-19th century, but still used a forged blade. In the
1870s, the Kampfe Brothers introduced a type of razor along these lines. Gillette
improved these earlier safety-razor designs, and introduced the
high-profit-margin stamped razor blade steel blade. Gillette's razor retailed
for a substantial $5 (about $140 in 2014 dollars) — half the average working
man's weekly pay — yet sold by the millions.
· To sell the product,
Gillette founded the American Safety Razor Company on September 28, 1901
(changing the company's name to Gillette Safety Razor Company in July 1902).
Gillette obtained a trademark registration for his portrait and signature on
the packaging
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More:
· Gillette was a
Utopian Socialist and advocated that all industry should be taken over by a
single corporation owned by the public, and that everyone in the US should
live in a giant city called Metropolis powered by Niagara Falls.
· He offered Theodore
Roosevelt the presidency of the company, with a fee of one million dollars. Roosevelt
declined the offer.
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Gallery:
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What
is it?
Adidas AG is a multinational
corporation, founded and headquartered in Germany, that designs and
manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear
manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike. It is the holding company for the Adidas
Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade golf
company (including Ashworth), Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology
company, and 8.33% of Bayern Munich, the football club.
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Origin:
· The company was
started by Adolf Dassler (1900-1978) in his mother's house; he was joined by
his elder brother Rudolf in 1924 under the name Dassler Brothers Shoe
Factory.
· Dassler assisted in
the development of spiked running shoes (spikes) for multiple athletic events.
To enhance the quality of spiked athletic footwear, he transitioned from a
previous model of heavy metal spikes to utilising canvas and rubber. Dassler
persuaded U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens to use his hand made spikes at the 1936
Summer Olympics.
· In 1949, following a
breakdown in the relationship between the brothers, Adolf created Adidas, and
Rudolf established Puma, which became Adidas' business rival.
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More:
· In 1954 Germany
defeated Hungary in the World Cup in what became known as the “Miracle of
Bern”. The German Team was equipped
with Adidas boots, with a design never seen before, those boots had
exchangeable, screw-in studs that could be adapted to any weather. The match
was played under heavy rain, and the Adidas boots played an important role on
this victory. The unexpected win
evoked a wave of euphoria throughout Germany, which was still suffering in
the aftermath of World War II, and that victory is also considered a turning
point of post-war Germany.
· In 2012 Adidas posted
on their Facebook page a picture of a pair of Jeremy Scott-designed shoes
containing shackles. The picture was of a planned shoe line that Adidas
intended to release in July. The photo quickly caused controversy. Shortly after the outcry, the company
cancelled the product.
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Gallery:
A boot from the 1954 World Cup.
Adidas’s Roundhouse Mid Handcuffs. The $350 sneakers were labeled as
racist and reminiscent of slavery.
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What
is it?
Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as
Amazon, is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company based
in Seattle, Washington. The tech giant is the largest Internet retailer in
the world as measured by revenue and market capitalization, and second
largest after Alibaba Group in terms of total sales. The amazon.com website
started as an online bookstore and later diversified to sell video
downloads/streaming, MP3 downloads/streaming, audiobook downloads/streaming,
software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and
jewelry. The company also produces consumer electronics.
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Origin:
· The company was founded
by Jeff Bezos in 1994 in response to his regret at not participating sooner
in the Internet business boom,
· He initially
incorporated the company with the name Cadabra, Inc. but changed it to Amazon.com,
Inc. a few months later after a lawyer misheard its original name as
"cadaver".
· Bezos selected the
name Amazon by looking through the dictionary; he settled on "Amazon"
because it was a place that was "exotic and different", just as he
had envisioned for his Internet enterprise. The Amazon River, he noted, was
the biggest river in the world, and he planned to make his store the biggest
bookstore in the world. Additionally, a name that began with "A"
was preferential due to the probability it would occur at the top of any list
that was alphabetized.
· The company began as
an online bookstore from the garage of Bezos’s home in Bellevue,
Washington. He chose books due to the
large worldwide demand for literature, the low price points for books, along
with the huge number of titles available in print.
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More:
· Since its founding,
the company has attracted criticism and controversy from multiple sources
over its actions.
· These include:
o
luring customers away from the site's brick and mortar
competitors;
o
poor warehouse conditions for workers;
o
anti-unionization efforts;
o
Amazon Kindle remote content removal;
o
taking public subsidies;
o
its "1-Click patent" claims;
o
anti-competitive actions;
o
price discrimination;
o
various decisions over whether to censor or publish
content such as the WikiLeaks website; LGBT book sales rank; and works
containing libel, facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities.
o
In December 2011, Amazon faced a backlash from small
businesses for running a one-day deal to promote its new Price Check app.
Shoppers who used the app to check prices in a brick-and-mortar store were
offered a 5% discount to purchase the same item from Amazon.
o
The company has also faced accusations of putting undue
pressure on suppliers to maintain and extend its profitability. One effort to
squeeze the most vulnerable book publishers was known within the company as
the Gazelle Project, after Bezos suggested, according to Brad Stone,
"that Amazon should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah
would pursue a sickly gazelle."
· On July 27, 2017, Bezos
became the world's wealthiest person when he accumulated an estimated net
worth of just over $90 billion according to Forbes Magazine. As of February
21, 2018, he is worth $122.9 billion, and is contended to be on track to
become the wealthiest person in modern history
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Gallery:
Jeff Bezos
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