- La, la, la. Oh, hey, how's it going? Just finished watching some Netflix. I think now I'll check some
text messages on my iPhone after I play some Nintendo Switch. Except that none of those
companies would exist today if it wasn't for one specific product that saved them and
companies just like them. Here are 10 products that saved
companies from bankruptcy. Number 10 are universal bricks. Founded on August 10, 1932, LEGO was the brainchild
of Ole Kirk Christiansen, who ran a carpentry business in Denmark. When the prospect of building blocks made of plastic came
up, Christiansen wanted a universal system where
all the blocks in each set could interact with
blocks from other sets. Nearly 71 years later after that, the company had grown
to an unfathomable size but was on the verge go bankruptcy. Then, a new management team decided to bring things back to the brick. Less diversity in manufactured LEGOs and more focus on the system of play that the late Christiansen
had originally wanted. Instead of making elaborate
pieces that only fit in one set, each piece needed
to connect universally. The move saved the company and in 2015, made them the largest toy
company in the world by revenue. Also spawned about a hundred
different LEGO movies. When's that stuff gonna end, man? Number nine are licensed
products, Polaroid. With all the advances in
smartphone and digital photography, the demand for instant film
has been fairly limited. But, Polaroid, the instant camera company founded by scientist
and inventor Edwin Land is still kicking after 80 years thanks to the genius of CEO Scott Hardy. He uses the brand name's pull to sell TVs, cell phones, tablets, cameras, and other innovative and dynamic products. The company's decline
originally began back in 1977 after the harsh failure of
a foray into videography with an instant home movie
camera called Polavision. Since then, Polaroid has had bankruptcies in 2001 and 2009 and played musical chairs with six different CEOs from 2005 to 2009. Now, with Hardy's licensing strategy, Polaroid lives free of
expensive product creation and instead carefully
selects cool new products to put its name on. Great idea as long as
it doesn't go too far. I don't want to start seeing
Polaroid energy drinks. Ha, "Snaps you back
into mental awareness." Wait a second, that's kind of brilliant. Number eight is the Model
T, Ford Motor Company. On October 1, 1908, the Ford Model T became the first mass produced car with interchangeable parts
to be sold to Americans. The Ford Motor Company
modestly priced the car and put steering wheels in the hands of 16.5 million Americans. The move to mass
production with the Model T rather than competing with
luxury vehicle companies of the era, brought Ford out of obscurity and made it a household brand. Plus, it had the historical significance in changing the American
industrial landscape. It's considered to be
the most influential car of the 20th century for
its part in ushering in new innovation to the automotive industry and putting so many Americans
into jobs assembling them. Without this breakthrough
into the mainstream market, it's likely Ford wouldn't be around today. I'm just really glad
that we have cooler names for cars nowadays as opposed to Model T. "Yeah, Model A to S failed, T worked. "Let's call it that." Number seven is tamper-proof
containers, Tylenol. Since 1955, Tylenol has been a
go-to fever and pain reducer. But, in 1982, several
people taking the drug became poisoned, seven
of them lost their lives. One of which, tragically,
was a 12-year-old girl. It turns out some sicko was contaminating the product with cyanide. The acetaminophen brand was losing money as consumers became
worried about their safety. Tylenol stock dropped
seven percent and, overall, they wound up losing over
one hundred million dollars. However, instead of shying
away from the attack on his company, then-CEO
of Tylenol, James E. Burke took ownership, recalling any pills made all the way through 1982
and pushed his company to make tamper-proof containers that we still use today. Those containers not
only helped bring trust back to the brand, but got Burke
a Medal of Freedom in 2000. Brilliant invention. However, what's with the Medal of Freedom? I mean, the guy gets a medal
for making a plastic cup that you have to push on
to get the pills out of. It's so hard. Sorry. Number six are boneless options, KFC. KFC established its first
franchise restaurant on September 24, 1952,
in Salt Lake City, Utah. Being in the business since the days of the Great Depression,
Colonel Harlan Sanders always knew what his customers wanted and strived to give it to them. However, times change and in 2015, the company found itself slipping to the second most popular
fast food chicken provider just behind Chick-Fil-A. KFC started losing a lot
of money until the creation of new promotional
materials and menu items targeted at millennials who
seemed to prefer snacking on boneless options over the
traditional bone-in chicken. (clucks) The most successful of those new items was the Georgia Gold chicken options and the return of the
snacky Chicken Littles. In the last 10 quarters,
KFC has seen in increase in same store sales and transactions. Without that product, they may have just continued slipping and
slipping until eventually they just fell off the planet. Mm, I am now starving. Okay, let's hurry this video up. Number five is the K-Car, Chrysler. In the late 1970s, Chrysler, a staple in American car manufacturing
was seeing losses in the millions due to
recalls of popular models and a dip in the company's popularity. It soon found itself on
the brink of bankruptcy. Then, a need for more compact
affordable cars came to be. And the company shifted its
marketing and promotion focus. In 1980, the first
K-Cars became available, the Plymouth Reliant and the Dodge Aries, both of which were
incredibly successful cars. Not only because they were
widely sold in large numbers but because their design offered
more customizable options that simply weren't
available in previous models. Their prices could range
from 7,000 to over $23,000. And in October of 1980,
Chrysler reported a profit of 10 million dollars, their first actual
profit in over two years. I had a Chrysler 300 for years. Big, heavy, pig but terrible in the snow. Hmm, Canada. Number four is Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney. Walt Disney and his employees were deep into the creation of their
very first feature-length animated film, Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs, when they ran out of funds
and neared bankruptcy. The film was set to either
make or break the company that had just poured every bit of itself into the project over three years. Disney secured a bank loan in order to keep paying his employees. When Snow White premiered
on December 21, 1937, it was praised by both viewers and critics and managed to rake in
eight million dollars world-wide at the box office. Walt Disney also took home
an Academy Honorary Award at the Oscars that year for
significant screen innovation and pioneering the motion picture cartoon. That's a long title. That's right, one movie
completely saved Disney and the company lived happily every after. Which is fantastic because I don't know what I ever would've did
without The Lion King. That was my whole childhood. Number three is the NES, Nintendo. With the launch of the
Nintendo Entertainment System on October 18, 1985,
Nintendo didn't just save themselves, they saved the
entire console gaming industry. Prior to the NES, console games had gained a bad reputation for their
marketing and delivery, with box art displaying fantastical and downright false representations
of the in-game graphics. Games also weren't developed uniformly across different consoles, with different versions of the same game varying widely due to the
constraints of each machine. Game revenues ended up
dropping 97% in just two years. Nintendo aimed to solve this issue by marketing the NES as
an entertainment system rather than a console and positioning it as the one console you need
for all the great games. In addition to, of course, making box art a lot more honest. Think about it, what would you have done without Mario and Zelda? All that time would've been spent outside. (cringes) Ew. Number two is original content, Netflix. Before Netflix became an online movie and series-streaming service, they were offering home
delivered DVD rentals through the mail. In 2010, when consumer
interest started swaying towards streaming movies on-demand, Netflix found itself
with no bargaining chips in negotiations with studios
who had digital video rights. Despite being unable to catch a break when acquiring movie streaming deals and a ludicrous spending
increase of 218% in 2011, Netflix held strong and doubled down on their streaming service. They started creating
their own video content to rival the studios and struck gold in making House of Cards and
reviving the popular comedy Arrested Development for season four. In their success, they
caused the entire industry to shift towards online streaming and creating original content. Personally, I'm very thankful
for all these original shows. I mean without binge watching, what other excuse would
I use to not go out and see my friends? And number one is the iPod, Apple. Just 20 years ago in 1997, after a 150 million dollar
investment from Microsoft, Apple, under the direction
of CEO Steve Jobs, began a slow and risky
climb back into relevance. One of their bigger risks
came with the unveiling of the G4 Cube, a smaller version of the regular desktop computers
which ultimately failed. After owning the loss,
Jobs' next innovation would set them apart from the competition and it also changed the
music industry forever. When the the five gigabyte iPod was first introduced on October 23, 2001, its small portable size
and simplistic interface blew earlier models of MP3
players out of the water. With the iPod, Apple was
able to start producing hit after hit with newer and
more advanced versions of it and other portable technologies
like the iPhone and iPad. As it turns out, thinking different has never been so lucrative. So, that was 10 products
that saved companies from bankruptcy. If you guys enjoyed
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