We admit it: We were never passionate about cleaning before we launchedBut building a belief brand with a social mission taught us that there is no such thing as a low-interest category, just low-interest brands. generate excitement about a new cellphone technology or a new beer brand. Attracting attention in a traditionally low-interest category (like soap) takes a bitThis is one of the best benefits of belief brands—they work equally well in crowded high-interest categories and in overlooked categories. the emotional engagement created by sharing similar beliefs and values with their advocates, belief brands have a philosophy, an attitude, and a story to tell. Their personalities aren't created in some office on Madison Avenue; woven into the very fabric of the organization. Below, a few examples of high-interest brands in low-interest categories:By injecting irreverence and controversy into his Joe Boxer brand, Nicholas Graham transformed everyday boxer briefs into a conversation

Ten years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine anyone getting excited about a vacuum cleaner. Dyson shook up the dusty category with innovative technology and beautiful design.An unremarkable and ubiquitous tool, staplers were the poster boy of low interest before Mike Judd cast a red Swingline as an object of devotion in his 1999 corporate satire, Office Space. While we rely primarily on style and substance to inspire interest in cleaning products, we also tap into an often overlooked subset of consumers: people who actually love to clean. You probably even know a few friends whom you consider to be clean freaks. We believe in making the act of cleaning more enjoyable and, if we may say so, aspirational. But virtually every commercial treats cleaning as if it were a huge hassle, virtually screaming promises of convenience and ease. Pandering to women with images of grinning maids in aprons, it was as if taking care of your things was something to be ashamed of, something you'd rather

leave to someone else. This is typical problem-solution marketing, in which you set up a problem (mildew in the bathroom) and then present your product as the hero solution (Pow! mildew gone). The problem with this approach is that it forces the consumer to enter through the problem, so your brand will always live inEven if you don't find an ounce of joy in cleaning, virtuallyHotels With Whirlpool Tubs In Phoenix Az everyone loves the end state, a clean home. How To Frame A Mirror With RosettesSo we focused on talking about theWholesale Fishing Tackle Dropshippers aspirational end state of cleaning, and we found that, to many people, cleaning is an important part of life. It's the ritual of connecting to their homes and families

by putting life back in order. To many, cleaning is a form of caring for their children or pets by providing a safe haven for those they care about most. Seeking to draw out our audience's inner clean freaks, we filled our ad campaigns with young, great-looking naked people in gorgeous, hip homes, using (or maybe just caressing) a rainbow of beautiful Method products. the "quick and painless" promises in our competitors' ads, we communicated with clever, cheeky messages intended to promote the aspirational idea that cleaning could be cool (gasp!). Flying in the face of decades of traditional cleaning commercials, the ads resonated with people of all ages. To many people, jogging is a chore. Imagine if Nike ran advertisements featuring unhappy joggers forcing themselves through another grueling earlyTo the contrary, the brand celebrates every sport it touches, with aspirational imagery. We'd even bet there are some fierce badminton ads out there that would inspire you to Just Do It with a birdie!

ties this to its social mission of bringing inspiration and innovation to every athleteAs Bill Bowerman, track coach and cofounder of Nike, said, "If you have a body, you are an athlete." Bottom line: If you're struggling to shift your brand from low to high interest, seek to reframe your communications from presenting the problem to projecting the desired end state and wrap that in a social mission.Excerpted from The Method Method by Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry by arrangement with Portfolio Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright © 2011 by Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry.courtesy of Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine, July 1994 They were the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of their day. They were the ones who tinkered alone and envisioned a world well beyond the grasp of their contemporaries. They were the toilet makers – the men who understood with incomplete knowledge that there was a better way than chamber pots and open trenches, and set about finding it.

They labored long hours, usually alone and for little reward. In some cases, there was no reward, just ridicule for an invention too far ahead of it’s time. The English Origins: There was a noble origin to the water closet in its earliest days. Sir John Harington, godson to Queen Elizabeth, set about making a “necessary” for his godmother and himself in 1596. A rather accomplished inventor, Harington ended his career with this invention, for he was ridiculed by his peers for this absurd device. He never built another one, though he and his godmother both used theirs. Two hundred years passed before another tinker, Alexander Cummings, would reinvent Harington’s water closet. Cummings invented the Strap, a sliding valve between the bowl and the trap. It was the first of its kind. However, it didn’t take long for others to follow Cummings lead. Two years later in 1777, Samuel Prosser applied for and received a patent for a plunger closet. On his heels came Joseph Bramah, only one year later.

His closet had a valve at the bottom of the bowl that worked on a hinge – a predecessor to the modern ballcock. Himself a bit of a sailor, Bramah’s closet was used extensively on ships and boats of the era. The master toilet maker among the Englishmen would emerge in the next decade. Thomas Twyford revolutionized the water closet business in 1885 when he built the first trapless toilet in a one-piece, all china design. A preeminent potter, Twyford competed against other notable business including Wedgwood and Moulton. Twyford’s design was unique in that it was of china, rather than the more common metal and wood contraptions. The internal workings of his water closet were the work of one the first pioneers of the “sanitary science.” J. G. Jennings patented a washout closet in 1852. This unit had a shallow basin with a dished tray and water seal. The flush water drove the contents into the pan and then through the S-trap. It was a design the Twyford would refine and promote for the rest of the decade.

On American Shores: The work of the English inventors didn’t travel with settlers to the new world. The only item to make the journey was a chamber pot, so American inventors were on their own. On their own, yes, but not very far behind. In fact water closet developments in the new world paralleled inventions in the mother country. First it was the conical – shaped hopper set in a lead trap that was placed under the floor. The pan closet came next. It improved on the previous model with an upper ceramic basin and a shallow copper pan with three to five inches at the base. A wash down closet flushed by a direct line from a storage tank hidden high above, usually in the attic. The first Americans awarded a patent for a water closet are James T. Henry andWilliam Campbell. In 1875 their plunger closet resembled some of the twin-basin water closets developed and derided in England. These units were less than sanitary and shunned by some of the industry’s earliest pioneers.

From the late 1850s to the mid 1890s the number of patents granted for water closet designs grew as more and more inventors realized the potential market for an improved model. An American, John Randall Mann was granted a patent for his three-pipe siphonic closet in 1870. In 1876 William Smith earned his own for a jet siphon closet. This model caught the attention of the famous American sanitary engineer George Waring who developed it into larger pieces of sanitary ware, as it was then called. Thomas Kennedy, another American improved on Mann’s designed and patented a siphonic closet which required only two delivery pipes. One flushed the rim and the other started the siphon. Still further improvement occurred in 1890 with William Howell’s water closet that eliminated the lower trap, but maintained the same superior function. By the turn of the century water closet innovations were occurring on a nearly daily basis. The U.S.Patent Office received applications for 350 new water closet designs between 1900 and 1932.

Two of the first granted in the new decade were to Charles Neff and Robert Frame. These New Englanders were the first to produce a siphonic wash-down closet that would become the norm in this country in later years. Problems with the bowl design in Neff and Frame’s unit were fixed 10 years later by Fred Adee. He redesigned the bowl, eliminating the messy overflows that sometimes occurred, and in doing so gave birth to production of the siphonic closet in America. Some of the names of the other inventors who refined water closet design at this time have been lost, but their accomplishments have not. In the early 1900s patents were granted for the flushometer valve, a backflow preventer, a wall-mounted closet with a blow-out arrangement, a tank that rests on the bowl, and reverse trap toilets. Modern Age Inventors: This isn’t tosay there aren’t inventors alive and working today who will be added to this list of who’s who in the years to come. However,some of the modern day water closet wonders aren’t plumbers or evenp lumbing engineers.

They’re scientists working on motors to create the “jet flush” toilet. Engineers at the Emerson Motor Company in St. Louis have developed a 3.3 inch motor and a .2 horsepower pump that fits in a toilet tank to add speed and power to each flush. These motorized toilets incorporate a steeper bowl than other gravity style toilets to allow waste water to flow out easier. A slanted bowl and pressurized flush also allow the system to employ less water than a traditional gravity-flow toilet. To operate, the unit is plugged into a standard outlet in the bathroom. To date, Kohler Co. is the first plumbing manufacturer to market this technology . Motors are impacting plumbing in other ways too. Emerson partnered with pump manufacturers Zoeller Company and Hydromatic Pump Company to develop a plumbing system that liquefies waste. A pump is positioned in waste water pipes below the toilet and allows fixture manufacturers to meet existing water consumption requirements by chopping waste into a liquid consistency.