What Play-Doh, Amtrak, Kodak, and Stanley can teach us about the problems people are actually trying to solve.
The idea I keep coming back to from marketing class is that people hire products to solve problems.
It sounds simple (and maybe a little obvious) until you start applying it. The same product can solve two completely unrelated problems. Products from different industries can compete for the same customer. A company can recognize that its market is changing and still misunderstand what people actually want. Another company can notice an unexpected group of customers and build an entirely new strategy around them.
Once you stop looking at products and start looking at problems, traditional categories become a lot less useful.
The Same Product Can Do Two Completely Different Jobs
Play-Doh began as a wallpaper cleaner.
When coal was commonly used to heat homes, it left soot on walls. Kutol Products manufactured a soft compound that could remove that soot without damaging wallpaper. It was a useful product designed for a very specific household problem.
Then homes began transitioning to cleaner forms of heating. There was less soot to remove, which meant fewer people needed wallpaper cleaner. The product still worked perfectly well. Its original problem was disappearing.
Around that time, nursery school teacher Kay Zufall was searching for an alternative to modeling clay, which was difficult for young children to manipulate. She tested the wallpaper-cleaning compound with her students and discovered that they loved it. It was soft, reusable, and easy for small hands to shape.
The material had barely changed. The job changed completely.
As a wallpaper cleaner, it helped adults maintain their homes. As Play-Doh, it gave children an accessible way to create. Even the same qualities took on new meaning. Being soft made the compound gentle enough for wallpaper (and perfect for small hands). Being reusable made it economical for cleaning (and endlessly adaptable for play).
Kutol did more than advertise an alternative use. It renamed the product, introduced colors, changed the packaging, and marketed it through schools, department stores, and children’s television. By 1956, the wallpaper cleaner had officially become Play-Doh.
I love this example because the company did not invent a revolutionary new material. Someone simply recognized that the existing material was much better at being something else.
The Smithsonian’s history of Play-Doh describes it as technological obsolescence with a happy ending. That feels exactly right. The product survived because the company was willing to separate what it had made from what that product could become.
Your Competitors May Not Look Anything Like You
Imagine that Delta is evaluating a route between New York and Washington, D.C. Its most obvious competitors would be other airlines. It might compare its fares, schedules, loyalty program, seats, and in-flight experience with American or United.
But a traveler planning that trip is not necessarily deciding which airline to take. They are deciding how to get from New York to Washington.
That means a Delta flight may be competing directly with an Amtrak Acela ticket.
The two products belong to entirely different industries, but the customer may hire either one to perform the same basic job. The decision could include price, total travel time, reliability, comfort, and how much of the journey can be used productively.
A flight spends less time in the air, but the train provides downtown-to-downtown service. A passenger can arrive closer to departure, avoid traveling to and from an airport, and work for much of the trip. For one traveler, the flight may still be the clear winner. For another, the train solves the complete problem better.
This is not a hypothetical threat. A Congressional Research Service report found that Amtrak captures roughly three-quarters of the combined air-and-rail market between Washington and New York. Amtrak’s own Northeast Corridor service plan explicitly identifies airlines, buses, and cars as competitors.
If an airline only studies other airlines, it may miss why customers are choosing the train. It could improve its seats or lower its fares while overlooking the parts of the journey that are actually driving the decision.
Companies define competitors by what they sell. Customers define competitors by what they need done.
Recognizing Change Is Not the Same as Understanding It
Kodak is often used as a simple cautionary tale: the company invented the digital camera, ignored it, and went bankrupt.
The real story is more complicated (which also makes it much more useful).
Kodak did recognize digital photography. It developed the first digital camera in 1975, invested billions in digital technology, launched digital products, acquired companies, and created new business units. An extensive study of Kodak’s transition found that the company spent decades attempting to respond.
The problem was not a complete failure to see digital coming. Kodak struggled to leave behind a business model built around film, chemical processing, and printed photographs.
Clayton Christensen offered an especially interesting interpretation in a Harvard Business Review conversation about Jobs to Be Done. Kodak assumed that people hired photography to preserve memories. But photography was increasingly being used to communicate. People wanted to capture something, share it, and let someone else experience that moment.
Digital cameras improved that process. Smartphones eventually made it almost effortless.
Kodak understood that the format was changing, but it remained attached to a system in which taking a photograph ultimately led to printing one. It even purchased the photo-sharing site Ofoto in 2001, but had difficulty building a new business around the behavior that platform represented.
The company had the technology. What it could not successfully replace was the logic of its existing business.
Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. It did not lose its consumer audience simply because another company made better film. It lost that audience as people found easier ways to perform the larger job of capturing and sharing their lives.
This is where the lesson gets less tidy (and more valuable). A company can notice a new product, invest in it, and still miss the deeper change in what customers expect.
Paying Attention Can Create an Entirely New Audience
Stanley shows what can happen when a company recognizes that people are giving one of its products a new role.
For most of its history, Stanley was associated with rugged green thermoses carried to worksites, campsites, and outdoor adventures. The Quencher was introduced in 2016, but it was not initially a major priority for the company.
The women behind the shopping platform The Buy Guide saw something Stanley had not fully recognized. Their audience loved the Quencher because it held a large amount of water, fit into a car cup holder, had a handle and straw, and made it easier to stay hydrated throughout the day.
They believed Stanley was marketing the cup to the wrong people.
The Buy Guide negotiated a wholesale order of 5,000 Quenchers and sold them in a matter of days. A second order of 5,000 sold in about an hour. According to Marketing Dive’s account of the partnership, those results helped Stanley recognize the scale of the opportunity.
Under new leadership, the company prioritized hydration, introduced a wider range of colors, embraced collaborations and limited releases, and marketed the Quencher as part of a consumer’s everyday life. Former Stanley president Terence Reilly discusses that transition (and the company’s partnership with The Buy Guide) in this Harvard Business Review interview.
The Quencher still kept drinks cold. But that was no longer its only job.
It helped people drink more water. It fit into daily routines built around commuting, workouts, errands, and desk time. Its colors and collaborations also allowed it to become a personal accessory (and, for some people, a collectible).
Stanley did not create all of those motivations. It paid attention to what customers were already doing and built a strategy around it. By 2023, company sales had reached approximately $750 million after doubling for three consecutive years, according to Time’s profile of the brand.
The brand moved from selling a functional container to participating in hydration, wellness, personal style, and online culture. That is a much larger competitive space (and a much larger opportunity).
Start With the Problem
These four stories all point to the same idea: a product category is not the same thing as a customer’s reality.
Play-Doh found a completely different purpose for an existing material. Amtrak competes with airlines because customers care about completing a journey, not remaining loyal to one form of transportation. Kodak saw digital photography coming but struggled to move beyond a business built around film and prints. Stanley listened when an unexpected audience showed it what the Quencher could become.
Demographics can tell us who purchased something, but they do not automatically explain why. Two customers who look similar on paper might hire the same product for completely different reasons. Two people with very little in common might choose different products to solve the same problem.
The more useful questions are often situational. What was happening when someone started looking for a solution? What alternatives did they consider? What frustrated them about those options? What kind of progress were they hoping to make?
Not every unexpected use should lead to a complete repositioning. But repeated behavior is information. It can reveal a new audience, an overlooked competitor, or a much more valuable purpose for something that already exists.
Sometimes innovation means creating a new product. Sometimes it starts with looking at an existing one and asking a better question: what are people really hiring this to do?
