The Zoom of its day

A business lesson here from the humble Dixie cup.

At one time, the Dixie cup was not so humble. What Zoom is to the current pandemic, Dixie cups were to the flu pandemic of 1918. They were, in the words of Smithsonian Magazine, life-saving technology.

Before water fountains and water coolers, people drank water from communal barrels using giant ladles called tin dippers. Everyone used the same ladle. It was as gross as it sounds. But when Dixie cups were invented in 1908, people didn’t fully appreciate how disease was spread, so the cups didn’t do well in the B2C market, although they had a decent B2B business.

Then the flu hit. The company had been selling Dixie cups to businesses, so people were familiar with them. The flu provided the opportunity to rebrand the cups for home usage. (You can see some old ads here). That created a new habit – and we still use Dixie cups today.

Once the pandemic was over and competitors began making disposable drinking cups, Dixie shifted its brand emphasis from health to convenience, and also continued to innovate, staying one step ahead of the competition with, for example, special disposable cups that could be used to hold ice cream and a special portable watertank-cup dispenser that was used widely during World War II.

Brands such as Zoom and the video chat app House Party have thrived amid COVID. They are not new applications, but the pandemic has made them more important than they ever were before. As with Dixie, the post-pandemic world will provide these brands with fresh challenges and also opportunities for innovation.