Toothpaste Tube: Top 6 Things To Know About It
In this week's video, we go through the way the toothpaste tube helps toothpaste companies to achieve higher sales targets.
#1 - The invention
Toothpaste in a tube was not a new invention: Johnson & Johnson introduced it in 1889.
However, three years would have passed until Dr. Washington Sheffield (a New London dentist) came up with the idea of using a collapsible tube instead of a rigid one. An idea sparked by his son who, after traveling to Paris and seeing some artists using them to store paints and inks, suggested it to his father.
The squeezable metal tube was invented in 1841 by John Goffe Rand (an American portrait painter) and it intended to hold the artists’ paint allowing them to travel with their art supplies to further and more rural locations.
#2 - Its evolution
It all started (in 1886) with tooth powders. These forced users to dip their wet toothbrush into a glass jar so that the mixture between the powder and the water allowed for a paste to be formed.
Johnson & Johnson was the first company to package toothpaste into a tube in 1889; followed by Créme Dentifrice in 1892, Colgate in 1896, and Zonweiss in 1898.
#3 - Its design
The use of the collapsible tube to package toothpaste brought, to the teeth-cleaning product’s industry, a much higher hygienic standard.
This squeezable tube which can be used to store viscous liquids such as toothpaste, artist’s paint, adhesive, ointments, and so on, is basically a cylindrical hollow piece with an oval profile that tends to be made out of plastic, paperboard, aluminum, or any other metal. Generally speaking, it has a round orifice on one of its ends with the opposite being sealed either by welding or folding to allow its contents to retain their properties for longer.
However, their shape forces them to be packaged in a cardboard box for the simple reason that it makes it easier to pack and stack.
#4 - Materials
Made out of tin, zinc, or lead, coated with wax on the inside, the early toothpaste tubes remained basically the same until a metal shortage during World War II. By then, manufacturers failed to use polyethylene tubes to package toothpaste, due to a reaction caused by some of their ingredients; It would take almost 40 years, in the 1990s, for an all-plastic toothpaste tube to be introduced to the market.
#5 - Its Cap function
However, the toothpaste tube could not be completed without its ornamental pointed cap.
Redesigned in 1921 by Johnson & Johnson’s founder and engineer James Wood Johnson; this screw-on top cap allowed for the user to open the toothpaste tube sealed mouth effortlessly.
James Wood Johnson’s design is still used today to close a lot of metal collapsible packaged products.
#6 - Bump in sales
As for the reason behind the increase in toothpaste sales, let’s say it’s definitely an interesting one.
The history dates back to the 1950s when a man approached Colgate Palmolive and said that he had an innovation which would cost them almost nothing to implement but would yield an immediate 40% increase in sales. The man asked Colgate for $100,000 for the exclusive rights to the idea however, the executives of the company were greedy, and would not spend such money if it could be avoided so they ended up thanking the man and saying that they would get back to him at a later stage. In the meantime, a big meeting, with all the company’s marketing and technical staff, was summited and the challenge to come up with ideas to increase sales by 40% for as little cost as possible was launched.
Two weeks later no useful ideas had emerged so, they called the man back and said he got a deal. After the completion of all legal details and the money handed over, the man gave Colgate’s executives a brown envelope containing a small piece of paper with the following words on it: “Make the hole bigger.”
The whole rationale behind increasing the diameter was to increase volume consumption. The inherent characteristics of a smaller diameter opening restricted the volumetric consumption of the toothpaste. With the increase in size, consumption increased, reducing the replacement cycle, and thereby increasing sales. A small insignificant looking change, albeit with a huge impact.
Conclusion
From its Invention to the way used to increase toothpaste sales, going through its evolution, design, materials, and cap function; these were the top 6 facts about the Toothpaste tube that you were probably not aware of.