What Henry Ford, George Eastman and Kazuo Kashio had in common – the ability to find the market gap

Stephen Vines says the most successful brands in history distinguished themselves by spotting a consumer need that could be filled with a pre-existing invention

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Models display Casio Computers’ Exilim digital cameras. The company, which has diversified into cameras and watches, is synonymous in the popular imagination with calculators. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:00pm, 4 Jul 2018Updated: 10:30pm, 4 Jul 2018

It is quite possible that the name Kazuo Kashio will not mean much to people in Hong Kong but they are almost certain to be familiar with the astonishing range of products he and his brothers brought to the market during his long reign as CEO of the Casio Computer Company. He died last month, leaving a remarkable legacy.

Casio is best known for its range of electronic calculators, with sales exceeding 1.5 billion units. Success in this field did not make Casio complacent as it moved onto other markets, becoming a pioneer in developing low-price digital cameras, having some success with digital diaries and, more recently, having resounding success with its range of sturdy G-Shock watches.

Kashio and his brothers started out making cigarette holders in the 1950s at a time when tobacco was scarce in Japan and smokers were anxious not to waste a single thread. These holders provided an elegant and practical solution to this demand and sold very well.

The money they earned gave Casio the means to invest in the far more sophisticated business of producing desktop calculators for the mass market. Casio suffered setbacks but by 1972 had developed a world-beating product, the Casio Mini calculator that more or less made the company name synonymous with calculators.

Kashio’s genius was not as an inventor but, essentially, as a marketer of products that were already in existence which Casio adapted for the mass market.