Nokia stripped a phone to essentials and sold 250 million
Nokia built the 1100, a phone with no camera or color screen, just calls, texts, and a flashlight, and it sold 250 million units to first-time buyers.
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3,236 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDToyota and GM reopened GM's worst plant with its own laid-off workers
Toyota and GM reopened Fremont's failed plant as NUMMI, rehiring its laid-off workers, who embraced lean methods they'd once resisted.
Read the caseResearchers pre-stamped loyalty cards and doubled completion
Nunes and Drèze pre-stamped two boxes on car wash loyalty cards, nearly doubling completion.
Read the caseOrdnance Survey proved map copying by matching cartographers' habits
Ordnance Survey proved the AA copied its maps by matching idiosyncratic cartographic details that no independent survey would reproduce by chance.
Read the caseOregon taxed every bottle a nickel to redeem and litter fell by two thirds
Oregon made every bottle carry a refundable nickel deposit, and roadside bottle litter fell by two-thirds.
Read the caseOreo quit the empty cookie aisle and hid its coupon on milk
Oreo reversed a 23% cookie sales drop by hiding its coupon on milk, the item perimeter shoppers already buy.
Read the caseOSS staged fake crises to test spies
The OSS stopped interviewing spy candidates and staged a fake crisis to watch them break under pressure.
Read the casePhoenix rebuilt IBM's BIOS from a spec to make clones legal
Phoenix Technologies built a legal IBM-compatible BIOS by having one team write a spec from IBM's manuals and a quarantined team code from that spec alone.
Read the casePineapple sold itself by admitting nobody had heard of it
Pineapple, an unknown insurer, confessed its own obscurity in billboards to win trust in a distrusted category.
Read the casePlenitude ran its billboards in dark mode to prove its energy-saving claim
Plenitude ran its billboards in dark mode so the medium itself proved its energy-saving claim.
Read the casePoland handed Enigma secrets to allies before invasion
Poland, facing invasion, gave Britain and France its Enigma-breaking methods and machines, saving years of work.
Read the caseRadiohead let fans set their own price, since piracy had already killed the price floor
Piracy made the price floor free — Radiohead let fans reveal what they'd pay above it. A generous minority paid more than any label would have dared charge.
Read the caseRDRS Bangladesh paid $8.50 to unstick a labor market
RDRS Bangladesh paid $8.50 for bus fare, conditional on migrating, raising migration 22 points and consumption 8-10%.
Read the casereCAPTCHA made every bot-check also digitize a word no computer could read
reCAPTCHA made every bot-check also digitize a word no computer could read.
Read the caseReuter bridged a telegraph gap with pigeons
Reuter used carrier pigeons to fly stock prices across a 76-mile telegraph gap, beating the train by six hours.
Read the caseSAG-AFTRA pooled gig earnings to qualify actors for health insurance
SAG-AFTRA pooled contributions from every production into one trust, so actors' scattered gigs add up to health coverage.
Read the caseSamsung Malaysia put strangers' live reviews in its paid Google slots
Samsung Malaysia replaced its search ad copy with live public reviews, so paid Google slots showed crowd testimony.
Read the caseSETI@home borrowed idle home PCs to search for aliens
SETI@home borrowed idle home PCs' screensaver time to process Arecibo data, aggregating a million volunteers' spare cycles.
Read the caseSeven-Eleven Japan let stores reorder single items daily instead of forecasting from HQ
Seven-Eleven Japan let store clerks reorder single items daily using real-time sales data, beating central forecasts.
Read the caseNature Conservancy bought Seychelles' debt to fund ocean protection
The Nature Conservancy bought Seychelles' discounted sovereign debt and restructured it, funding a marine trust that protects 30% of its ocean.
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