Submitted for your consideration, the escalator - one of history's great products.
Nathan Ames, of Saugus, Massachusetts is generally credited as the first inventor of the escalator. Although he never actually built one, in 1859 he was issued U.S. patent #25076 for "revolving stairs." Working escalators of various designs were eventually developed and commercialized by the Otis Elevator Company. Until recently, some of those original escalators could still be found in the Boston subway system (how's that for a product life-cycle?).
In 2004, estimates suggest that there were over 30,000 escalators in use in the United States that are used more than 90 billion times per year. Clearly a successful and widely used product.
Essentially used to move foot traffic through public spaces - escalators can be found in department stores, shopping malls, airports, transit systems, convention centers, hotels and office buildings (a platform for many product variants across multiple market segments!).
Escalators efficiently move pedestrians (everyone goes the same direction on an escalator) and provide multiple benefits in each of the above segments all over the world. Some key features that differentiate the escalator from its primary competitor (the elevator) include:
- Escalators carry large numbers of people
- Escalators fit in the same spaces as stairways
- Escalators have no waiting
And of course - our favorite feature of the escalator, is that when it fails to operate for any reason - it simply becomes a staircase (becoming the product that it was intended to replace). How many products can do that?
One more interesting anecdote about escalators: even though the word "escalate" has entered popular usage, the word "escalator" was actually invented and trademarked by Charles Seeberger in 1900, to mark the product launch at the Paris Exposition Universelle. How's that for branding?
Comments