CHALLENGE: Design an electric toothbrush at a price point similar to a manual toothbrush
SERVICES: Insights, Design, Engineering, Prototyping, Sourcing, Manufacturing
AWARDS / PRESS: P&G Healthcare Award; Smart Business
SUCCESS: #1 selling electric toothbrush; Hundreds of millions sold
Above: Behind the scenes, Nottingham Spirk associates had a little fun making the early Spinbrush models.
The Spinbrush, designed and invented by Nottingham Spirk, revolutionized the oral care industry as the first affordable mass-market electric toothbrush. By bridging the gap between manual toothbrushes and high-end electric models, the Spinbrush made electric brushing accessible to a wider audience, driving the global growth of electric toothbrush adoption.
Priced affordably at its launch, the Spinbrush disrupted a market where electric toothbrushes previously cost over $50 and had minimal market share. Within its first year, 10 million units were sold, tripling the electric toothbrush market. This success led to Procter & Gamble acquiring the invention for its Crest brand, resulting in billions of dollars in sales and cementing electric toothbrushes as a mainstream choice. Today, 40% of Americans use powered toothbrushes, a trend catalyzed by this breakthrough innovation.
“Five dollars was the magic price point,” John Spirk recounted for Smart Business. “Now it could have been $10 but we tested sales at $10, and they dropped like a rock after that. It still would’ve been successful but it would never have been the super product that it was.
“We had to manufacture it for $1.25 — batteries, motors, gearboxes, housings, packaging, shipping, displays. That was a challenge, but we knew it had to be $1.25 because we wanted a 50 percent margin. You’ve got to do that. You can go into a store and say, ‘This is a great product but you have to get a certain percent markup.’ It doesn’t work that way, so you have to have your numbers right."
“What makes you the proudest of the products that you have done? It’s very simple. It’s not because it was a great commercial success; it was because it really lowered the cost of power brushing — and we really changed the way children can brush in America. It put a power toothbrush potentially in the hands of all children and improved oral care in America.”
