Facit, the Swedish manufacturer of
mechanical calculators, typewriters and
office furniture, had their own mascot.

The Facit man.

He looked like this:

The Facit man
symbolized a
wizard who could
work out the right
answer through
his calculator
magic.

Facit’s
competitors did
not have
anything like
this.

The Facit men
gave visibility
and created an
increased
awareness
about the
company and
its products.

In a
technologically
mature industry,
this was the right
way to gain
competitive
advantage.

So how was the Facit man born?

Like with everything else,
there is a story behind…

In 1948, Mr. Ivan Hammar worked as global PR
and brand manager at Facit. He got the idea
that the company should have a human PR
symbol and asked for a draft.

”I met a great
resistance when
introducing the
character,
especially from
people in the PR
business, but
despite this, I
believed in the
idea.”

”Slowly, and
carefully I started to
introduce him in
various settings, in
PR material,
instruction booklets
and so on.”

”Thanks to the sales director, Carl
Skande, the Facit man started to show
up at exhibitions, in shop windows, and
his popularity increased steadily.”

”Today, I meet people who can’t find words to
express their gratitude for this creation.”
(in 1968)

The Facit men joined Facit in the global
expansion in the period 1950-70.

There was one small size Facit man…

… One medium size (40cm)…

… And one king
size, ideal for fairs
and big PR events.

In the mid 1960s one million Facit men had been
delivered from the manufacturer in West Germany.

They were
spread out
across the
world.

Facit wanted to make office work more joyful,
and those 1 million Facit men certainly
contributed to this.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this was
an innovative piece of marketing. Office work was
considered as boring and consequently, products
from Olympia, Olivetti and the others were
regarded as boring.

Facit was different. It’s very hard to estimate
the benefit of this clever marketing.

But it must have been big.

Who wants to buy a boring product?

Those more than 1 million Facit men can be
found throughout the entire world today.

If you wanna buy one in Sweden, you’d
probably have to pay about 800 SEK...

They provide a great memory of a great
company that collapsed back in the 1970s.

The story behind him reminds us that if you want to
do something new, you will always encounter
criticism since no one has thought about it before.

Photos taken at:
Åtvidabergs Bruks och Facit Museum, Sweden
http://brukskultur.atvidaberg.se/index2.html
Åssa Industri och Bil Museum, Sweden
http://www.assamuseet.se/
Thank You!

Most of those images come from the fantastic Facit
archives in Åtidaberg. Many thanks to
’Brukskultur’ and to Åtvidabergs Kommun for
taking care of this great source.

Christian Sandström is a
PhD student at Chalmers
University of Technology in
Gothenburg, Sweden. He
writes and speaks about
disruptive innovation and
technological change.
www.christiansandstrom.org
christian.sandstrom at chalmers.se