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This brand trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the stories behind the names and logos you see every day: how Nike got its Swoosh for $35, why the Dassler brothers' feud gave the world both Adidas and Puma, what IKEA and Lego actually stand for, the drink that started life as Brad's Drink, the third Apple founder who sold out for $800, and the loom patent that paid for the first Toyota. There are questions on Google, Amazon, Starbucks, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Mercedes, Ferrari, Rolex, Chanel and the trademarks that became everyday words: Band-Aid, Kleenex, Velcro and Jacuzzi. It runs from easy questions anyone who shops can answer to details only marketing nerds know, and works for a pub quiz, an office team-building round or a marketing class. Difficulty is marked on every question. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia article on the company or product and each question shows its citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Nike was founded in 1964 under what name?
Blue Ribbon Sports
Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman started out selling Japanese Onitsuka Tiger shoes from the boot of Knight's car at track meets.
Q 02How much was design student Carolyn Davidson paid in 1971 for creating the Nike Swoosh?
$35
Knight's verdict at the time was "Well, I don't love it, but maybe it will grow on me"; in 1983 he gave her a diamond Swoosh ring and company stock.
Q 03Nike's Swoosh was meant to suggest the wings of which figure?
The Greek goddess of victory
Nike herself gives the company its name; Davidson designed the mark to convey motion.
Q 04Adidas takes its name from its founder. What was he called?
Adolf "Adi" Dassler
He started making sports shoes in his mother's laundry room in Herzogenaurach after World War I.
Q 05When the Dassler brothers fell out in 1947, Rudolf founded a rival firm that became which brand?
Puma
He first called it Ruda, from Rudolf Dassler; the two companies still face each other across the same small German town.
Q 06Adidas bought its three-stripes mark in 1952 from a Finnish company for about €1,600 and what else?
Two bottles of whiskey
Karhu Sports sold it; Dassler later called Adidas "the three stripes company".
Q 07Apple's forgotten third co-founder sold his stake back to Jobs and Wozniak for how much?
$800
Ronald Wayne walked away in 1976; Jobs had sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak his calculator to fund the first computers.
Q 08What did Steve Jobs sell to help finance production of the Apple I?
His Volkswagen bus
Wozniak chipped in by selling his HP-65 calculator.
Q 09Amazon was registered in 1994 under what original name?
Cadabra
Bezos picked Seattle for its tech talent and its closeness to a big book distributor in Oregon.
Q 10Google's name is a misspelling of which mathematical term?
Googol
A googol is 1 followed by 100 zeros, chosen to suggest searching a huge number of websites.
Q 11Google's first outside investment, $100,000 in 1998, came from a co-founder of which company?
Sun Microsystems
Andy Bechtolsheim's cheque prompted Page and Brin to incorporate so they could cash it; Jeff Bezos was an early angel too.
Q 12Starbucks opened in 1971 at which Seattle landmark?
Pike Place Market
For its first decade it sold beans and equipment, not espresso; the shift to cafés came under Howard Schultz.
Q 13The creature on the Starbucks logo is what?
A twin-tailed siren
In the first version she was topless with a fully visible double fish tail; the design has been simplified several times since.
Q 21Nintendo was founded in 1889 to make what?
Hanafuda playing cards
It moved into toys in the 1960s and video games only in the 1970s.
Q 22The Toyoda family renamed the car brand Toyota in 1936 partly because the new spelling took how many brush strokes?
Eight
Eight is a lucky number, and the voiceless T was thought to sound clearer than the muddy D.
Q 23Toyota's start-up capital for building cars came from selling the patent for what?
An automatic loom
Sakichi Toyoda's 1924 loom stopped itself when a thread broke, a principle later built into the Toyota Production System.
Q 14Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald's in 1940 in which California city?
San Bernardino
Ray Kroc became their franchise agent in 1955 and bought them out in 1961.
Q 15The McDonald's Golden Arches design was introduced in which year?
1953
Ray Kroc opened his first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, two years later.
Q 16Coca-Cola was invented in Atlanta by John Pemberton and originally marketed as what?
A temperance drink and medicine
He sold the rights to Asa Candler in 1888, and the first-ever coupon, for a free glass, went out the same year.
Q 17Coca-Cola's disastrous 1985 recipe change was marketed as what?
New Coke
Blind taste tests actually favoured it, but nostalgia forced the company to bring back the old formula as Coca-Cola Classic.
Q 18Pepsi was invented in 1893 by pharmacist Caleb Bradham and first sold as what?
Brad's Drink
He renamed it Pepsi-Cola in 1898 for its supposed digestive benefits; the company went bankrupt in 1923.
Q 19IKEA is an acronym. The I and K stand for founder Ingvar Kamprad; the E and A stand for what?
His family farm and his home village
Elmtaryd was the farm where he was born and Agunnaryd his hometown in Småland; he founded the firm at 17 as a mail-order business.
Q 20The name Lego comes from a Danish phrase meaning what?
Play well
Carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen began making wooden toys in Billund in 1932; plastic came in 1947.
Q 24The Mercedes name comes from the daughter of which Austrian businessman?
Emil Jellinek
He named the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp after Mercédès Jellinek and registered the trademark in 1902.
Q 25What is Mercedes-Benz's official slogan?
The Best or Nothing
The brand traces its roots to Karl Benz's 1886 Patent-Motorwagen, widely called the first car.
Q 26Ferrari's Prancing Horse is a black horse on a background of what colour?
Yellow
The shield version carries the Italian tricolour above the horse and the letters SF, for Scuderia Ferrari, below.
Q 27Rolex began in London in 1905 under what name?
Wilsdorf and Davis
Hans Wilsdorf registered the Rolex name in 1908; the waterproof Oyster came in 1926.
Q 28Rolex's first ambassador, Mercedes Gleitze, wore an Oyster around her neck in 1927 doing what?
Swimming the English Channel
Rolex had been proving the watch was waterproof by displaying it inside aquariums in shop windows.
Q 29Ray-Ban's Aviator sunglasses were originally developed for whom?
US Army Air Corps pilots
Bausch & Lomb created them in 1936 after Colonel John Macready asked for lenses to cut the glare of the sky; Luxottica bought the brand in 1999.
Q 30The Band-Aid was invented in 1920 by a Johnson & Johnson employee for whom?
His accident-prone wife
Earle Dickson's wife Josephine kept cutting and burning herself cooking, so he stuck gauze onto strips of surgical tape.