> In 2018, for which concept did the toy company Hasbro receive a trademark?And the answer: the smell of Play-Doh. Photo courtesy: Nevit Dilmen.Play-Doh was originally created in the 1930s as awallpaper cleaner. Hasbro describes the scent as a "combination of a sweet,slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and thenatural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough."In the same manner that Play-Doh has been an unchanging staple of manychildren's playrooms since its debut in the mid-twentieth century, so too hasbeen its sweet smell. The 2018 decision to trademark reflects the company’sdesire to preserve the "invaluable point of connection between the brand andfans for years to come," according to Jonathan Berkowitz, senior vice presidentof Play-Doh’s Global Marketing. Without it, they fear, Play-Doh wouldn’t be thesame known and loved clay-like substance that children have been enjoying fordecades.Upon its creation, inventor Joe McVicker had no idea that Play-Doh would go onto become one of the most well loved toys of the century. McVicker first createdthe putty to help clean soot off of wallpaper, but soon after the putty’screation realized that the market he sought had no place for him. Thankfully,his sister-in-law suggested an alternative: market the putty to kids. Afterdistributing the doh to a nearby Cincinnati elementary school, teachers andchildren alike raved about its creativity and easy use. Soon, the rest ofCincinnati was enjoying the toy, and Play-Doh’s success began to grow. According to Fortune magazine, Play-Doh has sold more than 3 billion cans sinceits debut as a child’s toy in 1956 (that’s over 700 million pounds!). On theirwebsite, Hasbro even goes so far as to claim: > “Urban legend has it that if you took all of the Play-Doh compound created since1956 and put it through the Play-Doh Fun Factory playset, you could make a snakethat would wrap around the world 300 times."And what a colorful snake it would be. Learn more about the history of Play-Dohby checking out the video below.