My mother had many opinions on many issues. As a female lawyer in the 1950s, she expressed these opinions assertively. Although not a cook, she opined that a complete kitchen needed Pyrex baking pans and a set of CorningWare casserole dishes.
Somewhere in the back of every cabinet, I have multiple sets of those white CorningWare nested casseroles with the blue cornflower emblem, along with a multitude of Pyrex measuring cups, bread loaf, and baking pans. Post-World War II, with the panoply of new kitchen appliances and the 1945 Miss America Bess Myerson promoting the 1956 Frigidaire Imperial Cold Pantry refrigerator on TV, durable, attractive, one-step cookware generated all sorts of benefits. Tangible evidence of Eisenhower-Era efficiency and effectiveness.
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You may take it for granted, or find this tidbit irrelevant today, but Pyrex and CorningWare were considered miracles. Pyrex (1915) is heat-resistant glass; you could use it for baking, for example. Perhaps the measuring cup in your kitchen is Pyrex. CorningWare is made from a glass-ceramic that offers “extreme thermal shock resistance.” That is, you can take it directly from the freezer and put it in the oven or use it on the top of your stove. Because the items are attractive, you can place them on your table after cooking or defrosting.
The maker of Pyrex and CorningWare could have continued to make kitchenware. After all, Pyrex and CorningWare were winning brands. But the corporate brand, Corning Glass Works, had a different vision for its future. Corning Glass Works knew that its remarkable glass technologies could pave the way to a different future.
Corning Glass Works did not see itself as a household kitchen and dishware company. The Corning Glass Works consumer-facing business of kitchenware was small compared to its focus on industrial uses. Corning Glass Works, with amazing prescience, saw itself as a technology company focusing on ceramics, glass, advanced optics, such as display screens, and liquid crystal displays. Corning Glass Works, now Corning Inc., was, and remains today, a highly innovative, sometimes disruptive enterprise.
Similar to General Electric, Corning Inc. changed from being a consumer company to an industrial organization. Corning Inc. envisioned a future world in which it could win. The future was not making dishware. As successful as Pyrex and CorningWare were, Corning saw its future as bigger than the kitchen cabinet.
In 1998, Corning sold its consumer products division. (Previously, GE, also opting for an industrial vision, sold its small appliance business in 1984 to Black & Decker. GE sold its large appliance division (washers, dryers, kitchen appliances) to Chinese appliance company, Haier, in 2016.)
The Wall Street Journal reported on April 28, 2026, that Corning, Inc.:
“… posted a higher first-quarter profit, fueled by surging demand for its optical fiber products used in artificial intelligence data centers and continued growth in its new solar business.
“The company also said it entered into two more hyperscale agreements, each similar in size and duration to its recent multiyear deal with Meta to supply up to $6 billion in advanced optical fiber and cabling for U.S. data-center expansion.”
The Wall Street Journal’s story continued with this statement:
“Corning has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure rush as hyper-scalers race to build out data-center capacity to run their next-generation platforms. The company’s fiber optics business has been one of its fastest-growing.”
Corning, Inc, is a tale of staying relevant in an ever-changing technological environment. This is not easy to achieve. Corning, Inc. could have gone the way of Rochester-based Kodak, a 90-minute drive north of Corning in upstate New York.
Kodak lost its footing when digital film took over haloid. Kodak focused on defending its past. Recognizing that its Kodachrome moment had passed, Kodak turned to digital photography and digital printing. But it was too late. In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. After emerging from bankruptcy, Kodak aggressively focused on commercial digital photography and printing, as well as on motion picture and still film. Only recently has Kodak seen that its chemical approaches have value in the development of pharmaceutical materials.
Kodak fell into the troubling tendency that what worked yesterday will work today. If you just ride the coattails of the momentum you inherited, it is certain that the brand will eventually slow down and will struggle to grow. Corning, on the other hand, moved swiftly, understanding that its industrial customers had and would have increasing needs for its glass technologies (for screens) and its optical fibers.
Fuji, a Kodak competitor, also experienced the decline in haloid film. But Fuji saw that the company did not work on “film” per se; it worked with molecules and elements. By taking a broader view, its Chairman at the time, Shigetaka Komori, shifted the company’s focus away from film and into science, diversifying Fuji so it did not suffer the severe decline in photographic film. Fuji used the science of film in a skincare line. Fuji’s scientists understood that the gelatin used in film comes from collagen, and collagen is big business for youthful-looking skin. Additionally, Fuji created Ebola drugs, anti-aging potions, and stem cell research, all using the basics of its film technology.
HON office furniture is another enterprise that saw a more relevant future. Created to provide employment for returning WWII veterans, HON first manufactured metal tins for recipe cards, then segued into kitchen cabinets and, later, office cubicles, file cabinets, desks, and chairs.
The failure to innovate (or renovate) is a marker for trouble. Brands stay relevant and current through “news”—that is, tell the customer about the interesting things your brand is doing and offering. News is key because news generates frequency. News—any way you receive it—gets a customer in the door, onto the website, or into the app. Tell customers what is new and what is different.
Brand should strengthen competitive position, pricing power, and enterprise value. The Blake Project helps make that happen.
Whether Business-to-Business or Business-to-Consumer, never lose touch with the customer, the customer’s needs, their occasions, and their competitive sets. Never take your eye off how the world is changing. And, be anticipatory and flexible. Use R&D to see ahead and generate operational insights. Understand how your brand can stay relevant in a changing environment.
Unlike trust that takes time to rebuild, relevance can be renewed quickly. Relevance depends on news that makes sense for the customer and the brand. Staying relevant via innovation and renovation is an investment, not a cost. Corning’s investment in an intuitive understanding of how to create a future in which it could win is a clear example of the indispensable need to stay relevant and how that relevance is a road to enduring, profitable growth.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help leaders turn brand into a disciplined driver of financial performance — strengthening pricing power, competitive position, and enterprise value. Email us to start a conversation about enduring profitable growth. For The EBITDA.
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