The Leap to Innovation: The Frog Tape Story

When traveling, I feel like I have a gift in meeting cool innovators on airplanes. Almost every time I fly, I meet someone whose story intrigues me. Recently I met a manager from Shurtape, the company that introduced the innovative Frog Tape® product. Frog Tape® is a masking tape for use with latex paint that prevents leakage of paint under the tape. This has been a persistent problem with masking tape of the years. While masking tape provides a barrier against paint, when wet paint hits the edge of the tape, it can often bleed into or under the tape because the tape is creped and has little valleys and ridges of texture. This can result in a less than clean line between the painted and unpainted regions, and extra clean up to remove places where bleeding under the tape occurred.

One proposed solution to this problem has been to use superabsorbent material in the tape that can swell when wetted with the moisture in latex paint. Swelling of the superabsorbent can help block off channels and reduce bleeding. The problem has been that mixing superabsorbent with masking tape can greatly increase the cost of the product. One of inventor, George Gruber, found a clever solution (see U.S. Patent No. 6,828,008). Instead of trying a complex and expensive formulation of the substrate or adhesive material combined with superabsorbent, he realized (if I infer or understand correctly) that all that was really needed was just a little superabsorbent powder on the edges of the tape. He found a simple mechanical way to grind the powder into the sides of a roll of tape, resulting in just the right amount of the swellable material in just the right place. Result: tremendous sealing performance right where it is needed at very low cost. Rather than incremental improvements in formulating a mixture across the entire tape, he “leap frogged” to a low-cost, simple, and patentable solution: apply superabsorbent to the edges only in an easy application method to regular tape. Bingo. Shurtape was smart enough to recognize the potential of the invention and acquire it in a great example of open innovation and technology licensing. I’ve read user comments about the product compared to competitive products, and think we’ve got a potential winner here.

Don’t be constrained by the assumptions you began with or those that hold your competitors in place. Look for the surprisingly elegant, low-cost solutions that can help you leap frog your way to innovation success.