Lava lamps: a British export success story – Cressida Granger from Mathmos

An icon of the swinging ‘60s, the lava lamp continues to win fans around the world. Cressida Granger shares the highs and lows of her business journey as owner of Mathmos, the original lava lamp manufacturer, as well as revealing the key to export success for this enduringly popular British product.

Transcript

Mark Greaves:

Today I am excited to be joined by Cressida Granger, owner of Mathmos, the inventor of the lava lamp. I'm Mark Greaves from PKF Francis Clark, and I'll be your host. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to get updates and notifications on when our latest episodes are available. Hi, Cressida. How are you today?

Cressida Granger:

I'm very well. Good to speak to you, Mark.

Mark Greaves:

Good to speak to you as well. Let's start with the basics. I imagine most of our audience will have heard of a lava lamp, but where do I start with that? Could you give us a description of the lava lamp and why they are still so popular?

Cressida Granger:

Well, a lava lamp's basically got a spun metal basin cap. Most of them sit on a desk, big ones can sit on the floor, and in the middle is a glass vessel with two immiscible fluids. So, two fluids inside. One's a bubble that moves around, and then one's a static liquid.

So, the lava moves in a chaotic fashion. So, they take about an hour to warm up and they go through a stalagmite stage, and then they start doing their stuff. Essentially, it's like looking at an open fire. It draws you in, the light, the colour and the movement, the chaotic movement that never repeats itself. So yeah, they just appeal to lots of different people.

Mark Greaves:

That's a brilliant description. I asked the question, I was thinking, "Wait a minute, it's really hard to describe it because of the way it moves." And that's part of its fascination, is it's the almost organic nature of it. Yes?

Cressida Granger:

Yeah, that's right.

Mark Greaves:

I understand they're 60 years old now, your 60th anniversary?

Cressida Granger:

That's right, yes. They were invented in Poole by our founder, Edward Craven Walker, 60 years ago this year, and we've been making them in Britain ever since.

Mark Greaves:

Where did he come across the idea? Because once you've seen them, I can't see how someone would suddenly think of a lamp like that.

Cressida Granger:

He saw a prototype for something kind of related, which was an egg timer in a pub in the New Forest, and then he spent years developing it into a lamp and then a lamp that could be commercialized and manufactured and sold.

Mark Greaves:

Okay. Obviously, very interesting at the start. Let's start with your journey and then we'll track back on the history of side of things. How did you first become involved in the business?

Cressida Granger:

Well, I was what you'd call a vintage dealer now, so dealing in 1960s and '70s objects, lighting and furniture. So, I came across a lava lamp in Glasgow, in fact, in a market in Glasgow and I weirdly hadn't seen one before. So, I bought it and thought, "Ooh, interesting." And then it was from Poole, and I'm from Bournemouth, so I phoned the number on the bottom of the box and somebody answered. And so, I started buying them and selling them on Camden Market, which I did for about five years. And they sold like hotcakes, really.

So, I and another antique dealer, we approached the owner of the business, Edward Craven Walker, and his wife, Christine, to see if we could buy the formula and make our own. And they said, "Oh, no. You can't, but come and meet us." And we came down and met them and they invited us to take over the business. It was very small at the time, and they were moved onto other things. So, the idea was that we would run it and with the money we made, we would buy it from them over time, which is what happened.

Mark Greaves:

You were quite young at that time to be running an antiques market in Camden.

Cressida Granger:

Well, no, I mean, antiques market stores are normally run by young people, I think. So, I was in my early 20s and yeah, I'm not terribly employable, but I loved doing that.

Mark Greaves:

I can relate to that remark at that stage, but that's still quite a big decision at that stage to go from that into a manufacturer and distributor, retailer, et cetera. That's quite a big step to take at that time.

Cressida Granger:

Yeah. Well, David Mulley and I, we were going to open an antique shop just off the Portobello Road, doing 20th century antiques, and I persuaded him that this was a more commercial route. And we didn't know anything about it at all. I mean, nothing. So, it was a massive learning curve, making things, selling them, the whole thing.

Mark Greaves:

Did it help that you had a partner?

Cressida Granger:

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I did. I had a partner for the first 10 years. I mean, I've been at Mathmos over 30 now.

Mark Greaves:

Yeah. Doesn't time fly on that side? So, when he first invented them, they then became part of almost that '60s, '70s culture type thing. How did they catch on? Who was the first user who promoted it? But it did become quite a cultural icon at the time.

Cressida Granger:

Gosh. Well, I mean in the '60s, I think Selfridges was the first large shop to sell them, and it's hard to know how they caught on. I mean, they're bonkers, really, aren't they, that they lasted so long? I think they just struck a chord, didn't they? So, it was the space race, they feel kind of spacey, all those bright colors and bubbles, very much part of the look of later 1960s furniture and lighting.

So, I think they were a accessible thing for the home that was in that idiom of pop lighting and furniture. And they just gained momentum. I mean, they were by Ringo Starr and photographed with David Bowie and they were on The Prisoner and in Doctor Who. So, they were in the culture, and they rolled up in popularity in the '60s.

Mark Greaves:

Became part of the zeitgeist in effect of that stage.

Cressida Granger:

Yeah.

Mark Greaves:

You look at them, you can really picture The Prisoner series or a Doctor Who as being part of that almost iconic. I should also come back to, because there's another connection, the name Mathmos, the name of the company, can you explain where that comes from?

Cressida Granger:

Well, we changed the name, actually. The original name was Crestworth. So, when David and I came along in '89, we changed the name, I think, very early on to Mathmos, which comes from Barbarella, the cult sci-fi film Barbarella. And in that film, there's a bubbling force under the evil city of Sogo called the Mathmos. And so, it felt appropriate and fun to call it Mathmos. I mean, I slightly regret it because then people think it's a different company, but it's not. It's the same entity but with a different name.

Mark Greaves:

I suppose they must've got used to it, hopefully, by now at this stage?

Cressida Granger:

Well, I don't know, maybe in the 30 years they probably have.

Mark Greaves:

I didn't realise you changed the name of that stage. So, actually tie into that, it gives that sort of psychedelic. I want to come onto the development side, but let's go back to the original inventor, Edward Craven Walker. He was quite of an eccentric in other areas as well. He was almost the archetypal UK inventor.

Cressida Granger:

I mean, yeah, he wasn't easily categorised, I think. He was an accountant. He was a fighter pilot in the Second World War. I think he had something to do with foreign exchanges. So, he set those up, I think. He made underwater naturist films and he had a naturist camp as well, but he wasn't really a hippie. He was very much his own man and just very eclectic sets of interests that he pursued.

Mark Greaves:

I suppose it takes a peculiar individual to look at something and create something that's so different to absolutely everything else. There's nothing to compare it to-

Cressida Granger:

No, that's right. It does. It takes somebody ... And then see that through in your 50s.

Mark Greaves:

So, it catches on, it catches the zeitgeist, features with David Bowie and that type of stuff, which carries it through. You then come along of a different generation, of a different era at that stage. How do you then prolong that appeal of it? What were your first tactics when you are trying to actually make the business grow from when you first came in?

Cressida Granger:

Well, they'd really nearly disappeared completely by the '80s. So, it wasn't like today because of course, the internet's changed everything. There's the long tail now. Now everything exists. You can buy anything you can think of. But it wasn't the case then. If things didn't sell out at a certain rate from shops, they disappeared again.

Although the business had been kept going, it was tiny, tiny by the end of the '80s, so they disappeared. So, people hadn't really seen them, as I hadn't really seen one. So, my generation when I was in my 20s and 30s, they were fresh, they were new. We hadn't seen them. I mean, we just changed the way they looked. We changed the way we marketed them. We changed the places we sold them in. So, we just repositioned them really for a younger clientele and it grew over time.

Mark Greaves:

Who were your first customers of the new generation then? What were your first routes to market?

Cressida Granger:

Camden Market, Portobello Market. Big markets where young people would go and buy clothes and buy bits of homeware. So, yeah, wasn't big retail outlets at all.

Mark Greaves:

That must have been very much hard work at that stage, because I imagine that would've been relatively hands-on.

Cressida Granger:

Sure. Yeah, it was very hard work, learning how to make things, learning how to sell them. Yeah.

Mark Greaves:

But that's the other side of it in terms of, you come from a retail background, but you buy into and take over responsibility for a manufacturing business, because it was and still is made ... It's not only made here, it's made out of local stuff that's made elsewhere in the UK as well. Do you want to describe a quick two seconds on the production process?

Cressida Granger:

Yeah. So, there's an Astro, which is our classic 1963 lamp, and our bestseller is spun aluminum. So, it's in discs and it's spun in a spinning plant. And we used to spin ourselves up until the end of the millennium, really. So, that's done either by hand, which is a very skilled thing, or it can be done by an automatic machine, or you can now do it by robots. But actually, most of them are still done by hand.

And then there's a lead set, a bulb that goes inside the metal base. And then there's a bottle that needs to be made in an automatic bottling implant, so it has a consistent wall thickness and is a reliable bottle. So, that's outsourced. Those are made in Yorkshire for us. And then, we buy those raw bottles and then we fill them in our factory with the chemicals. So, we have a filling plant in our factory. And then we buy packaging and we test, package, and sell the lamps.

Mark Greaves:

So, that manufacturing in the UK, I know you were one of the founders of the Made in Britain campaign and we've talked to other people who are very proud of the fact that they still make things here. How critical is that to the success of the product itself?

Cressida Granger:

Well, it's hard to know, isn't it? I think it is important to our customers. I mean, in surveys that we do, people say that it's important. And I think, certainly for products that have been made for 60 years and invented and made for 60 years in this country, it's very unusual. I mean, there aren't that many products that have been in continuous British production for 60 years. So, I think it's important and it is quite hard work.

Mark Greaves:

I can imagine from your description. I suppose to a certain extent, it is a very discretionary spend at the end of the day. It's someone looking at something and they're actually buying a relatively premium product at that particular moment. And therefore, it's really hard to be inside their mind as to what's appealing and whether it's retro and it's the current phase and preference for retro items, or it's something that just appeals because of the number of things, it's made in the UK, it's got that long pedigree, et cetera. And I know from your website you do play on that long history quite a lot on there. What would be your typical customers?

Cressida Granger:

Oh, I don't have a typical customer. We sell them all over Europe to all sorts of people. Very wide age spread, very wide demographic background. So, we really don't have a typical customer, which makes marketing quite hard.

Mark Greaves:

Yes, I'm not surprised.

Cressida Granger:

Yeah. I think there are lots of reasons people buy them. Made in Britain is one bit of the brand story, one bit of the appeal. It's not the only thing. And the retro thing, yes, of course that's important.

I mean, you can buy cheap lava lamps. If you want a cheap lava lamp, you can get one for 12 quid, but it's not going to last long and it's not going to work well and it may not be safe and it won't be as appreciated as a gift as one of Mathmos' lava lamp. So, like any category of goods, there are premium goods and there are bargain goods and we are the premium choice, if you want a lava lamp.

Mark Greaves:

Certainly comes across from the work on the website. I want to build on that a little. You talked about different countries. Around the world what countries are you popular in? What's the largest selling region outside the UK?

Cressida Granger:

So, we just sell in Europe. We're a D2C seller. We sell direct to the consumer online, on our websites, all over Europe. That's what we do. We do sell a little bit elsewhere, but that's our focus.

Mark Greaves:

And what would be your largest country customer within Europe?

Cressida Granger:

Germany.

Mark Greaves:

Why Germany?

Cressida Granger:

Well, there are quite a lot of people in Germany who are quite wealthy. It's a big country. It's the biggest country. So, that's probably part of it. And Germans buy online and Germans like good quality and they like British heritage and they like modern design. I mean, I guess, we're 60 years old, so we're not really that modern. But yeah, I don't know. And we've always worked hard to sell in Germany. It's a very good market. I think for lots of English manufacturers it's the biggest overseas market.

Mark Greaves:

Could we do just a couple of seconds on that, on the basis of, we do see certainly numerous startups nowadays designing a website and starting to sell online and thinking, "That's it. I don't actually have to worry too much about it. I've got one website. I've got it all set up. Anyone from around the world can buy from me and I can eventually ship it to them."

And I've seen from behind the scenes how hard it is to actually get that right and be a successful online retailer in different countries. Could you talk through your journey of actually being able to do a proper sales in Germany and that type of stuff?

Cressida Granger:

Well, if you're a German customer, for instance, you are buying from Germany. So, we have a warehouse in Germany. So, you are getting delivery in a couple of days from Germany's and free carriage, no taxes, no trouble. So, you know that you can return your product if you want. It's going to come quickly. We have in-house German-speaking, in fact, German people on customer support. So, if there's any issues you can phone us up, you can email us and we'll sort it out.

You are buying in euros. You can pay however you want to pay, whether that's Klarna or bank transfer. German people, for instance, they don't have credit cards as much. Different payment methods. The website is in German. It is translated professionally by German people. It is locally optimized in Germany. We advertise in German. Our videos are in German. We retain a PR company in Germany. We have a Facebook site that is German. We treat Germany as we treat Britain. And we try and think from a customer's perspective, not from a sales perspective. We try and make it as easy and painless as possible to buy from us.

Mark Greaves:

I think that's a really good summary of the difficulties because moving into business, you can just see, "I can sell online, it's a website." And all of the various marketing techniques about, "We'll build your website for you. We can do your deliveries." All that type of industry kind of just says, "Excellent." So, you've now got a really small business, but if you want to take it anywhere, the complexities of that next step, I think you've just summarized brilliantly in that you've got to take a look from the customer's perspective, how they're going to pay, how they're going to return, how they're going to query stuff. Are they going to translate the website in their own mind at that stage? Are you going to rely on Google Translate to translate the website and upset every native speaker in Germany at that particular moment through the mistakes?

I think that's a really good summary of that real difficult process. You go from being a small, "I'll do one-off orders." Which Etsy has tended to emphasize a little. Through to actually being a proper business at that side. So, thank you for that. Want to get back to your history just a little, let's go through it, because I think there was one interesting development as you came through. You bought it with your business partner. You and your business partner had held it together for about 10 years, something like that. And then you decided that you'd buy your business partner out at that stage. What drove that and was that difficult for you?

Cressida Granger:

No, it was his decision. He wanted to leave. I mean, it was going to get difficult because we could see the copies coming. We doubled the business every year for nearly 10 years. It's been a lot of hard work. We did really well and we could see the copies coming and we knew it was going to be really difficult. We had a fight on our hands. So, he just didn't want to do it. So, he said, "Would I like to buy him out?" And I said, "Yes." And he said an amount and I agreed to it and that was all.

And then the lawyers got involved on an agreement and then, of course, they frustrated it a little bit, but it was actually quite seamless, the agreement with him. I mean, once I owned the whole thing, then it was a lot harder because there was a lot to get to grips with. It wasn't difficult with him. We always had a good working relationship and he was a very reasonable person. So, it was fine.

Mark Greaves:

I like the comment in middle there, as soon as you introduced lawyers, it becomes slightly more complicated. I think there's a lesson across most life in that stage. Get everything agreed as much as you can then get the lawyers involved to cross the T's and dot the I's. But you then take on full responsibility for it at that stage.

Cressida Granger:

Yes.

Mark Greaves:

Did that change your role in the business?

Cressida Granger:

Well, I was joint managing director, then I was sole managing director. That was all.

Mark Greaves:

But were there areas where you had to actually evolve your role more, that David looked after before?

Cressida Granger:

Yes. So, over time we'd split out responsibilities. So, I was based in London. We had a big office in London and all the sales and marketing and all the marketing design, graphic design. And the production was done down in Poole. And then we squabbled over design, basically, product design.

So, basically, I had to get to grips with the manufacturing side, which I was involved in right at the beginning but then we'd separated our roles out more and I'd been doing more of the marketing, he'd been doing more of the production. So, I had to take on the production. And it was on the background of falling sales and loads of competition. It was very, very hard work.

Mark Greaves:

That's quite a tough position to place yourself in the middle of at that stage, especially around, that was about '99, 2000, something like that?

Cressida Granger:

That's right. Yeah.

Mark Greaves:

So, the world itself was relatively unstable because the dotcom bubble was about to burst a year or so later at that moment. That's quite a brave thing to step up to do in terms of competition, taking on manufacturing, et cetera.

Cressida Granger:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't regret it, but it was really hard. I mean, I had 10 very hard years, I think.

Mark Greaves:

I think like most decisions in life, you look back and go, "I'm glad I made the decision. I just wouldn't want to go through that period of life again. I'm glad I've moved on at this stage." From that position, have you then continued growing it to-date?

Cressida Granger:

So, we got smaller after 2000. And I went off on a tangent. I mean, part of the reason I'd wanted to own the whole business is I wanted to manufacture all sorts of other products. And I wanted to do design and manufacture all sorts of other products. I wanted to widen the brand out. Whilst I wanted to go on making all the lava lamps in Britain because they're historic products, I wanted to take advantage of the new ability to develop products in China.

So yeah, I spent 15 years developing, designing, and launching lots of new ambient lights. And we made some really great things. We won loads of design awards and we worked with some fun people and did some great things. But commercially it was not successful. Every time we did something that was successful commercially, we got copied. It was extremely expensive. And our competitors were Phillips and it was just ... Or retailers themselves like Target in America. It was just too hard.

So, I stopped doing that and then rediscovered the love for the lava lamp, really, which we'd kept going the whole time, but really given very little attention to in those early years of owning it myself. And then turned back attention to the lava lamp and our new status as being the premium brand really in that space. And that's what really makes Mathmos unique.

I think also ... Well, I mean, companies are like children. They have their own personality. And I had been taking the company in a direction it didn't really want to go and a lot of its fans didn't want it to go in that direction either. Every time we'd launch a new product, we'd have pushback on Facebook. "Why? We just want more lava lamps. We don't want any of these products." It's like, "Oh, God." But then actually the business has thrived since it's focused back into its core strengths. And it's grown ever since really. And that's been actually really fun. It's been really fun to go back to all of that and look at it again in another fresh way.

Mark Greaves:

There's a lot of stuff within there in terms of trying different things, but then there is that lesson in today's world where you can access everything. Copying product is just so much easier and so much easier for those with established supply chains, established manufacturing bases, established distribution chains and that type of stuff. It's far easier for them to sit out there.

And I suppose it's that discouragement a little to the startups, and I see it occasionally on Dragons' Den where, "Oh, it's a brilliant product, but how are you going to stop someone just copying it, especially if it's big competition, and then making it very cheap and using their supply lines?" And that wraps around a little to the lava lamp itself in that there are copies out there, there're the cheap copies out there, but there's something within the lava lamp itself, its history, its UK origins and all that type of stuff that keep people coming back to it. I suppose the Facebook pushback is that there's still a base, there's still people who really care about this and that will continue buying it at that stage.

Cressida Granger:

Oh yeah, no, there is. That's right. Yeah, we have a very active collectors group and fan base.

Mark Greaves:

I understand you're going back sort of into frontline retail. You're opening a factory showroom soon?

Cressida Granger:

That's right. Yeah. We're opening a factory showroom, which will be open to people to come visit and see the full range and take one home at the beginning of July.

Mark Greaves:

So, what's prompted that?

Cressida Granger:

Well, it's something we wanted to do when we moved factory, we moved right at the beginning of COVID. People want to come, so it's nice that they can. It's only going to be open during the week when we're there and we'll see how it goes. But it's nice that people can come to the home of the lava lamp and it's nice to be able to come to where it happens and buy one straight from us.

Mark Greaves:

I suppose, again, it is trying to just cement a nebulous concept about why people buy it. It's trying to add to that ambience, if you like, so that there's another reason for them to notice it, to think about it, to actually then be, "Ah yes, buy another one." Or, stumbling by. You're opening factory showroom, you are expanding it. What's your next focus for the business going forward? What do you do now? After 60 years, what's next?

Cressida Granger:

Well, I mean, at the moment we're deep in our 60th first day celebrations, and we've got five collaborations with various creative people to do customizations of our classic Astro. So, we'll be launching those in the autumn.

Mark Greaves:

What's the plans over the next five years?

Cressida Granger:

Over the next five years? Well, as I say, I'm deep in this year. To be honest, I have never had a five-year plan in my life, in the 30 years. We have a rolling one-and-a-half year plan. I don't really like to think too far ahead. But yeah, we'll grow the business and it'll probably be mainly international growth.

Mark Greaves:

Will there be any specific countries out there, or is it effectively a grow and see what's actually working and then adapt side of things?

Cressida Granger:

Yeah. I mean, we need to do the States at some point, and we get so many inquiries. And there's Asia. There's a big old world out there, so we'll see. But as you've alluded to, if you're a direct to customer seller, you need to take it slowly and get it right, not rush in. So, we're not working with distributors, we're not really working with many shops. We're doing it ourselves. So, there's a lot of work involved in taking on another country properly.

Mark Greaves:

I couldn't agree with that more. And I would especially reemphasize it from the US. I've seen numerous retailers on that try that market. And again, the copying tale comes back at that particular moment because the Americans are pretty good at that side of things. But also just trying to tailor it, UK and America were two common countries divided by a common language that isn't so common at stages. And so, I think people underestimate the difficulties of that side.

Cressida Granger:

Oh, yeah, there's loads of barriers to selling to America for an electrical product. Absolutely loads. So

Mark Greaves:

I do see people try and skip it and go to Canada and then work downwards as a more friendly reception, and then kind of move operations downward at that stage. Okay. Just a couple of fun things as we need to wrap up, as we're coming to the end of our time on that side.

Cressida Granger:

Yeah.

Mark Greaves:

What's your favorite lava lamp design?

Cressida Granger:

Oh, well, it has to be the Astro, which is the classic. It has to be.

Mark Greaves:

I think that's the one everyone pictures in the back of their mind when they're actually thinking of your product, that's the classic element. And the Barbarella reference and The Prisoner reference just works so well on that side of things. I must admit, The Prisoner keeps on coming round. You listen to Radio 4 Extra and they repeat programs. Try listening to a radio episode of The Prisoner, and if you don't know anything about it's the most surrealism in the world at that stage.

Cressida Granger:

Yeah.

Mark Greaves:

And just last question on that stage, what's the strangest use for a lava lamp that you actually have seen or come across over the time?

Cressida Granger:

Well, they use a wall of lava lamps now for data encryption because they throw up random shapes all the time. So, they now use them for data encryption.

Mark Greaves:

Okay. Well done. I'm not often lost for words, but I wasn't expecting that as an answer. You've got a 60-year-old organic product that they're now employing for data encryption in walls at that stage. My mind can't even conceptualize how they do it. But that is the biggest concern of our time. Hacking is the reason the NHS IT systems don't work that well, because they're petrified of being hacked.

Cressida Granger:

Right. Yeah.

Mark Greaves:

Lava lamps, well done. Well, I can't top that. That's a brilliant conclusion to the podcast on that side, linking the most modern of concepts to the most retro at the moment. So, thank you, Cressida, so much for joining us today and for sharing your story with our listeners, who I hope enjoyed it as much as I have.

Cressida Granger:

Many thanks.

Mark Greaves:

It's been fascinating to hear about as such an iconic UK business and your personal journey on that side. And thank you to our audience for listening to our latest episode of Business Noodles & Doodles. We hope you've enjoyed the conversation. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to get updates and notifications on when our latest episodes are available.