Scotch Videocassettes

Vertical black rectangle mimics the video cassette product. Text is located in the top quarter in white or red print with bars of green-red-blue. 

3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) is the company behind many household products from post-its to tape to cleaning products.  In the 1950s, they began producing the video cassette. With the advent of personal VCRs and video cameras, sharing and viewing video footage changed the way we view television and even our own family moments. 

During the 1950s and 1960s, Scotch was the standard of open-reel recording tape. By the mid 1980s, 3M developed an improved tape with smaller, more regularly shaped and more closely aligned magnetic particles. However, by the late 1980s, other brands such as JVC had overtaken Scotch in the VHS market and Scotch soon lost the market due to higher prices per VHS tape sold. Other brands were cheaper to make and sell. Soon after in the early 1990s, the DVD was introduced and the need for any VHS tape, 3M or otherwise, became secondary to the new DVD format.