He observed that people's perceptions of products and services were directly related to aesthetic design, and named this relationship sensation transference.
Cheskin spent most of his life investigating how design elements impacted people's perceptions of value, appeal, and relevance. He also discovered that most people could not resist transferring their feelings towards the packaging to the product itself.
Based on consumer feedback, Cheskin recommended changing the colour of Jelke's Good Luckmargarine from traditional white to yellow. Furthermore, he changed the wrapper material from waxed paper to foil to represent a higher quality product. These simple recommendations dramatically improved the product's sales, and are still in use for many margarine and dairy products.[2][3]
Evolution of marketing
In the early 20th century, advertisers took a top-down approach to communicating value to customers. Customers were perceived as responding as a part of a group; their decisions were based on unknown psychological forces. This model mirrored Sigmund Freud's view of human psychology: interpretation of sensory input, such as a product image, was believed to derive from childhood experience, gender, and sexual desires.
Louis Cheskin had a contrasting approach. In the 1930s, he founded the Color Research Institute of America in Chicago, renamed Louis Cheskin Associates.[nb 1] He was one of the first marketers to use customer-centric methods and to value direct customer input above marketers' expectations or guesses about customers' needs.
An example of this contrasting approach comes from cigarette advertising. The Freudian approach posited that women smoked more when cigarette advertising showed uplifted, or erect, cigarettes in their hands and mouths because of their inherent penis envy. Cheskin reasoned that it could also be due to the idea of social acceptance and glamour projected by the advertisement.
Cheskin employed the scientific method in marketing, testing his hypotheses of product acceptance by observing customers, which was a unique approach at the time.[citation needed] His methods focused on catering to what consumers felt, desired, and needed rather than trying to directly manipulate those ideas. His methods also advocated frequent updates to the methodology used, as Cheskin's methods were based on ephemeral consumer attitudes rather than on Freudian psychology.
By the 1950s, Cheskin had already implemented the concept that brands, messages, and offerings could be coordinated and delivered through multiple contexts and media. He relied on scientific testing procedures and detailed standards, including colour guides. One such standard was first to understand, then explain what companies had to offer in a way that customers understood.
Use of color
Published in 1951, Louis Cheskin's groundbreaking Color for Profit initiated a scientific approach to color and design. Cheskin's philosophy rotates around three core concepts:
1. Good taste has little to do with how well a design sells.
2. Asking customers what they think of a package design is not a useful way to measure effectiveness. Surveys and polls don't measure unconscious reactions, and what consumers do, not what they say, is what matters. Research shows that most people who claim advertising doesn't affect them tend to buy widely advertised products.
3. Colors have symbolic meanings: "We associate red with festivity, blue with distinction, purple with dignity, green with nature, yellow with sunshine. Pink is generally associated with health... White is a symbol of purity. Black expresses evil." Preferences for pure colors are often associated with the poor. The rich tend to prefer tints. And while women generally prefer tints and men deep shades, both are attracted to fleshtones."
From: The Louis Cheskin Animal Coloring Book by Jack Szwergold.[4]
Changing the face of Ford
In researching the automobile market in 1957, Cheskin wrote a scathing prediction that the Edsel motor car would be a market flop because its styling did not portray a coherent aesthetic and reflect the changing trend toward modernism. Inversely, he predicted the massive success of the Ford Thunderbird. Experts of the time had made the opposite prediction based on the comparative size of the companies' advertising budgets. Though Henry Ford and the automotive industry initially denounced Cheskin's opinion, Ford subsequently included Cheskin in the Ford Falcon project after his forecast proved correct. While the Falcon project had progressed too far to make use of his research results, his new insights were incorporated into the Ford Mustang, one of Ford's most successful cars. Cheskin helped rigorously test the Mustang in experiential prototypes.
Based on the success of the Mustang, in 1960 Ford asked Cheskin to research and develop the Lincoln Continental, the country's first modernist 'luxury' car. Using his research techniques, Cheskin recommended a radically different advertising approach with the Continental's launch. He created the first magazine designed to sell a product for exclusive distribution through country clubs. Driving events at country clubs were also promoted. Initially, this approach relied almost exclusively on word of mouth and represented an early use of guerrilla marketing.
Cheskin viewed these innovations as part of the process; natural extensions of his understanding of customer experience. In his view, there were no meaningful distinctions between advertising, price, packaging, product use, or the brand promotion. He approached these as an integrated whole.
Ford's close involvement with Cheskin in their product development was also unusual for the times.[citation needed]
Sensation transference
Most people make unconscious assessments of a product, service, or event based on both the item itself and on secondary sensory input associated with the item, resulting in a general impression – whether intended or not, accurate or not. Cheskin called this "sensation transference".
Cheskin's innovative insight was that impressions created in customers' minds, based on experiencing products sensorially, transferred directly to concepts of value, price, quality, and emotion. These, in turn, created and fulfilled expectations of satisfaction. Cheskin's research didn't always explain why these associations existed, but he confirmed that they did play an important role in both customer choice and satisfaction.
Cheskin's work was not just focused on appearance. Often his research led to understanding that added value and changed the product or service offering in valuable ways. For example, initially McDonald's operated burger-stands designed for walk-up service. Cheskin's research showed that these configurations were uncomfortable for families, particularly women alone with their children, accounting for low sales to these customers. Cheskin was able to show that tables, chairs, and a semblance of walls helped these customers feel safe and comfortable visiting and eating on-site. Later, this understanding led to the transformation of the burger-stands into restaurants. Research on color use and imagery, too, led to the introduction of Ronald McDonald. It was these kinds of insights that Cheskin's research gave his clients that helped shape companies' strategies.
Some results of Cheskin and his team's research include:[citation needed]
The adoption of the spoon on Betty Crocker packages (leading to a doubling of sales)
The consumer flop of the Edsel automobile was predicted in a legendary article Cheskin wrote before its introduction (triggering Henry Ford to hire him shortly afterward)
Uncovering the preference of American consumers for circles over triangles on packaging
Developing the first successful mainstream margarine (Imperial for Unilever)
Rounding the corners of the Fleishmann's Gin label to appeal more to women (who made up nearly 40% of liquor store shoppers)
The transformation in the mid-1950s of the Duncan Hines cake mix package toward a more 'colonial' style to reflect American consumers' desire for both newness and tradition
The retention of the Golden Arches by McDonald's, which he argued "had Freudian applications to the subconscious mind of the consumer and were great assets in marketing McDonald's food", and likened to "mother McDonald's breasts".[5]
Cheskin's approach and successes won respect from corporate leaders at McDonald's, Ford, Polaroid, General Mills, and many others. Henry Ford, Walt Disney, and McDonald's owner Ray Kroc personally engaged Cheskin on the basis of his innovative approach.
One famous Cheskin study involved the testing of identical deodorants in different packages. Samples were mailed to users and told that the formulations were different. However, the only difference between them was their packaging (three different colour schemes). The trials showed that customers preferred one over the others. In fact, some perceived one of the samples as so threatening that they reported rashes and trips to dermatologists, yet had no trouble with the same formula in a different package.
Imperial margarine
In 1940 margarine wasn't popular in the United States. Consumers were not interested in eating or purchasing it and Cheskin was asked to find out why. At that time, though margarine was common, it was not associated with butter because of its texture and colour; it was white instead of yellow. The obvious solution was to add yellow colouring (where the law allowed), but that didn't mean that consumers would find it acceptable. In a truly innovative approach, Cheskin threw luncheons for housewives (sometimes in their homes), using this new colored margarine instead of butter, but not drawing attention to this fact. The luncheons included speakers and the food was only secondary. He asked the women to fill out questionnaires about the speaker, which also asked them to rate the food. By not drawing attention to the margarine and not conducting a typical focus group (which would do just that), Cheskin was able to test this new approach to margarine in a neutral environment.
The results of this technique showed no real differences between people served butter and those served margarine. This conclusion alone was significant for the margarine industry. However, by conducting research indirectly, in the environment where the product would eventually be used (as opposed to a meeting room typical of focus groups), Cheskin lent credibility to the results. In addition, his multi-sensory and experiential approach of creating a full event around the test was truly innovative for the time.
Further tests found ways of transferring the impression of quality, a known concern with this product. By delivering the margarine in blocks the same size as butter, wrapping them in foil, naming the margarine 'Imperial,' and using a crown logo, he was able to create a total experience, through product and packaging, that connoted quality to housewives of the time. Furthermore, when the company proclaimed 'It tastes just like Butter,' they had scientific 'proof' to back this statement up.
The Marlboro Man
Perhaps Cheskin's most famous achievement was turning Marlboro cigarettes into a 'man's' cigarette from its original appeal to women. Because more men than women were smokers, Cheskin convinced Phillip Morris that they would have more success by appealing to men. At the time its unique product differentiation was a red wrapper, to hide lipstick marks. Cheskin's recommendations were to redesign the package to denote masculinity, while keeping the red color. His recommendations underlie everything from the 'Man-Sized Flavor' advertising campaign and the now iconic packaging (resembling a medal), to the masculine and virile Marlboro Man himself. The Marlboro Man sported tattoos to give him a rugged backstory and often appeared as a cowboy on horseback (the predominant image that has survived today).
Relevance to present-day marketing
Though Cheskin's process was created and perfected in the 1950s and 1960s, it is just as relevant to marketing today – more so, perhaps, with the rise in experiential branding and marketing. Market tests continue to confirm Cheskin's sensation transference phenomenon.
Louis Cheskin's firm, Cheskin Added Value, continues to apply many of his foundational principals of design research and sensation transference to their work.
Bibliography
Living with Art (1940, 233 pages)
Colors: What They Can Do for You (1947, 333 pages)
Notation on a Color System for Planning Color Identification (1949, 18 pages)
Color for Profit (1951, 164 pages)
Colours and What They Can Do (1951, 214 pages)
Color Wheel for Color Planning (1953, 4 pages)
Color Guide for Marketing Media (1954, 209 pages)
Cheskin Color Charts (1955, 8 pages)
How to Predict What People Will Buy (1957, 241 pages)
Why People Buy: Motivation Research and its Successful Application (1959)
Basis for Marketing Decision Through Controlled Motivation Research (1961, 282 pages)
How to Color-Tune Your Home (1962, 203 pages)
Business Without Gambling: How Successful Marketers Use Scientific Methods (1963, 255 pages)
Problem-Directed Men: Our Greatest Need in Business and Government (1964, 320 pages)
Secrets of Marketing Success (1967, 278 pages)
Marketing Success: How to Achieve It (1972)
The Cheskin System for Business Success (1973, 250 pages)
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages and qualities of interest to consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are a wide range of uses, the most common being commercial advertisement.
Marketing is the act of satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of business management and commerce.
Margarine is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was originally named oleomargarine from Latin for oleum and Greek margarite. The name was later shortened to margarine.
Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.
Brand equity, in marketing, is the worth of a brand in and of itself – i.e., the social value of a well-known brand name. The owner of a well-known brand name can generate more revenue simply from brand recognition, as consumers perceive the products of well-known brands as better than those of lesser-known brands.
Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Market research helps to identify and analyze the needs of the market, the market size and the competition. Its techniques encompass both qualitative techniques such as focus groups, in-depth interviews, and ethnography, as well as quantitative techniques such as customer surveys, and analysis of secondary data.
The marketing mix is the set of controllable elements or variables that a company uses to influence and meet the needs of its target customers in the most effective and efficient way possible. These variables are often grouped into four key components, often referred to as the "Four Ps of Marketing."
In marketing, brand management begins with an analysis on how a brand is currently perceived in the market, proceeds to planning how the brand should be perceived if it is to achieve its objectives and continues with ensuring that the brand is perceived as planned and secures its objectives. Developing a good relationship with target markets is essential for brand management. Tangible elements of brand management include the product itself; its look, price, and packaging, etc. The intangible elements are the experiences that the target markets share with the brand, and also the relationships they have with the brand. A brand manager would oversee all aspects of the consumer's brand association as well as relationships with members of the supply chain.
New Coke was the unofficial name of a reformulation of the soft drink Coca-Cola, introduced by the Coca-Cola Company in April 1985. It was renamed Coke II in 1990, and discontinued in July 2002.
Marlboro is an American brand of cigarettes owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA within the United States and by Philip Morris International outside the US. In Canada, a separate product using the Marlboro brand is owned and manufactured by Imperial Tobacco Canada, while the international product is distributed in Canada by a unit of PMI under the name "Rooftop". Marlboro's largest cigarette manufacturing plant is located in Richmond, Virginia.
In marketing, the unique selling proposition (USP), also called the unique selling point or the unique value proposition (UVP) in the business model canvas, is the marketing strategy of informing customers about how one's own brand or product is superior to its competitors.
Virginia Slims is an American brand of cigarettes owned by Altria. It is manufactured by Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International.
Loyalty marketing is a marketing strategy in which a company focuses on growing and retaining existing customers through incentives. Branding, product marketing, and loyalty marketing all form part of the customer proposition – the subjective assessment by the customer of whether to purchase a brand or not based on the integrated combination of the value they receive from each of these marketing disciplines.
Advertising research is a systematic process of marketing research conducted to improve the efficiency of advertising. Advertising research is a detailed study conducted to know how customers respond to a particular ad or advertising campaign.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to marketing:
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of two dimensions from brand knowledge, an associative network memory model. It is a key consideration in consumer behavior, advertising management, and brand management. The consumer's ability to recognize or recall a brand is central to purchasing decision-making because purchasing cannot proceed unless a consumer is first aware of a product category and a brand within that category. Awareness does not necessarily mean that the consumer must be able to recall a specific brand name, but they must be able to recall enough distinguishing features for purchasing to proceed. Creating brand awareness is the main step in advertising a new product or bringing back the older brand in light.
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand's customers, its owners and shareholders. Brand names are sometimes distinguished from generic or store brands.
Prizes are promotional items—small toys, games, trading cards, collectables, and other small items of nominal value—found in packages of brand-name retail products that are included in the price of the product with the intent to boost sales, similar to toys in kid's meals. Collectable prizes produced in series are used extensively—as a loyalty marketing program—in food, drink, and other retail products to increase sales through repeat purchases from collectors. Prizes have been distributed through bread, candy, cereal, cheese, chips, crackers, laundry detergent, margarine, popcorn, and soft drinks. The types of prizes have included comics, fortunes, jokes, key rings, magic tricks, models, pin-back buttons, plastic mini-spoons, puzzles, riddles, stickers, temporary tattoos, tazos, trade cards, trading cards, and small toys. Prizes are sometimes referred to as "in-pack" premiums, although historically the word "premium" has been used to denote an item that is not packaged with the product and requires a proof of purchase and/or a small additional payment to cover shipping and/or handling charges.
Product strategy defines the high-level plan for developing and marketing a product, how the product supports the business strategy and goals, and is brought to life through product roadmaps. A product strategy describes a vision of the future with this product, the ideal customer profile and market to serve, go-to-market and positioning (marketing), thematic areas of investment, and measures of success. A product strategy sets the direction for new product development. Companies utilize the product strategy in strategic planning and marketing to set the direction of the company's activities. The product strategy is composed of a variety of sequential processes in order for the vision to be effectively achieved. The strategy must be clear in terms of the target customer and market of the product in order to plan the roadmap needed to achieve strategic goals and give customers better value.
Global advertising or international advertising consists of collecting, processing, analyzing and interpreting information. There are two main purposes of international advertising research: (1) to assist business executives to make profitable international advertising decisions for their specific products and services and (2) to contribute to general knowledge of international advertising that is potentially useful to a variety of business executives, educators, government policy makers, advertising self-regulatory organizations and others interested in understanding the process and effects international advertising.
↑ Louw, Alice, and Michelle Kimber. "The Power of Packaging." The Customer Equity Company.webArchived 2008-02-24 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved June 30, 2010.
↑ Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: the power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005. Print. pp 160-161.
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