Louis Cheskin

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Louis Cheskin (February 17, 1907–October 10, 1981) was a scientist, psychologist, and prominent marketing innovator who began a marketing consultancy in the 1930s.

One of the first marketers to observe that people’s perceptions of products or services were directly related to aesthetic details of design, he referred to this phenomenon as "sensation transference", and spent most of his life investigating how design elements could significantly impact perceptions of value, appeal, and relevance.

Cheskin was convinced that when people bought something in a supermarket, they couldn't help but transfer what they felt about the packaging to the product itself. It was his belief that through the representation of its imagery, the packaging IS the product to the consumer.

Based on consumer feedback, Cheskin recommended changing the color of Jelke’s Good Luck margarine from the traditional white to yellow. He also recommended changing the wrapper material from waxed paper to foil to connote high quality. These simple modifications dramatically improved the product’s sales. Every subsequent brand of margarine has followed this advice.

Contents 1 Cheskin's approach 1.1 Dawn of marketing 1.2 The Ford Mustang and Lincoln Continental 1.3 Sensation transference 1.4 Imperial Margarine 1.5 The Marlboro Man 1.6 Relevance to marketing today 2 References 3 External links

[edit] Cheskin's approach

In recent years, the concept of experiences in marketing and branding has become prominent and strategic. Several recent books, such as Experiential Marketing by Bernd H. Schmitt and Experience Economy, by Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore, have resulted from and perpetuated a new interest in cross-channel, multi-sensory marketing. This concept, still mostly undefined and poorly described, is often sold as “new” and reflects the rise of Internet and interactive technologies. A description of Cheskin's affect on marketing, packaging, and history is contained in the book Making Meaning.^[1]

However, the idea that brands, messages, and offerings can be highly coordinated and delivered across channels, media, and contexts is not new: from the 1950s Louis Cheskin relied on scientific testing procedures and detailed standards - such as color guides - to first understand and then deliver what companies had to offer in a way that customers understood. He was one of the first marketers to use customer-centric methods, and to value customer opinions over marketers’ desires or conjectures about customer needs.

Cheskin’s lessons are just as valid today as they were in his time. Indeed, his approach would serve marketers, designers, and managers better today than other approaches which are touted as “innovative” but which essentially continue tried-and-true marketing approaches.

[edit] Dawn of marketing

Though advertising and promotion has been an accepted part of business for millennia, what we now term marketing, the “organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders,” is much more recent.

It is important to note that in the early part of the 20th century, advertisers took a decidedly top-down approach to communicating value to customers. The predominant understanding of customers was that they responded as a group (and were named “consumers” as a result), and that their decisions were chiefly made on the basis of unknown psychological forces. This is a model that mirrored Sigmund Freud’s view of human psychology. In it, meaning and interpretation of imagery, for example, was governed by forces at work since our childhood and largely acted along lines of gender identity and sexual desire.

In the late 1940s there were several consultancies using this approach, then called “motivational research”, for market research based on psychological understanding. The first was probably the Bureau of Applied Social Research, founded by Paul Lazarsfeld in New York City. Though largely unsuccessful, it spawned the Institute for Motivation Research, founded by Lazarsfeld’s student, Ernest Dichter. At the same time, Bernays & Co., one of the first and most influential public relations firms, was founded by Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud (whose theories fueled the work of all three). These three companies, particularly the latter two, were successful in convincing their clients that their psychological insights translated to higher sales.

In contrast, Louis Cheskin founded the Color Research Institute of America in Chicago, later changing the name to Louis Cheskin Associates (the firm was renamed Cheskin Research after his death and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and continues under the name Cheskin). His approach was completely different; rather than relying on Freudian psychology to inspire advertising and packaging decisions, he felt that only true research could uncover what elements were responsible for a product’s success.

For example, Dichter and Bernays explained that women smoked more when cigarette advertising showed uplifted “erect” cigarettes in their hands and mouths because of their inherent “penis envy” (a direct application of Freud’s conclusions). This didn’t convince Cheskin, who reasoned that it could just as easily be due to the fact that women, seeing images of other women smoking, in itself created an atmosphere of acceptance and glamour around smoking. In addition, it didn’t explain why women preferred some brands and packages over others. It could have been any of a myriad of elements at work that convinced women to smoke, or any combination of elements.

Cheskin was happy to guess at what might be the active elements transferring acceptance, but he wouldn’t make a recommendation until these inferences were rigorously tested with real customers. Ironically, this was the more scientific of the approaches. The approach of Dichter and Bernays was based on untested dogma and ungrounded assessments.^{[citation needed]}

At the same time, Cheskin developed a deep appreciation for customers. He did not care which of the elements transferred meaning, and he did not denigrate the meanings or the triggers. Instead, he wanted to understand the complex, fascinating process and triggers and deliver whatever worked. His desire to deliver results extended to customers. In this sense, he was a predecessor of Peter Drucker who, until his death, always advised to “let your customers be your guide.”

Cheskin was not out to trick consumers, but to respond to them (though the ethics of this process can surely be debated). While Dichter and Bernays were content to dictate to American consumers, Cheskin was more interested in catering to what they felt, desired, and needed. Though his firm was in the service of business (as opposed to academia), his methods were true to scientific inquiry. Another reason for rigorous testing was that markets were always changing, and with them the meanings associated with trigger elements. In contrast to the approach of Dichter and Bernays (whose theories should have held true despite shifts in popular culture, since they were based on theories of the brain’s workings), Cheskin knew that sensations which were transferred in one market in one year, might shift and express themselves differently to another market at the same time or years hence.

This was confirmed when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite. Overnight, tastes changed. Suddenly, American tastes veered toward modernism in architecture, fashion, cars, food, gatherings, etc. Companies who could not respond fast enough were doomed to failed offerings.

[edit] The Ford Mustang and Lincoln Continental

One example was the Edsel. On researching the automobile market in 1957, Cheskin wrote a scathing prediction that it would be a market flop because its styling cues didn’t portray a coherent aesthetic and it didn’t reflect this change toward modernism. In contrast, he predicted the massive success of the Thunderbird. The “experts” of the time predicted just the opposite, focusing on the comparative size in advertising budgets. Though Henry Ford (and the industry) denounced his opinion, when it proved true Ford quickly brought Cheskin into the Ford Falcon project. Though this project was too far along to take into account the research results, these new insights went right into the Ford Mustang, one of Ford’s most successful cars ever. Cheskin helped rigorously test the Mustang in experiential prototypes.

Based on this success, in 1960 Ford brought Cheskin in to research and help develop the Lincoln Continental, the country’s first luxury car without artifice. Using the same techniques, when it came time to promote the car for launch, instead of favoring traditional advertising Cheskin recommended a different, radical approach. He created driving events at country clubs and launched the first magazine designed to sell a product (for exclusive distribution through country clubs). This approach relied almost exclusively, at the beginning, on word of mouth, and probably also represented the first use of “guerrilla marketing.” Cheskin viewed these innovations as part of the process and natural extensions of his understanding of customer experience. For him, there was no meaningful distinction between advertising, price, packaging, product use, or the promotion of the brand. He approached these as an integrated experience.

Ford’s close engagement of Cheskin in their product development was also unusual for the times. Consultants were rare, with Raymond Lowey and David Ogilvy being two notable exceptions.

[edit] Sensation transference

When people experience a product, service, or event and its associated packaging and environment, they make unconscious assessments based on their sensory experiences - imagery, sounds, tastes, aromas, textures, etc. These all contribute to one general impression, whether intended or not, whether accurate or not. Cheskin called this "sensation transference".

At its heart, 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.

Surveys and focus groups don’t measure unconscious sensations, so asking customers directly how they feel about a product or package (or advertising, for that matter), won’t yield reliable results. Imagery, color in particular, as well as other sensory experiences, triggers meaning. Cheskin was fond of saying “perception is reality” and wasn’t interested in what customers thought about the package, but rather how the package made them feel about the product.

Cheskin’s work wasn’t just focused on appearance. Often his research led to understanding that built value and changed the product or service offering in valuable ways. For example, in the beginning 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 onsite. Later, this understanding led to the transformation of the burger-stands into restaurants. It was these kinds of insights that Cheskin’s research gave his clients about their customers that helped shape companies' strategies, not only research on color use or imagery (though this, too, had impact, as these very same insights lead to the introduction of Ronald McDonald).

Some results of Cheskin and his team’s research include:

• 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)
• The basic market research underlying the introduction of the Ford Mustang and the Lincoln Continental
• The creation of the Marlboro Man and Marlboro packaging (prior to this, it was a women’s cigarette)
• The creation of the Gerber Baby
• 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

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 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 color schemes). It is no surprise that customers preferred one over the other. What is important about this study is that the customers perceived differences in each deodorant’s effectiveness. Some found one so threatening that they reported rashes and trips to dermatologists, yet had no trouble with the same product in a different package.

It is tempting to conclude that consumers are not aware of their reactions, or that they are irrational. It is also easy to say that this approach was “preying” on consumers. However, there is more to this understanding of how people behave. That people have admittedly strange reactions to elements separate from product effectiveness is neither bad nor good. It is not appropriate for companies or any other organization to cast judgment on how consumers' brains work or how society affects our perceptions and experiences. Instead, this is just another mechanism that companies and developers can take into account in making decisions on how to meet their customers’ needs. Whether an organization uses these understandings ethically or not is another question entirely. There is probably a fine line between clear, motivating communication and propaganda.

[edit] Imperial Margarine

In 1940 margarine wasn’t popular in the USA. 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 color; it was white instead of yellow. The obvious solution was to add yellow coloring (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, it is important to note the process itself: 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 an important credence 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.

[edit] 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 it's 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).

[edit] Relevance to marketing today

Though Cheskin’s process was created and perfected in the 1950s and 1960s, it is just as relevant to marketing today as back then - more so, perhaps, with the rise in experiential branding and marketing. Indeed, market tests continue to confirm Cheskin’s sensation transference phenomenon.

His firm, now named simply Cheskin, continues to use his research techniques and publish findings about color and brand extensibility. Indeed, Cheskin’s approach is enduring and has outlasted those of Dichter and Bernays - at least, these are not prominent nor accepted approaches in most marketing environments or business schools.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Cheskin The latest incarnation of Louis Cheskin's company.