package and the product. The product is the package and the
product combined.
One of the projects Cheskin worked on was margarine. In
the late 1940s, margarine was not very popular. Consumers had
no interest in either eating it or buying it. But Cheskin was
curious. Why didn’t people like margarine? Was their problem
with margarine intrinsic to the food itself? Or was it a problem
with the associations people had with margarine? He decided to
find out. In that era, margarine was white. Cheskin colored it
yellow so that it would look like butter. Then he staged a series
of luncheons with homemakers. Because he wanted to catch
people unawares, he didn’t call the luncheons margarine-testing
luncheons. He merely invited a group of women to an event.
“My bet is that all the women wore little white gloves,” says
Davis Masten, who today is one of the principals in the
consulting firm Cheskin founded. “[Cheskin] brought in
speakers and served food, and there were little pats of butter
for some and little pats of margarine for others. The margarine
was yellow. In the context of it, they didn’t let people know
there was a difference. Afterwards, everyone was asked to rate
the speakers and the food, and it ended up that people thought
the ‘butter’ was just fine. Market research had said there was no