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INTRODUCTION

CHESKIN is a remarkable person. I have never known him to be wrong. One time when I said this to him, he replied that he was usually wrong but his research was right. I think this a good measure of the man—and of the book. He has been able to divorce his own personal likes, biases and personality from the research he does. He has been searching for “truth” independent of himself—or current fashions and fads in the research business.

By such a course of action he has run the risk of being labeled a maverick. However, his sole criterion of success is ability to predict success. And he is successful.

Probably no other person in this country could have developed the valid techniques that Cheskin has. The one main reason is the path that he took to market research. It is conceivable that an educator might become a top researcher but it is almost inconceivable that an artist would. But he owes a lot to art because it was his search for valid measurements of impact of colors and designs that led him to his techniques for testing on the “unconscious level.”

When you work with colors, you work on the subsymbol level. There is a hierarchy of communication. At the top are words—high order symbols. Next there are illustrations and overt symbols such as crowns, crosses, etc. Then there is the sub-symbol world of color. Color is so primitive that color reactions may be closer to physiology than perception. Black and dark blue are perceived as the same color yet because blue is received by the color cones in the retina (and black is received by the rods) we experience a much fuller “perception” of black. This is the area in which Cheskin started. He discovered and refined his techniques at this sub-symbolic level and then carried them into the symbol area of package testing. Here the visual perceptions of form and color are most important, and also there is the opportunity to test the validity of testing methods.

Packaging offers an advertiser a wonderful vehicle for testing. The goods move off the shelf—or they don’t. Also, there can be many experimental controls. Thus, Cheskin established techniques in color and design testing and proved the validity of them in the packaging field.

Now he has gone beyond packaging alone into the testing of print and electronic advertising. His techniques have gone through a development—but only after being proved on lower, more elemental levels. Most of us are forced to start at the highest testing level (advertising) where there are few sign posts to success. This is like trying to build a pyramid by starting with the top block.

The reader of this book may be looking for guidance in creative advertising—large picture, product shown in use, reader benefit, etc. He will not find it here. But he will find something more useable. The person who scans this book will get little. The person who reads this book will gain a philosophy about advertising. The person who studies this book will come away with a greater understanding of the forces which dominate and influence his own life.

Because of Cheskin’s insistence upon objectivity he has contributed much to making marketing research a science and, as he points out, modern marketing research is as much a science as modern physics. In this book, he does not merely say so. He demonstrates and explains.

Are Cheskin’s methods psychoanalytical or sociological? Is his research statistical or in depth? These questions simply do not apply. His research is not limited to any one school or type. It is all of the known kinds of research and more. He has no dogma. He merely is a problem solver. Because of this, his techniques and procedures have only one factor in common—ability to solve problems.

As the preface of this book shows, Cheskin is basically an educator. In the first two chapters, he approaches research from the management point of view. In the chapter “Dogs, Buyers and Sellers” he combines research with humor. In “Auto Makers’ Problems Can Be Solved,” he plays the role of critic of an industry.

In the chapter “Advertising of the Future,” he gives many helpful suggestions for the advertising profession. In “How Scientific Can Research Be?” he draws parallels between marketing research and sub-atomic research. In “Why Is Research So Vital in Planning a New Product” he is Freudian and in other chapters he shows a statistical orientation.

Those readers interested in the eye-movement camera will learn that Cheskin has been using it for measuring eye-flow of marketing tools for fifteen years, and before that for non-commercial purposes. The use of the visibility camera for measuring one aspect of display effectiveness is also explained.

Today, the semantic differential is a current fad in advertising. However, fifteen years ago Cheskin began using what is now called semantic differential for measuring the effects of packages and ads. And he used it in connection with adult education almost a quarter of a century ago.

In How to Predict What People Buy, Cheskin reported about his pioneering work in marketing research. In Why People Buy, he reveals actual studies and discusses the principles in detail.

Each chapter in this book is instructive and revealing. One chapter, “How Scientific Can Marketing Research Be?”, is the ultimate scientific answer to management men who are not using marketing research because they believe it is not scientific.

In the chapter “What Is and What Is Not Predictable,” Cheskin reports on two studies, one in which a readership study based on interviews is compared with eye-movement tests, and a media study in which respondents tell in which medium they have seen certain products advertised. These two studies themselves make this book a good contribution to the marketing research field.

The book is filled with marketing research disclosures that are vital to every person in the marketing field. Brand managers and advertising men will profit greatly from reading Why People Buy. It has special significance to those in top management who are interested in or concerned with advertising and marketing consumer products.

HOWARD D. HADLEY