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PREFACE

THOUGHTS of what was happening in my life twenty years ago come to my mind as I write this preface. In the fall of 1938, I completed the manuscript for my first book, Living with Art. It was published in 1940. I have just reviewed a number of the chapters in the book and they brought to my mind the idealism that motivated me. I have been told that idealism is quite evident to anyone who reads it.

To put down the “social-aesthetic” principles in the simplest possible language so that they would reach the greatest number of readers was quite a struggle. I remember the torturous job of cutting my original 425-page manuscript down to 200 pages. I was completely wrapped up in and dedicated the book to Adult Education.

Adult Education leaders liked the book. It is one of the most widely quoted and least read books. Authors refer to it, speakers quote from it, but few besides these have read it.

As a student and later a teacher, I could not understand how a modern, up-to-date Frenchman, like Matisse or Picasso, who enjoys all the fruits of an industrial society, becomes a primitive when he takes a hunk of clay or brush into his hand.

It could not be that the pillars of modern art, the giants of contemporary aesthetic expression suffered from schizophrenia. There was evidence that both Matisse and Picasso and the other kingpins of modern art were well adjusted to contemporary modes of living, in fact, to the luxuries of “streamlined” surroundings.

I was still more perplexed by the reactions of “art lovers” to various types of art. I heard a woman, who was educated in a finishing school and conditioned to either classical or Victorian art, exclaim, “How beautiful!”, “What great feeling!”, “Such wonderful originality!”, as she gazed at a Picasso painting. I witnessed another heaping great praise on a Kandinsky abstract, but when I visited her home, I found it filled with French Provincial furniture. These two examples are typical of thousands of our contemporaries.

Finding out what made the “modem” artists do the things they do and what caused “art lovers” to behave as they do, became my primary goal.

To get the answers required probing the depths of human motivations. This is why I became interested in people’s attitudes and became a researcher.

In 1935, the Adult Education Program of the Chicago Board of Education gave me the opportunity to fulfill my dream to put art to scientific measurement. Under the auspices of the Adult Education Program, I organized an Art Education Division, and set up a project for conducting studies on the psychological effects of visual media—designs, images and colors. Later a special project was organized for conducting studies on how visual media can be used as aids in motivating people to get interested in adult education. A special unit was formed for developing measuring instruments, testing devices, methods and techniques for evaluating attitudes.

For a short time, I directed a program in connection with the Federal Art Project, for training creative men and women in the graphic arts to communicate. Most of the creative people despised and resisted this program. To communicate meant to them limiting creativity and stifling originality. The program lasted about one year. The projects of the Board of Education were in operation from three to five years.

We were trying to measure attitudes toward adult education, toward citizenship, social studies, traditional and modern art.

A number of studies revealed the attitudes toward “adult education.” They showed that the majority of men and women thought education was meant for the young, not for adults.

I decided to find out whether my book, Living with Art, did not become a best seller because it was not adequately promoted or for other reasons. A choice of one from five books was offered as a prize. This was only one part of the test, but the results of this part were quite revealing. Two of the books were novels, two were on modern art and the fifth was Living with Art. Test results: those respondents with art interests wanted one of the two on modern art. Respondents who had no art interests, about 80% of the sample, wanted one of the novels. Living with Art came out with a preference of 6%. It was quite clear that a very large majority of men and women were not interested in Living with Art.

This happened in 1940. I was busy directing a number of projects—with test forms, teaching plans and community programs; but “mercenary” ideas—had suddenly crept into my mind. What did this mean? I was toying with the idea of offering my services to commerce. I felt very guilty about this. I had been trained to be a teacher and researcher and had been conditioned to serve the general good, not do anything merely for a profit. Even my creative efforts in painting were to communicate, to inform, and seeking payment was supposed to be incidental or a necessary evil.

I was conscious of the fact that the Adult Education Program opened great vistas to me. I felt greatly obligated to the individuals who made it possible for me to have the experimental projects that gave me opportunities few persons have in a lifetime. I have always felt obligated to the late Elizabeth Wells Robertson and to Vernon Bowyer of the Chicago Board of Education, and I appreciated the aid I received from Harry T. Fultz and the late Clem O. Thompson of the University of Chicago. I felt close to the Adult Education movement and to the men and women who led it. It was difficult for me to break away.

However, “Pearl Harbor” accomplished for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I was called to help save the world from Tojo and Hitler. While trying to teach soldiers how to recognize aircraft, how to camouflage themselves and how to do a job, no matter what it might be, in the shortest time and in the most efficient way, I had plenty of time to think. Although my thoughts were often interrupted, because I had an “errand to do” for the Colonel, I still found time for meditation.

During the war I met business people. In talking to them, I found out, much to my surprise, that they were investing millions on the basis of hunches. They discussed consumer products in rational terms. One told me that if you make the best mousetrap, the people will come to your door.

Very few had heard of the unconscious mind and of unconscious motivations. Most of those I talked with, some executives of large corporations, could not believe that a package, trademark or color could mean the difference between success and failure. By the time the war was almost over, I was convinced that I could make a major contribution to business.

However, I knew nothing about running a business. Like the character in search of an author, I was in search of a businessman who would run the business while I administered the services. I told a friend of mine, who was in the insurance business, that I needed a partner to whom business was not a mystery as it was to me. A few days later he invited me to his home for dinner where I met a man who was well known both as a business executive and as a public relations man. His name was George D. Gaw.

I showed George Gaw several examples of the research of images and colors from the experimental projects at the Board of Education. He examined them carefully and I was very flattered by his complimentary remarks.

He was particularly impressed with the studies on color. “Businessmen and advertising men think they know a lot about design and copy, but they are aware that they know nothing about color,” he said. This, I could understand.

He also told me about some “tests” he had done with color. They were extremely naive, with no controls whatever. But it was quite clear that George Gaw had a passion for color. He was running a service organization called “The Direct Mail Research Institute.” He showed me a few of his releases. I saw that they contained many references to color. Most of them were reprints on color from popular magazines.

I saw the Direct Mail “literature” at his office at our second meeting. Our third was at the Chicago Board of Education offices where he asked me to come to his office on the following day to talk business.

The Direct Mail Research Institute was operating from the headquarters of the National Research Bureau. Gaw told me that the National Research Bureau would sell any services that had to do with research. This sounded good.

In less than a month I was installed as Associate Director of the Color Research Institute. This was in September of 1944. We thought the war was almost over, but after a number of weeks of Color Research Institute activity, the Allied troops had a setback in Holland and affairs in general looked bleak to me.

Soon, world affairs began to improve and we continued to organize the Color Research Institute. George Gaw introduced me to Bill Wood, President of the National Research Bureau, who confirmed what Gaw had told me. The National Research Bureau would sell the Color Research Institute services. Gaw brought in a man who had been in the billboard advertising business and the wife of Gaw’s nephew who had for some time been in the direct mail business with him. She took charge of the secretarial work.

In the early part of 1945, we received our state charter. We were the Color Research Institute of America, George D. Gaw, President and Director; Louis Cheskin, Executive Vice President and Associate Director. Bill Wood served as Director of Sales until May, 1947, when we moved to new quarters.

We were set to conduct studies in marketing effectiveness of all media. Although we all used the words research, color, design and copy, it soon became obvious to me that we did not mean the same things. The objective was for National Research Bureau to get something from Color Research Institute to sell, and my ideas were not saleable.

I had no idea what selling was all about. And I was a minority of one.

It became quite clear that what color meant to me, the information that I had accumulated on color in my experimental work in connection with the Adult Education Program, should be put into a book. I was convinced that I had to go on record. I had to set down what was already known, so that necessary experiments could be made clear and there would be no confusion about what is known and unknown in the field of color and design.

I began to work feverishly on Colors: What They Can Do for You, which was published in 1947. Color as it applies to almost every phase of life is treated in this book. One chapter deals with color in marketing, another with color in industry and still another with color in art. Fashions are covered. The physical, chemical, physiological and psychological aspects of color are discussed in direct, everyday, simple language. Basically, I was still in adult education.

Several titles for the book had been tested. Colors: What They Can Do for You received the greatest acceptance, and it became the title of the book. In 1948, there was a new printing. The book was a success.

It soon became evident that George Gaw was right in at least one respect. Communication about color was very poor. We had been using the Ostwald system, the best available, at that time produced by Container Corporation, as a means of communication. We designated colors for our clients by an Ostwald notation.

However, we were continually getting into hot water. The Ostwald system charts did not contain enough colors. There were fewer than one thousand color chips. The chips were in dye, on acetate, and we were designating most of the colors to be used in printing ink on paper. Matching was very difficult. Still a third limitation was that the Ostwald charts provided no guidance for reproducing the colors. I had to get busy to devise a more adequate system for color designation, communication and guidance.

After almost two years of experimenting, I developed a system containing 4800 colors derived from the three, subtractive or substance primaries (process colors) used by printers. I split the three primaries into forty-eight equidistant hues. (I tried a greater split and found that identity was completely lost in the blue-red range.) Then I diluted each hue with additions of white in nine equidistant steps downward. (This was accomplished by using Ben Day screens.) Then I prepared a black plate consisting of nine tonal values, running from lightest (10%) at the extreme left and deepest (90%) at the extreme right. By superimposing the black plate upon the color plate, the result was that each chart had 100 equidistant colors. Since each of the forty-eight hues was treated the same way, there were 4800 colors. This color system, known as the CHESKIN COLOR CHARTS, was published in 1949.

Although I was writing articles and giving interviews for business publications, clients told me that there should be a book specially for businessmen. Many of them felt that Colors: What They Can Do for You covered too wide a field, that it was more like an encyclopedia on color. There should be a book on color and design based on Color Research Institute studies to meet the particular needs of marketing people.

Because of the urging from many, I took the chapter on merchandising from Colors: What They Can Do for You and expanded it into a book. I used the same simple, direct style in presenting the basic facts about color and design in marketing.

A number of titles were tested with potential readers of the book and Color for Profit came out most favorably in the tests. It was published in 1951.

Color for Profit did not contain color charts. The CHESKIN COLOR CHARTS with 4800 equidistant colors were found to be too large and too expensive for the average person.

Therefore, I designed a set of junior color charts. I developed a system for producing 300 colors by running the charts through the press four times, with process inks. There are 12 charts in the set with 25 colors on each. The three printing primaries are made into 12 hues and each hue is converted to 25 colors by equidistant steps of white and/or black. These charts were produced in 1952 with printing codes, showing the primary color content of each color on the charts.

I was told by a representative of a book publishing company that there was a great demand for color wheels, that the available ones were inadequate. They showed hues and tints, but no shades and tones. In 1953, I produced a color wheel with 360 colors—12 hues, 348 tints, shades and tones. On the CHESKIN COLOR WHEEL, tones and shades are produced by rotating a transparent disk with five tonal value screens.

Our field testing division was expanding rapidly and we needed devices for getting the cooperation of respondents in testing marketing tools—packages, ads, etc. Primarily for the purpose of motivating respondents, I wrote a booklet called Color Tuning Your Home. This booklet was used very successfully in getting housewives interested in Color Research Institute marketing tests.

The booklet was shown to a chief editor of a book publishing company, and he asked me to expand it into a full book. How to Color-Tune Your Home was published in 1954. The title was changed from Color Tuning Your Home to How to Color-Tune Your Home on the basis of a test with potential readers of the book.

Before the publication of How to Color-Tune Your Home, I received more criticism from clients. Many of them found Color for Profit too limited in scope. It dealt with basic psychological principles and basic design and color principles. It did not deal with the entire problem of producing a printed marketing tool. It did not show how various professions are involved and did not indicate a coordinated effort of many individuals. “There should be a book that traces the complete process of creating an ad or a package from the idea to the printed page,” said a client to me.

This seemed like a practical idea. I asked the publishing company of How to Color-Tune Your Home whether they would publish such a book, and they expressed interest. I wrote the book in less than six months, because most of the material was in Color Research Institute files. A number of titles were tested with businessmen and advertising executives. Color Guide for Marketing Media came out best in the tests. It was published in 1954, the same year as How to Color-Tune Your Home. The latter was published in early spring, the former in the fall. The Junior Color Charts with 300 colors are parts of both books. However, the printing codes are only in Color Guide for Marketing Media.

Of course, none of the so-called color books deal only with color. There is no such thing as abstract color. Color is part of form and space. Thus, Color for Profit and Color Guide for Marketing Media actually deal with practical problems in the graphic media. Imagery, design, pattern are covered. The creative aspects, the psychological factors and the measurement of marketing effectiveness are discussed.

How to Color-Tune Your Home includes the psychological aspects of color and furniture, of form and arrangement. The nature of color and its application to practical problems in the home are discussed. Actual experiments with colors are reported. Designs and arrangements of home furnishings are covered.

By 1950, there were many things happening besides the demand for books. I became convinced that salesmanship and research are like oil and water—they don’t mix. A friend said I had become obsessed with the idea that research, like medicine, should be offered, made available, not sold.

Perhaps he was right that I was obsessed with the idea. I knew I had to be free to tell a client that he did not need a field test, if I knew that we had the information in our files. I had to feel free to tell him that ocular measurements were all his problem needed, that field tests were not needed, if I knew this was so. All this meant that salesmen had no place in the Color Research Institute picture because a salesman’s objective is to sell as much as possible for as big a fee as possible.

After almost six years of seeing research “sold,” I separated research from salesmanship. In the fall of 1951, I organized everything on a purely service basis. I also eliminated all the technical color services that had to do with color printing. We went about quietly getting our share of marketing research from our regular clients and were kept busy getting out reports on ocular measurements, color and image ratings and field tests of brand images, packages and some ads.

By 1957, it became apparent that Color Research Institute was no longer the only organization or almost the only one in the field of motivation research. When my articles on “unconscious level testing” were published in business publications in 1947 and 1948, little attention was paid to them. But ten years later, marketing research people and marketing and advertising executives began to discover the validity of tests that are conducted with indirect methods. Many were emulating Color Research Institute.

In the spring of 1957, Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders was published and motivation researchers sprouted by the dozen. Motivation research was discussed in all business and advertising circles, and the marketing research profession became divided into two camps. In one camp were the traditional researchers who conduct polls, readership studies, impact measurements, recall tests and interviews with consumers on their preferences. In the other were the motivation researchers who employ unstructured projective techniques and depth interviews.

Since Color Research Institute conducts motivation research with controlled techniques and because it employs traditional statistical forms, it remained outside of both camps.

Vance Packard classified me with Dichter and Gardner and with some who are not actually in the field of motivation research.

The Hidden Persuaders seemed to make almost everyone motivation research conscious and it aroused many people against motivation research. The implication in Packard’s book is that motivation researchers are manipulators.

Actually, what Packard points out is, that some individuals misuse motivation research, that they could use it for anti-social purposes and that there are some who would, if they could, use motivation research against the interests of the people.

This is true about almost everything. Language can be used to say good and true things, and it can be used to make evil and false statements. Motivation research can be used for good or evil. It depends on who uses it and for what purpose.

It became quite clear that I had to take quick action to accomplish the following. One, produce evidence that motivation research is not new, as many seemed to think; that Color Research Institute had been in the business of motivation research for over a dozen years. Two, that there is nothing insidious or anti-social about motivation research; that it is merely a means for finding out what people really want. Because people cannot always tell us what they like or why they like an object or product, we use special techniques for getting this information.

After a number of conferences at the Color Research Institute offices, it was decided that the most important articles that have been published in the last ten years about the marketing media testing activities of Color Research Institute, written by me and by others, should be published in book form.

Since documentation was of primary importance, it was best, we thought, to use the articles in the original form. I was well aware that such a book would not be a piece of original literature.

In order to give unity to the book and to give it a natural starting point, I wrote four new special articles and arranged to have them published in business publications. I asked Van Allen Bradley, editorial writer and book critic of the Chicago Daily News, to help us choose sixteen articles out of some forty that have appeared since 1947. Twenty articles, including the four new ones, were assembled into manuscript form. Bradley volunteered to write an introduction.

After testing a number of titles, How to Predict What People Will Buy was published in early fall of 1957.

Perhaps, largely due to its coming out when The Hidden Persuaders was still on the best seller list, How to Predict What People Will Buy became a success, considering the nature of the book. It was displayed in many bookstore windows with The Hidden Persuaders.

Many individuals in the marketing research field did not welcome its appearance in marketing literature, of course. However, it was reviewed favorably in most of the business press and was received with enthusiasm in most business circles. It is considered by many, and it was meant to be, a primer in motivation research. It is a documented record of the pioneering and progress in controlled motivation research methods and techniques. It is a key to a dozen years of testing marketing media on an unconscious level.

Most of the chapters were written by me. Some were originally interviews with me written by journalists.

Some of the chapters in How to Predict What People Will Buy are elementary in character. This fact attracts many readers and alienates some.

A number of criticisms came to me on How to Predict What People Will Buy. “You should write a book that goes deeper into motivation research,” one friend said to me. Another thought that I should tell more about testing techniques. A third person expressed the opinion that I should reveal a little of how ads and filmed commercials are tested on an unconscious level. A fourth thought that I should address management and point out to management why it should use marketing research. A fifth suggested that I should tell about my background and how I began testing on an unconscious level.

It became clear that there was need for another book on controlled marketing research. In this book, I cover what was not covered in How to Predict What People Will Buy.

I named this book Why People Buy. It is a definitive book. It begins with “Basis for Management Decision” and ends with reports of actual studies. In the testing procedures, we do not ask consumers why they buy and they don’t tell us. However, controlled tests, that I describe, reveal what motivates people to buy and what does not. In essence, this means the tests show why they buy. Either “What Motivates People to Buy” or “What Makes Them Buy,” which represents literally what the book deals with, would be a clumsy and awkward title. Therefore, the book is called Why People Buy.