did you know #2-tide

Did you know I once worked a summer job as a test marketer for Proctor and Gamble and Betty Crocker?

That's right. 

I did a fine job with Proctor & Gamble; but Betty Crocker  really didn't want me because I was just too honest.

Here's how it all played out:

I needed extra money one summer in the late '60's, so I read the want ads in the Louisville Courier Journal. 

Then, low and behold, someone needed people to test new products.  Okay.  Not test the products but supervise the testing of new products.  And not even new products . . .just the packaging of products.

All of this testing took place in a basement of a Catholic Church.  I was hired to oversee the testing process, so I sat there with my clipboard (feeling very powerful, of course, since I was hired by Proctor & Gamble) and I wrote down housewives' names and comments as they tried the newest, new-fangled products that were being  test-marketed.

Tide:  That was the first product I watched these housewives try out.  Oh, yes.  There were twenty or more colors of Tide that the volunteer customers filled out a survey about.  The range of the Tide colors was from white to purple, reds, greens, even aqua and black!  All lined up in tiny cups on a table with numbers beneath them.

All the housewives had to do was make a judgment about color and effectiveness of the color of Tide, fill out a questionnaire, and give it to me.

I was always amazed that the everyday housewife  thought a black Tide product would get out the heaviest dirt.  You know.  Worn denims and overalls smeared in motorcycle  or tractor grease.  But they also believed that the violet and robin's egg blue colors of Tide worked best on baby throw-up.  Go figure.

I had not remembered this part time job until I went to Winn Dixie yesterday and was bombarded by the various colors of Tide caps at Winn Dixie.   I was so exasperated because I couldn't find my original jug of Tide. . .the one with the black top that cleaned EVERYTHING out of your clothes.  EVERYTHING!

Finally, I found the jug I needed; but the cap was dark blue, not black.

And that's when I was teleported back to the late 60's in the basement of that Catholic Church, filling out questionairs about potential buyer's thoughts and feelings about Proctor and Gamble products.

  So here's my question:  "Has it taken thirty-five years for all these "trial product packagings" to reach middle America?"

I'm saving the Betty Crocker story for another day.