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Guinea Pigging
Pays Off !
The consumer is still boss! by ROBERT D. LINK
IF YOU see a brisk young business man unconcernedly carrying a brief case and wearing one brown and one black shoe, don't mentally tick him as a psychopath or exhibitionist.
It's a better-than-even chance that he's one of 25,000 Americans who serve as volunteer guinea pigs for manufacturers hoping to market new products which will appeal to buyers. Those mis-mated shoes, for example, may be worn for months to test the resistance of a new leather to sun, rain and snow. The young man may receive as much as $25 a week for the regular reports he submits describing the wearing quality of the shoes. Not all testers of new and unmarketed products can be spotted so readily. That friendly Jones family across the street — which always seems to have a new radio, exciting "functional" furniture, and intriguing kitchen gadgets — may be serving as a panel for a group of manufacturers. They receive money and the products tested in return for their honest evaluation of merchandise.
The families who agree to become testers must promise to keep their duties a secret. That's because research departments don't want their volunteers' opinions affected by offers of more money or costlier products from rival firms. Also, there's always the chance that a competitor may sniff out a new product and jump the gun by rushing to market with a similar item, thus skimming the sales cream.
Such panels of average American families are responsible for the introduction of $75,000,000 worth of new products each year. Equally important, their down-turned thumb on a new floor wax or auto tire may save a manufacturer several hundred thousand dollars if he agrees to abandon plans for making an item foredoomed to failure.
Here's what happened when one enterprising cereal magnate decided that his laboratory's synthetic coffee would supplant the authentic Brazilian bean quickly in the hearts of coffee lovers.
"It can't be distinguished from the