A solid selection from a firm with a colorful past
9/5/2000
Cheskin Research is a strategic market research and consulting company with a long history. Founder Louis Cheskin was a pioneer in the study of people's responses to packaging and color. His research played a part in, among other things, the creation of such icons as McDonald's Golden Arches, the Marlboro Man and the Gerber baby, and in the development of the first successful margarine. (It was Cheskin's idea to change its color from white to yellow.) More recently the firm has been involved in research on product design, branding and customer perceptions in the digital economy (Cheskin moved the company from the Midwest to Silicon Valley just before he died in 1981) and in studies of ethnic cultures in the mainstream U.S. market. A substantial selection of the company's research is made available in this section of the Cheskin Web site, including complete studies (i.e. "Trust in the Wired Americas", "Teens and the Internet", "Women Entrepreneurs") and summaries and data from others ("The Digital World of U.S. Hispanics", "Sound and Brand" and more). Cheskin's professional researchers are also active contributors to marketing magazines and other publications, and many examples of their writings are reproduced here. All in all, it's a solid collection of research on interesting topics from a firm with a long record of understanding and evaluating consumers and consumer markets.