Word: schwerin
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...Mercury. There were some bad moments. Wilson was not sure a girl would be convincing talking about such things as "high torque, turbodrive transmission" and "ball-joint suspension," and there were some fears that Julia might be too gentle to compete with "hard-selling" male announcers. Researcher Horace Schwerin came to her rescue: "No one in our experience has had a higher acceptance with women. We have tested her for voice, appearance and personality, and 90% of the women questioned gave her very high scores...
Furthermore, says Schwerin, "TV is not an advantageous medium for every type of product ... It is easy to show that a shoe polish will shine shoes, but how can you show that a pill will give relief?" Many a TV ad fails, says he, because admen are "college men ... not in rapport with the people they are communicating...
...Schwerin, 40, a graduate of Lafayette College and King's College in London, made his name as a pollster while in the Army. Working off-hours with 700 volunteers, he turned in reports showing soldier dissatisfaction with recreation facilities, housing, food, etc. The report caught the eye of the quartermaster general, who wanted better meals with less waste...
...Schwerin's staff studied some 2,400,000 individual meals, recommended such changes as a cut in soup (which G.I.s did not care for) and a boost in ice cream. He also worked out a formula for predicting how many soldiers would show up for a given meal, thus cut waste. The Army followed the report, saving taxpayers an estimated $110 million yearly...
Back in civvies, he started Schwerin Corp., now collects an estimated $800,000 a year in fees ranging from $800 for checking a single short commercial to $54,000 for a yearly contract. In Manhattan's 400-seat Avon Theater, he tests ads and new programs on both cross-section audiences and special groups invited by mail (such as dog owners for Ken-L-Ration commercials). The viewers turn in reports to determine how much of the sales message is retained. Since most of his business comes from corporations checking on their ad agencies, he naturally hears many...