Server: Netscape-Enterprise/2.01 Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 07:38:05 GMT Accept-ranges: bytes Last-modified: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 18:16:26 GMT Content-length: 43388 Content-type: text/html
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Tupperware's First Half-Century, 1946-1996
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In its five decades, Tupperware has become
a household name. The three primary elements
forging Tupperware's success have combined
to generate phenomenal growth:
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The Tupperware Party has become an American institution. The direct selling system has opened career opportunities for thousands, then millions of women who have demonstrated the practical features and benefits of Tupperware® brand products at social gatherings in homes, church halls, schools and businesses. The brand has achieved unparalleled market penetration, with Tupperware found in more than 90 percent of American households. Tupperware® has been ranked among the top 20 brands in price/value criteria, and each product is designed and manufactured to perform for a lifetime. |
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The same qualities not only endure, they continue to prevail. | ||
The Tupperware Demonstration continues to evolve to provide an enjoyable, educational, personalized shopping experience that is relevant to the wants and needs of today's consumer. | ||
Tupperware's direct selling system continues to offer a flexible earnings opportunity: putting part-time to six-figure incomes within reach, plus added incentives, prizes, bonuses, travel and abundant occasions for peer recognition and personal encouragement. | ||
Tupperware continues to symbolize eminently practical and useful design. The graceful form of Tupperware® products and their quality and functionality over the years have also been recognized and honored in the permanent collections of a number of the world's fine arts museums and industrial design collections. Tupperware has earned the positioning, "Extraordinary design for everyday living." | ||
The same basic formula has spread Tupperware's American revolution worldwide. The independent sales force has grown to nearly 800,000--in 101 countries around the world--and is still expanding. Worldwide net sales in 1996 were more than $1.4 billion. | ||
Today, the sun never sets on Tupperware, with a Demonstration beginning somewhere (on average) every two and a half seconds. Last year, some 97 million people attended a Tupperware Party or Demonstration. | ||
What's new at Tupperware? New products, new product lines, new designs, new geographic areas. | ||
At the 50-year milestone, the primary elements nurtured and ingrained in the Tupperware culture are as remarkably enduring as their namesake products. Premium quality and exceptional design, the direct selling experience, the earning opportunity: each was a critical ingredient to the mix that made Tupperware a household name in the first place. |
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Growth Opportunities | ||
"Direct selling continues to be the marketing and distribution wave of the future," states Rick Goings, President of Tupperware Worldwide. "For example, we know that one-third of the people in the U.S. domestic market indicate that they want the convenience of being served through the direct selling channel. In emerging markets, the direct selling system provides a retail infrastructure where none exists. It is our challenge, and opportunity, to reach and serve consumers in these markets." | ||
In pursuing that goal, Tupperware has developed
three primary strengths:
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Tupperware is committed to growth, and is aggressively implementing three strategies to take maximum advantage of the company's primary strengths. First, Tupperware is increasing penetration of its existing markets by expanding and strengthening its worldwide, independent salesforce. Second, Tupperware is both increasing and deepening its global presence by expanding into new geographic areas. Third, Tupperware is continuing an aggressive agenda of developing and introducing new products. |
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In direct selling, there is a strong correlation between sales and salesforce size. Therefore, management considers expansion of its worldwide salesforce as the cornerstone of the company's future growth. Adding more Distributors to support the increase in salesforce size is expected to drive further the penetration strategy into existing markets, as well as the opening of new territories. "In our business," comments Rick Goings, "increasing the number of Distributors is the equivalent of adding new 'stores.' We added more than 100 new Distributors worldwide in l995 to support salesforce growth." | ||
In terms of product development, more than 100 new product introductions were made in 1994, and nearly the same number in 1995. This ensures new and exciting ways to serve consumers. Tupperware's goal is to derive at least 20 percent of annual sales routinely from new products. | ||
Geographic expansion includes recent market
entry into Croatia, Hungary, Indonesia,
Poland and Slovenia. In 1996, Tupperware
will begin operating in the Peoples Republic
of China and plans market entries into India,
Turkey, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Bosnia
and southern Africa. Entry into China and
India, coupled with the market in Indonesia,
will give Tupperware access in those countries,
alone, to more than half the world's population.
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Entrepreneurial Beginnings | ||
"The highest possible quality was fundamental to the Tupperware® brand from the very beginning," notes Rick Goings, President of Tupperware Worldwide. "Long before the business and consumer craze that surfaced in the 1960s, Tupperware wrote the book on quality. The so-called 'miracle plastics' were indeed miraculous discoveries. Coupled with subsequent continuing developments in plastics, they have allowed Tupperware to produce superior quality products for an array of practical uses." | ||
Celluloid was the first plastic material, discovered in the 19th century, finding some use in the kitchen as handles for flatware, except that the resin was highly flammable. Early in the 20th century, phenolic plastics, known as Bakelite®, were molded at high temperatures for heat resistance. Cold-molded plastics were even more heat-resistant, cellulose acetate becoming the most popular in the 1930s. Cellophane, nylon and Plexiglas® had emerged by then, followed by polystyrene (1938). Polyethylene was developed in the late 1930s. Earl Tupper developed a refining process for polyethylene, and produced his "Poly-T" in 1942. Polyvinyl chlorides (PVCs) were developed during World War II, and polypropylene in 1957. |
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Yet Earl Tupper's first chunk of polyethylene slag appeared to hold little if any promise. | ||
Tupper was eager to experiment with plastics, yet unable to gain access to "critical materials" restricted for war research. A self-styled "inventor" from humble origins in Berlin, New Hampshire, he was mostly self-educated as well, having only a high school diploma when he went to work for a year at DuPont, where he claimed "my education really began." He formed his own company in 1938, and subsequently asked his former bosses at DuPont to sell him some leftover material to play with. What he got was a smelly chunk of polyethylene, a waste product of the oil refining process. It was putrid, rock hard and impossible to work with. Tupper developed a refining process to purify the slag into material of quite different characteristics: clear instead of black, flexible but still unbreakable, tasteless, odorless, non-toxic, lightweight, easy-to-clean. That was the first miracle. Tupper's brand of alchemy turned slag into Tupperware® gold. Tupper also developed an injection molding machine to shape the new material. | ||
Often a subcontractor for DuPont, he won defense
contracts during World War II molding parts for
gas masks and Navy signal lamps. After the War,
Tupper began manufacturing his own line of
polyethylene products designed to capitalize
on the properties of the new material. The
National History Museum of the Smithsonian
Institutions observes that the Tupperware®
products in its collection "reflect elements
of scientific ingenuity and entrepreneurialism,
and offer an interesting example of the adaptation
of defense technologies." The book, American
Plastics - A Cultural History, described
Tupperware® as "a line of products that served
to domesticate plastic more than anything else
since nylon."
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Extraordinary Design for Everyday Living
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"The second stage of revolutionary invention at Tupperware was in design, and this phase of development was even more fascinating," observes Morison Cousins, Tupperware's prize-winning design director. "Tupper was astonishing. Discovering the basic material would have been more than enough for most people, but he also made great leaps forward in exploring the underlying nature of basic objects at the most elementary level," Cousins maintains. |
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While there has always been an obsession with functional design at Tupperware, it also offered a new type of material for aesthetic sculpture. "The pragmatism, the efficiency, the outright cleverness of the design work was truly ingenious," Cousins acknowledges, "yet there was also a wonderful personality involved in the creative development. Form followed function, and the new material had already been earmarked for its ideal purpose, food storage. Yet it was clearly meant to be graceful and beautiful as well, pleasant and flattering to the ambience of the kitchen and the home." | ||
Soon after the first products were unveiled, House Beautiful called the Tupperware® line, "fine art for 39 cents." Half-a-century later, The New York Times concurred that "Tupperware is a vision of perfection." | ||
In its own assessments, the art and design world has concurred, as pieces of Tupperware® product have been acquired for the permanent collections of many of the world's great museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian Institution. Recent designs created under the direction of Prix-de-Rome-winner Morison Cousins have been acquired by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Philadelphia Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in England and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal. And Tupperware's designers in Europe and Asia have regularly won major design awards. | ||
Then and now, Tupperware has exemplified its
raison d'être and current guiding
principle: Extraordinary Design for Everyday Living. |
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Symbolizing the second phase of product development was the famous Tupperware® Seal, creating a virtually airtight, partial vacuum. The design discovery was simply reversing the pattern of the lid shaped to close and seal a paint can. The Tupperware® Seal could be made small enough for pour spouts and large enough for mixing and serving bowls. When the storage containers would drop, they would bounce rather than break, and none of the ingredients would spill out. The containers would keep food fresh, as well as save money on a family's grocery budget. | ||
As Charles Fishman wrote in The Orlando Sentinel, Tupperware® "had memory: If you squeezed it, it remembered its original shape and returned to it. If you dropped it, it didn't break. If you put a chunk of Roquefort in it, the Roquefort came out smelling like itself, and the Tupperware smelled like...nothing." |
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It was an idea whose time had arrived. Before the 1940s, most American families had an old-fashioned icebox in their homes. Conversion of heavy manufacturing from the war effort to peace-time production and post-war prosperity accelerated the rise of living standards and market penetration of labor-saving devices such as electric refrigerators and freezers, which quickly became the norm. Yet unlike the cool, damp conditions generated by melting blocks of ice in the old-fashioned iceboxes, refrigerators maintained dry, low temperatures. An unfortunate side-effect was that food frequently dried out, wilted and lost its flavor. That problem was solved brilliantly with the introduction of Tupper's product line. | ||
So elegant was the solution that the original Tupperware® was marketed as the "Millionaire Line" of "Poly-T" products. | ||
Product design, both for function and for beauty, is treated with the same reverence and intensity of focus at Tupperware today. Smoother, softer curves, a wider palette of color choices, and new product lines are developed with the same attention to detail and exceptional design qualities. | ||
Yet when Tupperware® table top accessories and storage containers with the Tupperware® Seal were first introduced, they languished on store shelves, because consumers had not experienced good performance from plastics and didn't understand how to close and open the Seal to make it work. "In retail stores," reported Business Week in 1954, Tupperware "fell flat on its face." | ||
In Detroit, a woman named Brownie Wise was
given a set of the new Tupperware®
products by a friend. "It took me three
days to figure out how the Seal worked,"
she said.
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The Third Discovery: The Power of
Direct Selling
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"She's sunny and successful, but just nine years ago Brownie Wise was a young woman with troubles," confessed the subheadline of "Help Yourself to Happiness," a profile in the August 1954 issue of Woman's Home Companion. | ||
"She walked slowly, fearfully down the hospital steps," the article began ominously. "Her small son was seriously ill; treatments would cost $5,000. She was husbandless, with only her salary as a secretary to live on. Her house was already mortgaged. Where would the money come from?" |
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It was a typical story to be repeated in infinite variations of Tupperware lore. It began usually with a woman who wanted to earn more income. Then direct selling entered the picture. | ||
"Brownie Wise remembered hearing about a part-time job, selling on the 'party plan,'" the article continued. "You asked a friend to invite people to her house. Then you demonstrated your wares. You could do this in the evenings." | ||
Tupperware was not the birthplace of the party plan. It is thought to derive from aluminum dinner parties in the 1920s that were arranged to demonstrate the potential for modern aluminum servingware, cookware, etc., to fit comfortably and appropriately within the traditions of gracious living. Stanley Home Products later developed a version of the home party plan that featured product demonstrations as we know them today. | ||
To try and resolve her financial challenges, Brownie Wise and her mother had begun selling Stanley Home Products, West Bend® appliances and other household goods through Brownie's own developing version of the party plan at the time she received the friend's gift of her first Tupperware® product. When she finally figured out how the Tupperware® Seal worked, she quickly added the Tupperware® line to her product mix. | ||
Before long, business was so successful that, in 1949, Brownie was able to move with her son and her mother to Miami for her son's health, which did indeed improve. "I got a warehouse for Tupperware® before I got a house," Brownie later admitted. | ||
She was not the only one to unlock the secrets of the party plan for Tupperware. Earl Tupper invited several successful Distributors to meet at a Sheraton Hotel in Worcester, Massachusetts, to discuss better ways to sell Tupperware® products than through retail store distribution. Some were already utilizing versions of the party plan, including Brownie Wise, Tom Damigella and Harvey Hollenbush. | ||
Brownie Wise met individually with Earl Tupper as well, and soon after she was designated vice president and general manager of the company. Since Tupper himself generally avoided the limelight, she also became internally and publicly recognized as the inspirational leader of the Tupperware sales organization. Her charge was to build a successful marketing, recruiting, training and selling system for Tupperware. Her classic response became an article of faith at Tupperware, engraved beneath her portrait on the cover of the April 17, 1954 issue of Business Week: "If we build the people, they'll build the business." | ||
The growing legion of independent Dealers, Managers and Distributors was galvanized by a sales culture fostering plentiful recognition, praise and reward. The dynamics of mentoring, personal and professional support, peer training, and recognition for individual achievement became the model for other direct selling organizations that followed Tupperware's lead. And the Tupperware system provided an atmosphere that was motivational and exciting as well, from sales contests and promotions to the annual Jubilee celebration, which, according to one writer, "can only be compared [with] Mardi Gras for sheer enthusiasm, zaniness and fun." |
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The other half of the direct selling equation was the celebrated Tupperware Home Party. While the party plan may not have been a Tupperware innovation, Brownie Wise and others made the Tupperware Party a real, and unique, party, full of games and contests, prizes and surprises, but foremost, full of useful information. Not only did the Tupperware Party serve as a convenient excuse for a neighborhood gathering while the children were at school, but also it provided an educational environment for explaining the functions and benefits of Tupperware® products, as well as useful tips on food preparation, directly to the customer. And for the Consultant, it provided a lesson plan for teaching and for directing the event that could be learned, practiced and mastered, even by a novice. | ||
A 1957 brochure described the Tupperware Party as "The Modern Way to Shop." The event was to be a lighthearted and "thoroughly happy occasion" where a woman could combine "a neighborly visit with armchair shopping" while learning how to use the products. The Tupperware consultant taught consumers how to close and open the Seal, and shared food storage economy suggestions, "as well as many home-making tips." | ||
The entire product line was removed from
retail store shelves in 1951 to become an
overnight success through direct selling
at Tupperware Home Parties. By 1954, total
sales had multiplied by a factor of 25
to an annual volume of more than $100
million. The number of Dealers had grown
from about 300 to 9,000.
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Tupperware Through the Ages
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By 1958, Tupperware had expanded its direct selling system across the U.S. and Canada. With the continued aid of mortgages subsidized and backed by the Veterans Administration, a society of renters became a nation of homeowners, many moving to suburbs that tripled in population by 1980. "Like carpools, station wagons and shopping centers, Tupperware helped new homeowners cope with suburban life," noted The New York Times. | ||
In the U.S. kitchen and home appliance business, this post-war period was characterized by pent-up demand and an almost insatiable national market. While the next phase in the appliance industry, for example, was characterized by the growing influence of lower-cost production methods, Tupperware continued on its fast-track and unabated growth curve. Whatever the changing trends in the appliance market, modern kitchens had to be "Tupperized" in order to be fresh, sanitary, efficient, economical and most functional. | ||
As lifestyles changed and picnicking and other pursuits became more popular, Tupperware continued to develop and innovate. Tools for specific tasks were introduced: the Cake Taker, the Spaghetti Dispenser, the Pick-A-Deli® container. The Crisp-it® was introduced to store iceberg lettuce then enlarged when lettuce heads started to outgrow the product through plant genetics. The Tuppertoys® line was born, and products were introduced for creative play. | ||
In the milestone year of 1958, Brownie Wise left Tupperware, and Earl Tupper later sold the enterprise to the Rexall Drug Company. | ||
In 1969, Rexall changed its name to Dart Industries, Inc. By then, Tupperware sales operations had swept through Western Europe and were established in the Far East (Australia, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand) and Latin America (Mexico and Venezuela). | ||
In 1980 Dart merged with Kraft to become Dart and Kraft, Inc. Yet in 1986, Dart and Kraft split into Kraft, Inc. and Premark International, Inc., comprised of the non-food subsidiaries. In addition to Tupperware®, by 1990 Premark also marketed West Bend® appliances, Wilsonart® laminate, Hobart and Vulcan food equipment, Precor® fitness equipment, Florida Tile® ceramic tile and Hartco flooring. |
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The 1980s also witnessed the expansion of the Tupperware Demonstration from the home party to the workplace, following the migration of women to their new jobs in the working world. In the kitchen and appliance business, the '80s became known as the era of restructuring, adapting to population shifts and social changes. New alternatives were offered: different settings, different types of Demonstrations, flexible times, flexible styles -- the Office Party, the Stop 'n' Shop Party, the Rush Hour Party, the Custom Kitchen Planning Party, the Microwave Cooking Demonstration or Class. Tupperware Demonstrations take place virtually anywhere people gather, from the office to the school, to the day care center and, of course, back home. | ||
To maximize space from homes to recreational vehicles and boats, Tupperware introduced the Modular Mates® container system in 1982, and a free custom kitchen planning service using the product line was introduced by independent Tupperware Sales Consultants and Managers. In 1989, Tupperware introduced Freezer Mates® products that allow food to freeze and thaw more rapidly, while the food pops out easily with a twist of the wrist. In 1990, Tupperware launched its TupperWave® microwave cookware system, and consultants began offering microwave cooking classes. The state-of-the-art CrystalWave® food storage containers that go from refrigerator to microwave to table were launched in 1993. In 1994, the first products in a new line of high quality, ergonomically designed kitchen tools were introduced. The range of Tupperware® products and services continued to grow. | ||
The '90s have ushered in the era of globalization in the housewares business. Since the early 1980s, when Tupperware was operating in 40 countries, sales have expanded to 101 countries around the world, fueling most of the company's near-term growth and future expansion. | ||
And finally, the direct selling system continues expanding its reach globally with products and information tailored to the needs of each market. From the mouth of the Amazon to ski lodges in the Alps, Tupperware's direct selling system is relevant to consumers' needs in every market. It offers the ultimate selling experience of getting as close as possible to the customer. |
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Today, Tupperware offers Bento Boxes and
Kimono Keepers in Japan, the Tortilla Keeper
in Latin America, the Kimchi Keeper in Korea.
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"Give a Child a Chance" Charitable
Focus
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Tupperware is a community with deeply shared values. Helping others has been the hallmark of a career in Tupperware for more than 40 years: offering the tools of opportunity especially to women from all walks of life, assisting customers with products and information to care for their families, and supporting charities with fundraising events and direct donations. | ||
Around the world today, children in one out of every five families are living in conditions of: war, poverty, disease, famine, homelessness or abuse. To reflect an urgent sense of compassion and shared responsibility for children in distress, the "Give a Child a Chance" Program has been established. | ||
In the 101 markets throughout the world where Tupperware® products are sold, the "Give a Child a Chance" Program can help provide a mechanism to more clearly focus corporate donations and charity-business marketing activities on the mission, to give a child a chance. | ||
The "Give a Child a Chance" Program is, first and foremost, a dramatic way to acknowledge and build upon a long tradition of support for the needs of children both within Tupperware and among the members of the direct selling system. It provides a framework in which to dramatize and celebrate the spirit of giving so deeply embedded in the values of the Tupperware community. | ||
For decades, we have said "You build the
people, and the people will build the
business." Giving to charity is
people-building on the most basic level.
Joining together, members of the Tupperware
community find they make a difference in
children's lives.
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Tupperware Today
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According to Investors Business Daily, the Tupperware® brand name is among the top 20 in the U.S. for its price/value ratio. Tupperware® is one of the most recognized and trusted brand names in the world. The fundamental quality of Tupperware® continues to be nothing short of superior. The basic principle has remained unchanged since the discovery and utilization of Tupper's polyethylene: Tupperware lasts a lifetime ...and a lot more. |
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Likewise, Tupperware continues to maintain a leading edge in imagination, in product innovation, in extraordinary design for everyday living. The styles, the colors, the products themselves may change, but the principle remains the same, and the highest priority. | ||
And, after nearly 45 years, Tupperware continues to offer the tools of opportunity especially to women from all walks of life. In the United States, three generations of women, both career-minded and traditional homemakers, have used their careers in Tupperware to fulfill wishes and dreams and achieve financial security, demonstrating and selling Tupperware® brand products. Around the world, Tupperware provides a doorway to prosperity and puts a better life within reach. | ||
The direct selling system is legendary for its customer service and satisfaction. It is a system that has enabled rapid methods of market input and feedback, product development and new product introduction. It is a system that can support a wide range of products with unique features, and a variety of colors and options. | ||
Tupperware has a formula that has made it a household name, and a living legend in its own time. | ||
Today, Tupperware is one of the world's leading direct sellers and the major supplier of food storage containers, with $1.4 billion in worldwide net sales in more than 100 countries. On May 31, 1996, Tupperware Corporation was spun-off from its parent company, Premark International, and is now listed on the NYSE under the "TUP" symbol. |
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