History
Soap manufacturer Benjamin T. Babbitt in the 19th century was one of the first known, though not the first ever, people to offer free samples of his products.
Innkeepers are portrayed offering free samples in the 14th-century poem Piers Plowman: "Tauerners ‘a tast for nouht’ tolden the same" (Innkeepers said the same thing, 'A taste for free!').
In 1987 C.A. Courtesy became the first demonstration company to secure exclusivity with a retailer.
Read more about this topic: Product Sample
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)