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:
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)