Since their introduction in 1950 the five versions of "Betty Crocker's Cookbook' ' have been best sellers with over 22 million copies sold. Many, if not most, are probably still being used by cooks around the world. With as many as 1,840 recipes in a publication it is unlikely that any one cook has been able to try all of them.

So, how does one get cookbook users to purchase the 1986 edition which includes 400 new recipes out of 1,400? That was the problem facing Tom Kirwan, assistant manager of marketing research at General Mills, Inc. As the flagship of its publishing line it was important that "Betty Crocker's Cookbook" continue to lead the field in order to get adequate shelf and display space in book stores and departments.

General Mills has a cooperative agreement with Western Publishing's Golden Press on this venture. General Mills is responsible for editorial content including recipes while Western takes responsibility for publishing and distribution. Thus, both groups would be involved in the decision-making process.

"Determing what we were testing and what was important were the most important decisions we had to make," Kirwan said. "After that it was mostly a matter of proper execution of the study. "

As the cookbook buyer is often a collector or someone who wants to add to her existing sources it became important that the potential buyer recognize this version as being "new and different." Thus, Kirwan said, the decision was to test cover creations because it would be the cover which would tempt a prospective buyer to pick it up. The collective judgment of the business group were that the important elements were name recognition and eye appeal. Name recognition would be obtained by printing the name in large letters. Thus, the testing would be done on eye appeal.

Originally, it was planned to conduct only one study. However, the project ended up with two studies since some of...