"A breath of fresh air!"
Jeff Ewald
Founder
Optimization Group, Inc.
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© 2007. Moskowitz and Gofman. All rights reserved.
Testimonials from Academia
Selling Blue Elephants
By Howard Moskowitz and Alex Gofman
Moskowitz Jacobs Inc.
We've been teaching business students how to understand the 'mind of their customers', for a long
time. Finally, the ordinary reader, as well as business people, social scientists, and politicians can
share in these tools. Moskowitz and Gofman have flattened the playing field with their book 'Selling
Blue Elephants'.

I applaud you both. Two thumbs up.
Professor Subrata Sen
Joseph F. Cullman Professor of Marketing,
Yale University
Selling Blue Elephants promises to change the way we think about developing products. Over the
years there have a been a lot of books that deal with what the business person faces—most written
from 20,000 feet. They're big on perspective but not on real 'how to do it'. Moskowitz & Gofman
have written a book that tells the business person, anywhere in the world, how to compete
effectively, no matter how small (or how large) the enterprise.
Professor Eugene Galanter
Director, Psychophysics Laboratory
Columbia University
In a series of well-written and engaging examples, Moskowitz and Gofman vividly illustrate the value
of a truly scientific approach to understanding what consumers really want. But more than that, they
show how experimentation is not only the spice of life - but can spice up all of our lives.

This book is as much fun to read as it is informative, and it is as deeply rooted in psychology as it is
in the science of marketing. They really deliver the goods!
Professor Stephen Kosslyn                      
Chair, Department of Psychology
John Lindsley Professor of Psychology
Harvard University
The title of Howard Moskowitz and Alex Gofman’s engaging book, “Selling Blue Elephants: How to
Make Great Products That People Want BEFORE They Even Know They Want Them,” almost says
it all.  “Selling Blue Elephants" lays out for the reader the ways that the general approach, dubbed
Rule Developing Experimentation or RDE, makes it possible to design and test products, packages,
messages, and services in ways that will appeal to consumers – even when the consumers are not
able to articulate what it is that appeals to them. RDE is largely grounded in Moskowitz’s formal
training in the quantitative discipline of psychophysics, and in “Selling Blue Elephants” the authors
lucidly and brilliantly give many examples of the ways they have applied this sophisticated
psychophysical approach to the marketplace.

Read, enjoy, and learn!
Professor Lawrence E. Marks, Ph.D.
Professor of Epidemiology and Psychology,
Director, John B. Pierce Laboratory,
Yale University
Read more testimonials from Media and Corporations.
"Selling Blue Elephants will indubitably appeal to the global community of marketers and product
developers. Moskowitz and Gofman have clearly laid out a set of knowledge-building techniques for
discerning consumer minds that may change the way companies do business. Traditionally and all
too frequently, business decisions are made using methods that are powerful  but time consuming
and cumbersome. Blue Elephants solidly paves the way to change that by providing reliable,
easy-to-use, affordable techniques and tools.

In the hands of knowledge business practitioners these methods might be of a tremendous value to
the corporations and delight the customers by better and faster meeting their "wants and needs".
Professor Vijay Mahajan
John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business
Marketing Department
The University of Texas at Austin
Selling Blue Elephants convincingly demonstrates the value of systematic experimentation in the
design of new and improved products, be they coffee, pickles or graphic designs.  It also shows
how it pays to focus on individual differences in consumers when optimizing many of these
products.  And it does all this with an engaging and entertaining set of real world examples from the
authors’ own extensive experience.

It is as fun to read as it is educational.  
Gary Beauchamp
Director and President,
Monell Chemical Senses Center
The book is indeed an excellent masterpiece from two prominent authors and practitioners. It is an
absolute 'must read item'. It provides practical insight to business leaders who wish to create the
oft-wished 'thinking society and organization' among their fellow employees. The book provides a
way to deal with new opportunities in a risk-conscious culture. Even more important and enjoyably
so, the book shows how the organization can become far more efficient in its tasks. As a professor
specializing in Financial Services and Risk Management, I am delighted to see these issues taken up,
approached solidly, and solved to the corporation's benefit.  

This book is especially relevant for Asia, where new developments are very fast, important, risky,
and potentially very profitable. Definitely should be translated into other languages to reach even
wider business community.
Professor Hj Mohd Rasid Hussin
Department of Financial Services and Risk Management
MARA University of Technology, MALAYSIA.
Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, Moskowitz and Gofman demonstrate how the use of a
technique called RDE (Rule Developing Experimentation) can turn average products into amazing
products! This book is well written with plenty of interesting stories and case studies from pickles
to politics! We are introduced to Allison-the-Entrepreneur, the Lara Croft of the business world,
who adopts RDE and uses it to develop a successful business.  Following her adventure is a fun
way to learn about the benefits of RDE.

Selling Blue Elephants is a must for any marketer or product developer who wants to learn the art of
success!
Iain Bitran
President
The International Society for Professional
Innovation Management (ISPIM)