ABSTRACT
Starting in the early 1990s, a change swept through a line of products that most adult Americans use every day. Until then, nearly
every brand and style of deodorant-roll-on and solid, powder-fresh and unscented-came in a paperboard box. You opened the box, pulled out the container of deodorant, and pitched the box in the garbage. In the early 1990s, Wal-Mart, among other retailers, decided the paperboard box was a waste. It added nothing to the customer's deodorant experience. The product already came in a can or a plastic container that was at least as tough as the box, if not tougher. The box took up shelf space. It wasted cardboard. Shipping the weight of the cardboard wasted fuel. The box itself cost money to design, to produce-it even cost money to put the deodorant inside the box, just so the customer could take it out. With the kind of quiet but irresistible force that Wal-Mart can ap-
ply, the retailer asked deodorant makers to eliminate the box-to unbox the antiperspirant.
