Tupperware is the brand of a range of home products that includes preparation, storage and serving items for the home. The brand is synonymous with the plastic containers that it first produced which were waterproof and featured an airtight lid (marketed as the ‘burping seal’) that kept the contents fresh and could be conveniently stored in the refrigerator.
The product was invented in 1946 by an American named Earl Silas Tupper in Leominster, Massachusetts who convinced his employer DuPont to give him the remnants from their plastics production in the form of polyethylene slag. This plastic was brittle, odorous and ugly but through experimentation and persistence he created the colorful, odorless, flexible and practical food storage system that today is known around the world.
In the beginning, however, no-one wanted to buy this product because it was new and unknown. Tupper needed someone to explain the benefits of his invention and the person he found was Brownie Wise. She had worked for a company called Party Plan that sold products by gathering people together and promoting them in a party atmosphere.
She saw the potential of Tupperware as a product and realized it could be sold in the same way and began to do so. She soon sold more than anyone else in the company and by 1951 her technique became so successful that Tupperware was taken from stores and sold exclusively through ‘Tupperware parties’ as they came to be known. In recognition of her insight, Brownie Wise was made the first vice-president of the Home Parties business. In 1960 the first Tupperware party was held in England and the product quickly spread through Europe and then around the world
The success of the ‘party plan’ model (a form of direct marketing) was built on the huge pool of stay at home housewives after the second world war and their skills (ability to host a party, sociable relations with friends and neighbors and ability to explain the new product) to create a method of making money for women who either needed, or wanted, to work.
Tupperware is today a wholly owned subsidiary of Tupperware Brands and continues to develop, manufacture and distribute its products throughout the world. It continues to use the direct marketing model and has about 1.9 million direct salespeople who sell its products. As of 2013, Indonesia was the company’s biggest market accounting for over $200 million in sales made by over 250,000 salespersons marketing the product in that country.