Howard Moskowitz is an American market researcher and psychophysicist. He is best known for the detailed study he made of the types of spaghetti sauce and horizontal segmentation. By providing a large number of options for consumers, Moskowitz pioneered the idea of intermarket variability as applied to the food industry. Howard Moskowitz is the CEO of i-Novation Inc as well as President of Moskowitz Jacobs Inc., a firm he founded in 1981. Moskowitz graduated from Harvard University in 1969 with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology. Prior to that he graduated Queens College, Phi Beta Kappa, with degrees in mathematics and psychology. He has written/edited sixteen books, has published well over 300 articles and serves on the editorial board of major journals. His latest book with co-author Alex Gofman, Selling Blue Elephants demonstrates and popularizes how IdeaMap creates new products and messages... from areas as diverse as credit cards, jewelry offers, presidential messaging during election years, stock market communications, and trans-national innovation. Moskowitz has won the Scientific Director`s Gold Medal for outstanding research at the U.S. Army Natick Laboratories, and the 2001 and 2003 awards by ESOMAR. In 2004, Moskowitz was elected as an IFT Fellow, and also was awarded the "David R. Peryam Award", from ASTM, in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of basic and applied sensory science. In 2005, Moskowitz was awarded the Charles Coolidge ParlinMarketing Research Award for his substantial contributions and dedication to the advancement of marketing research practices. Most recently, he is the recipient of the ARF Research Innovation Award and The Market Research CouncilHall of Fame Award, both in 2006.
Products
Moskowitz developed Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper when he was hired in 2004 by Cadbury Schweppes, which was hoping to expand the market for Dr. Pepper by developing a product line extension using an alternative formulation with vanilla or cherry flavors. Moskowitz has been consulted by Campbell Soup, General Foods, Kraft and PepsiCo for his expertise in food optimization. According to Moskowitz he has optimized soups, pizzas, salad dressings, and pickles in his work for various firms. His research on Prego spaghetti sauce, which revealed a significant customer preference for an "extra-chunky" formulation, is notable as was his optimization of the amount of salt, sugar, and fat in spaghetti sauce at the "bliss point" which maximized consumer satisfaction. His first job after graduation from Harvard was for the United States Armywith respect toMeals, Ready-to-Eat, where he applied the concept of sensory-specific satiety, the tendency for consumers to tire of strongly flavored foods, to ensure that the meals were formulated in a way that encouraged soldiers to eat sufficient calories.
