As the long-running food storage brand files for bankruptcy, here is a look back at its heyday as a domestic phenomenon. To anyone raised in the era of apps and anonymous online shopping, Tupperware parties – which involve inviting people into your home to show them actual items for sale – probably sound like science fiction. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why the venerable American company, once so popular that it became synonymous with plastic storage containers, has this week filed for bankruptcy and is seeking potential new buyers.
It’s a sad turn of events for this formerly industry-leading business , which was founded in 1946 by Earl Tupper. He developed the airtight Tupperware container, made of polyethylene, transforming our ability to store food and keep it fresh for longer. But it was Brownie Wise who turned Tupperware into a phenomenon via a direct marketing strategy known as the “party plan”.
Tupperware would supply women with their products and teach them how to throw parties and sell their wares, so growing the market via the domestic sphere and capitalising on existing relationships. After all, we’re much more likely to buy something from someone we know and trust – especially if it’s in a fun context. Wise was a busy single mum (she left an abusive husband) and shrewd saleswoman who understood the mindset of the post-war suburban housewife.
Technology had made managing a home significantly easier, but she was terribly isolated: surrounded .