You know what everyone loves? Yes, absolutely EVERYONE.

Free samples!

You're nodding your head, aren't you? Be it laundry detergent, cocktail wieners, or those teeny toothpaste tubes... If it is free, you want it, want it, WANT IT!

Of course, nothing in life is free. That giveaway detergent is nothing more than an ad designed for you to buy the large bottle. (Unless you are in college and collect those trial sizes to do you laundry for the entire semester. We DID NOT do that.)

Quite often, it works; it definitely did for Estee Lauder. She built the world's predominant cosmetic empire on the strategy of giving away a gift with a purchase. Of course, there was more to Estee than that; you don't get to be Time Magazine's most influential businesswoman of the 20th century just on the back of free samples.

But they are so hard to resist, aren't they?