How do you like it? - Kenner Marketing Survey

On opening a boxed U.S. Radar Laser Cannon Mini-Rig box,, I found the above insert, something I'd never come across before. I posted to the rasscv newsgroup, and sure enough, got the following reply from Tom, an ex-Kenner employee, and a valuable resource.

Michael,

The green card is what we simply referred to as a How Do You Like It card,
or "Howdy" for short. In fact, it was a tool by my department (marketing
research) to get some information from early purchasers of the toy at
retail, i.e. a user profile.

Howdy cards were typically inserted during one of the earliest production
runs, into maybe a thousand or couple thousand pieces. As these products
reached retail shelves and were purchased, we hoped that the buyer would
fill out the card and mail it back (postage free). We then tabulated the
information from a random selection of several hundred cards to get an early
read on users. The use of Howdy cards was very common, and done for most
boxed toys.

As for the part numbers on the cardboard insert, I think that was fairly
common for some of the earlier pieces, but later discontinued.

Tom Neiheisel

Above: The insert printing appears to have been imprinted by a rubber stamp, not offset printing.

Early ESB Product catalog with the starwars header on the front lends credence to this being an early release.