The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg Read Free Book Online Page B

that partnership, Hopkins turned Pepsodent into one of the best-known products on earth and, in the process, helped create a toothbrushing habit that moved across America with startling speed. Soon,everyone from Shirley Temple to Clark Gable was bragging about their “Pepsodent smile.” 2.4 By 1930, Pepsodent was sold in China, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, and almost anywhere else Hopkins could buy ads. 2.5 A decade after the first Pepsodent campaign, pollsters found that toothbrushing had become a ritual for more than half the American population. 2.6 Hopkins had helped establish toothbrushing as a daily activity.

    The secret to his success, Hopkins would later boast, was that he had found a certain kind of cue and reward that fueled a particular habit. It’s an alchemy so powerful that even today the basic principles are still used video game designers, food companies, hospitals, and millions of salesmen around the world. Eugene Pauly taught us about the habit loop, but it was Claude Hopkins that showed how new habits can be cultivated and grown.

    So what, exactly, did Hopkins do?

    He created a craving. And that craving, it turns out, is what makes cues and rewards work. That craving is what powers the habit loop.

    Throughout his career, one of Claude Hopkins’s signature tactics was to find simple triggers to convince consumers to use his productsevery day. He sold Quaker Oats, for instance, as a breakfast cereal that could provide energy for twenty-four hours—but only if you ate a bowl every morning. He hawked tonics that cured stomachaches, joint pain, bad skin, and “womanly problems”—but only if you drank the medicine at symptoms’ first appearance. Soon, people were devouring oatmeal at daybreak and chugging from little brown bottles whenever they felt a hint of fatigue, which, as luck would have it, often happened at least once a day.

    To sell Pepsodent, then, Hopkins needed a trigger that would justify the toothpaste’s daily use. He sat down with a pile of dental textbooks. “It was dry reading,” he later wrote. “But in the middle of one book I found a reference to the mucin plaques on teeth, which I afterward called ‘the film.’ That gave me an appealing idea. I resolved to advertise this toothpaste as a creator of beauty. To deal with that cloudy film.”

    In focusing on tooth film, Hopkins was ignoring the fact that this same film has always covered people’s teeth and hadn’t seemed to bother anyone.The film is a naturally occurring membrane that builds up on teeth regardless of what you eat or how often you brush. 2.7 People had never paid much attention to it, and there was little reason why they should: You can get rid of the film by eating an apple, running your finger over your teeth, brushing, or vigorously swirling liquid around your mouth. Toothpaste didn’t do anything to help remove the film. In fact, one of the leading dental researchers of the time said that all toothpastes—particularly Pepsodent—were worthless. 2.8

    That didn’t stop Hopkins from exploiting his discovery. Here, he decided, was a cue that could trigger a habit. Soon, cities were plastered with Pepsodent ads.

    “Just run your tongue across your teeth,” read one. “
You’ll feel a film—
that’s what makes your teeth look ‘off color’ and invites decay.”

    “Note how many pretty teeth are seen everywhere,” read another ad, featuring smiling beauties. “Millions are using a new method ofteeth cleansing. Why would any woman have dingy film on her teeth?Pepsodent removes the film!” 2.9

    The brilliance of these appeals was that they relied upon a cue—tooth film—that was universal and impossible to ignore. Telling someone to run their tongue across their teeth, it turned out, was likely to cause them to run their tongue across their teeth. And when they did, they were likely to feel a film. Hopkins had found a cue that was simple, had existed for ages, and was so easy to trigger