The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

In Chapter 2, Duhigg introduces Claude C. Hopkins, an American businessman who helped to shape the power of corporate marketing during the 20th century. Hopkins is most famous for convincing Americans to begin buying and using Pepsodent toothpaste. Before Hopkins took over Pepsodent, few in America brushed their teeth regularly, and even more rarely did they use a special paste.

Hopkins provided a guide to corporations on how to convince consumers to develop new habits to sell products—what Duhigg refers to as “Hopkins’s rules.” First, companies needed to find the consumer’s trigger, the reason why the consumer would want to use that product on a daily or weekly basis. In the Pepsodent example, Hopkins convinced consumers that their cue for needing to brush with toothpaste was a film coating on their teeth. Next, their routine would be to brush their teeth using Pepsodent toothpaste. The final step in the habit loop, the reward, would be a tingly feeling in the mouth.

In the 1980s, Wolfram Schultz’s lab at the University of Cambridge performed experiments on monkeys to understand how their brains learned to do new tasks. The scientists added another component, craving, to the tried-and-true habit loop (cue > routine > reward). Cravings, as Duhigg explains, “are what drive habits” (59). Fulfilling a craving is what keeps us coming back to our habits and performing them over and over. For runners, that craving is the thrill of endorphins; for a smoker, it’s the hit of nicotine.

Duhigg shifts to the offices of Proctor and Gamble, a company that was struggling to sell its new product Febreze. Although the company knew consumers wanted a spray that helped to mask odors, Febreze initially had poor sales; the Febreze team needed to figure out human habit and insert Febreze into the habit loop. Using previous research on craving and Hopkins’s rules, the corporation determined that if consumers used Febreze at the end of cleaning, then they would learn to crave the nice scent as a reward for a job well done.