The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (47 page)

2.1
Hopkins would consent to
For the history of Hopkins, Pepsodent, and dental care in the United States, I am indebted to Scott Swank, curator at the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry; James L. Gutmann, DDS; and David A. Chemin, editor of the
Journal of the History of Dentistry
. In addition, I drew heavily on James Twitchell,
Twenty Ads That Shook the World
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000); the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry; the
Journal of the History of Dentistry;
Mark E. Parry, “Crest Toothpaste: The Innovation Challenge
,
”
Social Science Research Network,
October 2008; Robert Aunger, “Tooth Brushing as Routine Behavior,”
International Dental Journal
57 (2007): 364–76; Jean-Paul Claessen et al., “Designing Interventions to Improve Tooth Brushing,”
International Dental Journal
58 (2008):
307–20; Peter Miskell, “Cavity Protection or Cosmetic Perfection: Innovation and Marketing of Toothpaste Brands in the United States and Western Europe, 1955–1985,”
Business History Review
78 (2004): 29–60; James L. Gutmann, “The Evolution of America’s Scientific Advancements in Dentistry in the Past 150 Years,”
The Journal of the American Dental Association
140 (2009): 8S–15S; Domenick T. Zero et al., “The Biology, Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Dental Caries: Scientific Advances in the United States,”
The Journal of the American Dental Association
140 (2009): 25S–34S; Alyssa Picard,
Making of the American Mouth
:
Dentists and Public Health in the Twentieth Century
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009); S. Fischman, “The History of Oral Hygiene Products: How Far Have We Come in 6,000 Years?”
Periodontology 2000
15 (1997): 7–14; Vincent Vinikas,
Soft Soap, Hard Sell: American Hygiene in the Age of Advertisement
(Ames: University of Iowa Press, 1992)
.

2.2
As the nation had become wealthier
H. A. Levenstein,
Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Scott Swank,
Paradox of Plenty: The Social History of Eating in Modern America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

2.3
hardly anyone brushed their teeth
Alyssa Picard,
Making of the American Mouth
:
Dentists and Public Health in the Twentieth Century
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009).

2.4
everyone from Shirley Temple
For more on celebrity advertising of toothpaste, see Steve Craig, “The More They Listen, the More They Buy: Radio and the Modernizing of Rural America, 1930–1939,”
Agricultural History
80 (2006): 1–16.

2.5
By 1930, Pepsodent was sold
Kerry Seagrave,
America Brushes Up: The Use and Marketing of Toothpaste and Toothbrushes in the Twentieth Century
(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2010); Alys Eve Weinbaum, et al.,
The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008), 28–30.

2.6
A decade after the first
Scripps-Howard,
Market Records, from a Home Inventory Study of Buying Habits and Brand Preferences of Consumers in Sixteen Cities
(New York: Scripps-Howard Newspapers, 1938).

2.7
The film is a naturally occurring membrane
C. McGaughey and E. C. Stowell, “The Adsorption of Human Salivary Proteins and Porcine Submaxillary Mucin by Hydroxyapatite,”
Archives of Oral Biology
12, no. 7 (1967): 815–28; Won-Kyu Park et al., “Influences of Animal Mucins on Lysozyme Activity in Solution and on Hydroxyapatite Surface,”
Archives of Oral Biology
51, no. 10 (2006): 861–69.

2.8
particularly Pepsodent—were worthless
William J. Gies, “Experimental Studies of the Validity of Advertised Claims for Products of Public Importance
in Relation to Oral Hygiene or Dental Therapeutics,”
Journal of Dental Research
2 (September 1920): 511–29.

2.9
Pepsodent removes the film!
I am indebted to the Duke University digital collection of advertisements.

2.10
Pepsodent was one of the top-selling
Kerry Seagrave,
America Brushes Up: The Use and Marketing of Toothpaste and Toothbrushes in the Twentieth Century
(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2010); Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz,
The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business Press, 2010), 268–81.

2.11
best-selling toothpaste for more than
Pepsodent was eventually outsold by Crest, which featured fluoride—the first ingredient in toothpaste that actually made it effective at fighting cavities.

2.12
A decade after Hopkins’s ad campaign
Peter Miskell, “Cavity Protection or Cosmetic Perfection: Innovation and Marketing of Toothpaste Brands in the United States and Western Europe, 1955–1985,”
Business History Review
78 (2004): 29–60.

2.13
Studies of people who have successfully
H. Aarts, T. Paulussen, and H. Schaalma, “Physical Exercise Habit: On the Conceptualization and Formation of Habitual Health Behaviours,”
Health Education Research
3 (1997): 363–74.

2.14
Research on dieting says
Krystina A. Finlay, David Trafimow, and Aimee Villarreal, “Predicting Exercise and Health Behavioral Intentions: Attitudes, Subjective Norms, and Other Behavioral Determinants,”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
32 (2002): 342–56.

2.15
In the clothes-washing market alone
Tara Parker-Pope, “P&G Targets Textiles Tide Can’t Clean,”
The Wall Street Journal,
April 29, 1998.

2.16
Its revenues topped $35 billion
Peter Sander and John Slatter,
The 100 Best Stocks You Can Buy
(Avon, Mass.: Adams Business, 2009), 294.

2.17
They decided to call it Febreze
The history of Febreze comes from interviews and articles, including “Procter & Gamble—Jager’s Gamble,”
The Economist,
October 28, 1999; Christine Bittar, “P&G’s Monumental Repackaging Project
,
”
Brandweek,
March 2000, 40–52; Jack Neff, “Does P&G Still Matter?”
Advertising Age
71 (2000): 48–56; Roderick E. White and Ken Mark, “Procter & Gamble Canada: The Febreze Decision,” Ivey School of Business, London, Ontario, 2001. Procter & Gamble was asked to comment on the reporting contained in this chapter, and in a statement said: “P&G is committed to ensuring the confidentiality of information shared with us by our consumers. Therefore, we are unable to confirm or correct information that you have received from sources outside of P&G.”

2.18
The second ad featured a woman
Christine Bittar, “Freshbreeze at P&G,”
Brandweek
, October 1999.

2.19
The cue: pet smells
American Veterinary Medical Association, market research statistics for 2001.

2.20
So a new group of researchers joined
A. J. Lafley and Ram Charan,
The Game Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation
(New York: Crown Business, 2008).

2.21
Rather than rats, however
An overview of Wolfram Schultz’s research can be found in “Behavioral Theories and the Neurophysiology of Reward,”
Annual Review of Psychology
57 (2006): 87–115; Wolfram Schultz, Peter Dayan, and P. Read Montague, “A Neural Substrate of Prediction and Reward,”
Science
275 (1997): 1593–99; Wolfram Schultz, “Predictive Reward Signal of Dopamine Neurons,”
Journal of Neurophysiology
80 (1998): 1–27; L. Tremblya and Wolfram Schultz, “Relative Reward Preference in Primate Orbitofrontal Cortex,”
Nature
398 (1999): 704–8; Wolfram Schultz, “Getting Formal with Dopamine and Reward,”
Neuron
36 (2002): 241–63; W. Schultz, P. Apicella, and T. Ljungberg, “Responses of Monkey Dopamine Neurons to Reward and Conditioned Stimuli During Successive Steps of Learning a Delayed Response Task,”
Journal of Neuroscience
13 (1993): 900–913.

2.22
he was experiencing happiness
It is important to note that Schultz does not claim that these spikes represent happiness. To a scientist, a spike in neural activity is just a spike, and assigning it subjective attributes is beyond the realm of provable results. In a fact-checking email, Schultz clarified: “We cannot talk about pleasure and happiness, as we don’t know the feelings of an animal.… We try to avoid unsubstantiated claims and simply look at the facts.” That said, as anyone who has ever seen a monkey, or a three-year-old human, receive some juice can attest, the result looks a lot like happiness.

2.23
The anticipation and sense of craving
Schultz, in a fact-checking email, clarifies that his research focused not only on habits but on other behaviors as well: “Our data are not restricted to habits, which are one particular form of behavior. Rewards, and reward prediction errors, play a general role in all behaviors. Irrespective of habit or not, when we don’t get what we expect, we feel disappointed. That we call a negative prediction error (the negative difference between what we get and what we expected).”

2.24
Most food sellers locate their kiosks
Brian Wansink,
Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
(New York: Bantam, 2006); Sheila Sasser and David Moore, “Aroma-Driven Craving and Consumer Consumption Impulses,” presentation, session 2.4, American Marketing Association Summer Educator Conference, San Diego, California, August 8–11, 2008; David Fields, “In Sales, Nothing You Say Matters,” Ascendant Consulting, 2005.

2.25
The habit loop is spinning because
Harold E. Doweiko,
Concepts of Chemical Dependency
(Belmont, Calif.: Brooks Cole, 2008), 362–82.

2.26
how new habits are created
K. C. Berridge and M. L. Kringelbach, “Affective Neuroscience of Pleasure: Reward in Humans and Animals,”
Psychopharmacology
199 (2008): 457–80; Wolfram Schultz, “Behavioral Theories and the Neurophysiology of Reward,”
Annual Review of Psychology
57 (2006): 87–115.

2.27
“wanting evolves into obsessive craving”
T. E. Robinson and K. C. Berridge, “The Neural Basis of Drug Craving: An Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction,”
Brain Research Reviews
18 (1993): 247–91.

2.28
In 2002 researchers at New Mexico
Krystina A. Finlay, David Trafimow, and Aimee Villarreal, “Predicting Exercise and Health Behavioral Intentions: Attitudes, Subjective Norms, and Other Behavioral Determinants,”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
32 (2002): 342–56.

2.29
The cue, in addition to triggering
Henk Aarts, Theo Paulussen, and Herman Schaalma, “Physical Exercise Habit: On the Conceptualization and Formation of Habitual Health Behaviours,”
Health Education Research
12 (1997): 363–74.

2.30
Within a year, customers had spent
Christine Bittar, “Freshbreeze at P&G,”
Brandweek
, October 1999.

2.31
Unlike other pastes
Patent 1,619,067, assigned to Rudolph A. Kuever.

2.32
Want to craft a new eating
J. Brug, E. de Vet, J. de Nooijer, and B. Verplanken, “Predicting Fruit Consumption: Cognitions, Intention, and Habits,”
Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior
38 (2006): 73–81.

2.33
The craving drove the habit
For a full inventory of studies from the National Weight Control Registry, see
http://www.nwcr.ws/Research/published%20research.htm
.

2.34
Yet, while everyone brushes
D. I. McLean and R. Gallagher, “Sunscreens: Use and Misuse,”
Dermatologic Clinics
16 (1998): 219–26.

3.1
The game clock at the far end
I am indebted to the time and writings of Tony Dungy and Nathan Whitacker, including
Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life
(Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2008);
The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently
(Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2010);
Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance
(Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2011). I also owe a debt to Jene Bramel of
Footballguys.com
; Matthew Bowen of National Football Post and the St. Louis Rams, Green Bay Packers, Washington Redskins, and Buffalo
Bills; Tim Layden of
Sports Illustrated
and his book
Blood, Sweat, and Chalk
:
The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today’s Teams
(New York: Sports Illustrated, 2010); Pat Kirwan,
Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look
(Chicago: Triumph Books, 2010); Nunyo Demasio, “The Quiet Leader,”
Sports Illustrated,
February 2007; Bill Plaschke, “Color Him Orange,”
Los Angeles Times,
September 1, 1996; Chris Harry, “ ‘Pups’ Get to Bark for the Bucs,”
Orlando Sentinel,
September 5, 2001; Jeff Legwold, “Coaches Find Defense in Demand,”
Rocky Mountain News,
November 11, 2005; and Martin Fennelly, “Quiet Man Takes Charge with Bucs,”
The Tampa Tribune,
August 9, 1996.