

How Habits Hold Us - yarapavan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204795304577223200657284394.html

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joshklein
Former Madison Avenue ad executive here, limiting the scope of my comment to
the Febreze story.

This part accurately reflects the kind of thinking process the strategists
went through:

> What's most interesting is that instead of focusing on removing bad smells,
> the ads set up Febreze ... satisfying the desire to make things smell nice,
> not just look good.

The rest of it is totally ridiculous:

> The ads taught consumers a new habit, training them to associate the
> rewarding positive cue—a spotless space—with the use of Febreze.

I would believe the ads were effective at setting cultural expectations that a
clean space also needs a clean smell, and that Febreze helps make that
possible. But the "rewarding positive cue" of cleaning? A "reward for a bout
of cleaning"? That's overstating the power of advertisers and understating the
common sense of consumers, and awkwardly smashing this example into a story
that isn't related to it.

Madison Avenue "manipulates" you, but it's done by setting your expectation
for The Way Things Should Be. It isn't with a subliminal cue and a Pavlovian
reward. The carousel scene from Mad Men [1] is really what the meeting where
they sold this idea was like. Trust me, I've been in many of them.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHUUyx0d7qw>

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moe
Just want to say thanks for your great link (the video)!

Having been in similar meetings it almost hurts how close to home this hits.
All the way down to the charismatic narrator and his carefully crafted speech.

Truth is, advertising agencies work with 0,1% psychology and 99,9% bullshit.
And most of the psychology is focussed on squeezing the maximum campaign
budget out of the customer...

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julien_p
This New York Times article by Charles Duhigg (whose book is mentioned in this
story) is a much better read:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.html?_r=4&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all)

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chadzawistowski
It requires a subscription, unfortunately.

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crgwbr
Type the URL into Google search. NY times will let you view it as long as
google.com is your referer.

~~~
feefie
Wow, excellent tip. Thanks! I used
<http://www.google.com/#q=new+york+times+shopping+habits> and it was the top
result.

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aangjie
Bad science journalism.. clearly trying to oversimplify and the author, didn't
seem to have re-read it at all...I wish i had downvote on HN :(

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Iroiso
Great article for ordinary users because its simplistic. But it's a bad fit
for HN; People here want juicy information...

