How a Person taught the World to brush their teeth — story of Pepsodent

From 7% to 65% of USA’s people started brushing

The idea of Pepsodent :

One day in the early 1900s, a prominent American executive named Claude C. Hopkins (The famous advertising person of that century) was approached by an old friend with a new business idea. The friend had discovered an amazing product, he explained, that he was convinced would be a hit. It was a toothpaste, a minty, frothy concoction he called “Pepsodent.”

However, when his old friend approached Hopkins about Pepsodent, the ad man expressed only mild interest. It was no secret that the health of Americans’ teeth was in steep decline.

The reason of Ad man’s denial:

Yet as Hopkins knew, selling toothpaste was financial suicide. There was already an army of door-to-door salesmen hawking dubious tooth powders and elixirs, most of them going broke. The problem was that hardly anyone bought toothpaste because, despite the nation’s dental problems, hardly anyone brushed their teeth.

His friend came back, again and again, appealing to Hopkins’s considerable ego until, eventually, the ad man gave in.

The outcomes:

It would be the wisest financial decision of Hopkins’s life. Within five years of 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.” By 1930, Pepsodent was sold in China, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, and almost anywhere else Hopkins could buy ads. A decade after the first Pepsodent campaign, pollsters found that toothbrushing had become a daily ritual for more than half the American population. Hopkins had helped establish toothbrushing as a daily activity.t would remain America’s best- selling toothpaste for more than thirty years, earning billions. Before Pepsodent appeared, only 7 percent of Americans had a tube of toothpaste in their medicine chests. A decade after Hopkins’s ad campaign went nationwide, that number had jumped to 65 percent.

A strategy used by Mr. Hopkins to make Pepsodent a Brand:

Throughout his career, one of Claude Hopkins’s signature tactics was to find simple triggers to convince consumers to use his products every day.

For Example, 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. Hopkins was the man who had convinced Americans to buy Schlitz beer by boasting that the company cleaned their bottles “with live steam,” while neglecting to mention that every other company used the exact same method.

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. 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 the 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.

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 turns out, is 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 eons, and was so easy to trigger that an advertisement could cause people to comply automatically. Moreover, the reward, as Hopkins envisioned it, was even more enticing. Who, after all, doesn’t want to be more beautiful? Who doesn’t want a prettier smile? Particularly when all it takes is a quick brush with Pepsodent?

“I made for myself a million dollars on Pepsodent,” Hopkins wrote a few years after the product appeared on shelves. The key, he said, was that he had “learned the right human psychology.” That psychology was grounded in two basic rules:

First, find a simple and obvious cue.

Second, clearly define the rewards.

He had identified a cue — tooth film

and

a reward — beautiful teeth, that had persuaded millions to start a daily ritual.

The Initial step Mr. Hopkins took :

When he urged any person to buy Pepsodent, he was met with apathy. When he asked them to send ten cents for a sample, they almost ignored him. So he was forced to altruistic advertising. The sample was free. The whole object of the ad. was to induce a test for the good of the parties concerned. He never even mentioned that Pepsodent was for sale. He never quoted its price. His whole apparent object was to prove at our cost what Pepsodent could do.This line brought another revelation. In most lines, like food products, the word “free” was appealing. It multiplied the readers of our ads. The offer of a sample seemed a natural way to sell.

Refrences:

The power of habit — charles duhigg

My life into advertising — claude c hopkins