I hate to plug a book that I'm only 20% of the way in, but everyone here who is designing/selling a product would get a real kick out of Charles Duhigg's "The Power of Habit"
(Duhigg is a NYT writer and that piece about how Target knew that a girl was pregnant before her father did was an excerpt from this book)
When I saw the HN headline I thought it might be referring to Febreze, a product that Duhigg devotes a chapter to. The sales strategy wasn't about convincing people that they stunk, but pitching Febreze as a product that you used after you cleaned a room, to associate it with the "reward" of a clean room.
Duhigg's book also touches on how Pepsodent became a breakthrough product partly because an ad-man convinced Americans they needed to battle the film that naturally covers their teeth.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-Business-ebook/dp/B005...
(Duhigg is a NYT writer and that piece about how Target knew that a girl was pregnant before her father did was an excerpt from this book)
When I saw the HN headline I thought it might be referring to Febreze, a product that Duhigg devotes a chapter to. The sales strategy wasn't about convincing people that they stunk, but pitching Febreze as a product that you used after you cleaned a room, to associate it with the "reward" of a clean room.
Duhigg's book also touches on how Pepsodent became a breakthrough product partly because an ad-man convinced Americans they needed to battle the film that naturally covers their teeth.