Craig Clements

The Pepsodent 'film' trick: invent a problem everyone can feel

Claude Hopkins sold Pepsodent by making people run their tongue over their teeth to feel a 'film,' then promising a movie-star smile underneath it. The campaign took daily tooth-brushing in America from 5% to 85% within a decade.

“The ad says, the film that discolors the whitest teeth. And then he has you do a demonstration. So do this with me, Sean. Take the tip of your tongue. Put it over the, the, the front. Put it over these gold fronts you got under there. Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you feel that film there on your teeth?”

Steal thisGive prospects a quick self-test that surfaces a problem they can feel right now, then sell the dream that your product removes it.

The Pepsodent 'film' trick: invent a problem everyone can feel

Claude Hopkins sold Pepsodent by making people run their tongue over their teeth to feel a 'film,' then promising a movie-star smile underneath it. The campaign took daily tooth-brushing in America from 5% to 85% within a decade.

“The ad says, the film that discolors the whitest teeth. And then he has you do a demonstration. So do this with me, Sean. Take the tip of your tongue. Put it over the, the, the front. Put it over these gold fronts you got under there. Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you feel that film there on your teeth?”

Steal thisGive prospects a quick self-test that surfaces a problem they can feel right now, then sell the dream that your product removes it.

Sell the benefit to the user, not the features of your product

Craig's recurring marketing rule: most companies talk about their own product and why they're excited, but the winning move is to make it about the potential user and the dream outcome they'll get.

“And this is a big thing that a lot of companies mess up is they just talk about their own product and, you know, why they're so excited about it, but they don't talk about why it's gonna be exciting for the user. And Claude did a really great job of that, sharing how it's gonna give them that movie star smile.”

Steal thisRewrite your copy to describe who the customer becomes after using the product, not the product's specs.

Otis 'all safe' elevator stunt with P.T. Barnum

Otis couldn't sell elevators (3 in year one, 7 in year two) until P.T. Barnum staged a public event where Otis stood on an elevator and had assistants cut the cables, proving the brake worked. He then sold 2,000 elevators over the next decade.

“First year out, he only sells 3 elevators. The next year out, he sells 7 elevators. Like, no one cares. You know, he doesn't, doesn't have the ability to get the word out. And then he meets this guy named P.T. Barnum.”

Steal thisStage a high-stakes live demonstration where you put your own body on the line to prove the product works.

Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd: make your marketing an event

Craig's principle that humans can't resist an event. Turning advertising into an event guarantees attendance and press coverage, and taps the primal instinct to investigate a gathering crowd.

“have you ever heard the phrase, Sean, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd?”

Steal thisManufacture an event around your launch so the gathering itself becomes the draw and the press hook.

Dr. Oz's balloon demo drove $1B of Garcinia Cambogia sales

Dr. Oz used a mannequin covered in balloons as 'fat cells,' popping them with a pin to dramatize a weight-loss berry. He never named a brand, so scammers selling auto-ship supplements captured roughly a billion dollars in sales off his hype.

“And then he'd take out a pin, he'd be like, this is the berry. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. That's what Garcinia cambogia does to the fat cells in your body. And he just create a craze, man, like $1 billion of Garcinia Cambogia would get sold over the next few months, mostly to these scammy auto-billing marketers.”

Bernays' 'Torches of Freedom' got women smoking in public

To grow Lucky Strike when smoking was illegal for women in public, Edward Bernays put socialites on an Easter Parade float who lit cigarettes in front of reporters, framing them as 'torches of freedom' for the women's rights movement.

“Bernays and his crew went around to the reporters and they said, oh, no, no, no. They're not smoking. They are declaring their rights with these torches of freedom.”

Steal thisReframe your product as a symbol of an existing social movement so the press tells your story for you.

Help them rebel or feel superior

A core hijack: people want to prove they aren't sheep bowing to mainstream pressure. Letting customers rebel against the status quo, or feel superior by leading the charge, is a recurring driver across the best campaigns.

“and that is help them rebel or feel superior. So people have this tendency in them, they want to go against the grain. They want to show that they are not one of the sheep, you know, they want to show that they are not going to bow down to the mainstream pressure or society standards, things like that, you know.”

Steal thisPosition your customer as a rebel against an incumbent or norm, giving them a badge of superiority for choosing you.

Bernays invented the bacon breakfast with 4,500 doctor letters

To sell more bacon, Bernays had a doctor write 5,000 peers asking if a hearty bacon breakfast was healthiest; 4,500 agreed. He fed that result to newspapers, manufacturing the 'doctors agree' headlines that made bacon a breakfast staple.

“So he has him write 5,000 letters to doctors across the nation saying, hey, I think bacon is the healthiest breakfast and people should be eating a heartier breakfast. Do you agree? 4,500 doctors wrote back and they're like, yes, I agree. That makes perfect sense.”

Steal thisSurvey credentialed experts, then turn the favorable result into third-party-validated press headlines.

Sunkist and the juicer: inventing orange juice as a daily habit

Facing an orange glut, Albert Lasker united California growers under the Sunkist brand, then noticed growers squeezed juice as a treat. He gave away cheap juicers via proof-of-purchase and tied OJ to meals, creating the daily orange-juice habit.

“He's like, ah, wait a second, how many oranges did it take to make that juice? And they're like, oh, you know, 3 or 4 or whatever. So he thought, what if we could make that mainstream? Because the juice tasted really good.”

Steal thisBundle a cheap enabling tool with proof of purchase to convert a one-off product into a daily consumption habit.

Change a daily behavior for untouchable word-of-mouth virality

Hal Elrod (Miracle Morning) taught Craig that people recommend things they're doing now, not past reads. Building a daily behavior (like morning journaling) means customers talk about it every day, giving the product permanent viral pull.

“People talk about the things they're doing now. So if you change their daily behavior, like Hal did with getting people to journal in the morning, they talk about it all the time.”

Steal thisDesign your product into a daily ritual so customers organically recommend it every single day.

Prefontaine made running cool and put Nike on the map

Star runner Steve Prefontaine, the Michael Phelps of his sport, wore early Nike shoes and made running culturally acceptable after decades of joggers being mocked. Athletic shoes became everyday wear, though few are used for sport.

“Now, athletic shoes are probably the best-selling shoe and only a tiny percent of them are worn for athletic activities. And that all started in the, in the '70s with, with Prefontaine.”

The 3 stages of a product market: clueless, curious, saturated

Craig's framework for meeting a market where it is. In the clueless stage you must create the wave by hooking a pain they already feel; curious means they know the term and you can jump in; saturated means it's commoditized and hard to break through.

“I talked about, I did a Twitter thread a ways back where I talked about the 3 stages of a product market. So there's clueless, which is when you need to create the marketing wave because your market knows nothing about the product, right?”

Steal thisDiagnose whether your market is clueless, curious, or saturated, and match your hook to that stage.

The 3 stages of a product market: clueless, curious, saturated

Craig's framework for meeting a market where it is. In the clueless stage you must create the wave by hooking a pain they already feel; curious means they know the term and you can jump in; saturated means it's commoditized and hard to break through.

“I talked about, I did a Twitter thread a ways back where I talked about the 3 stages of a product market. So there's clueless, which is when you need to create the marketing wave because your market knows nothing about the product, right?”

Steal thisDiagnose whether your market is clueless, curious, or saturated, and match your hook to that stage.