#7 Habitual But Distractable

As the ThinkGen team delves deeper and deeper into habit marketing, new learnings continue to develop through the adsorption and application of new sources of information. While the heart of our efforts remains rooted in the principles of Habit EngineeringSM, based on the seminal book HABIT by our colleague Dr. Neale Martin, we spread our nets far and wide to learn what other thinkers and authors have to contribute to our habit marketing journey. Nir Eyal is one such contributor that we watch closely. His first book related to our work, Hooked, provides a rather simplistic model of habitual behavior that is based on a “trigger” that leads to a behavior that is then reinforced. In terms of applicability to marketing, the “Hooked” model is less complete than the ThinkGen Habit Formation Model in several key ways. More specifically:
- The Hooked model does not take into consideration the Context in which the habit is formed.
- The Hooked model does not take into consideration Behavioral Beliefs, i.e., the expectations of outcomes that constitute the filter through which Feedback is interpreted.
- The Hooked model does not take into consideration the Investment that is often made in a habit that makes it even harder to change.