The 7 Human Hijacks - Covert Marketing Methods the Brain Can't Resist

Right. Well, let me just get into some of the examples here and then you'll see that this guy was operating on a level that is unfathomable. So in this presentation, I'm going to share with you what I've discovered studying and creating marketing campaigns that have caused world change. And I call them the 7 human hijacks, because when you use these 7 things, you are hijacking the limbic system of the brain, and a human cannot help themselves but to pay attention and either respond or at least log what you're going to do or say into their brain. And maybe they respond the next time. But these 7 hijacks, I'm going to share each of them after I share these marketing campaigns, and you're going to see how they repeat. And not every campaign uses all 7, but, you'll see that some of them are extremely powerful. And then when you put them all together, that's when you can really do this type of thing yourself. So if you're watching this right now and you're excited about you possibly changing the world forever, this is the recipe. Let's go. Okay. One of the most interesting marketing campaigns of all time was created by a guy named Claude Hopkins. So Claude Hopkins was approached by a toothpaste company called Pepsodent, and they said, Claude, we want to sell more of our toothpaste. And he looked at the lay of the land and he realized there was a problem. He said to Pepsodent, he said, look, only 5% of people brush their teeth on a daily basis. So why are you even in this business that not a lot of people are taking part in? Can you believe that, Sean? 1920s, 95% of the women that you kiss are going to have terrible breath. No one brushed their teeth back then. And so Claude tells the founders of Pepsodent, he's like, look, you guys really want to sell some toothpaste. You're going to have to get people brushing their teeth. And so he created this masterful ad campaign that built Pepsodent into the dominating toothpaste brand for, for decades. And this is the ad. 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?

Okay. So the ad goes on to say that brushing with Pepsodent is going to remove that film. And behind that film is a movie star smile. And it's so genius, right? Because everybody wants that movie star smile. Everybody has that film, whether you just brushed your teeth 5 minutes ago or not. That you feel that you're like, oh shoot, I got this film, you know? And then it talks about how Pepsodent is the way to get rid of that film. So the result of this ad, within a decade, 85% of Americans then brush their teeth on a daily basis. And Pepsodent is still around today. They ran this ad campaign for, I don't know, 50 years, something like that. And I'll tell you something interesting. Is about 10 years in, there was other companies trying to compete with Pepsodent and they were using a similar ad campaign. You know, it's very common to steal an ad campaign, but they couldn't get the repeat orders. And they did a, a focus group and they found out that people love Pepsodent because it had this like minty flavor that made their mouth tingle after they brushed with it. And then the toothpaste companies, the other ones, started knocking that off.. And when people felt the tingle, then they would stick with other companies. Otherwise they'd try the other one. They wouldn't feel the tingle and they'd be like, oh, it's not actually working. You know? So they'd go right back to Pepcid. So they, they owned it for like 10 years and then it got actually competitive. 'Cause then people were not only stealing their ads, they were stealing, uh, you know, their, their secret of the tingle. So what are the, the human hijacks that Claude Hopkins used? One, he sold the dream. Of the movie star smile. And you're going to see this theme recurring throughout this presentation. Second, he created a powerful demonstration that anyone could do, and that's just rubbing your tongue over the front of your teeth. And then the next thing he did is he made it about them. He made it about the potential user. 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.

So that's, that's like the, there's this diagram that I love that's like, um, I call it the Mario marketing. I, I don't know who originally created this. I saw it from that company Buffer, but I don't, I don't know if they created it originally, but it's little Mario, um, you know, Mario when he is small, then it's the fire flower. And then when Mario gets the fire flower, he's able to shoot fireballs out of it, you know, out of his hands. He's running around, he's huge, he can shoot fireballs. And basically it says, uh, don't sell this, the fire flower, which is your product, sell this, which is the customer going from little Mario to being big Mario who can shoot fireballs, right? And it's like, that's what you wanna sell is how the user will be more badass rather than all the features and, uh, facets about your product.

Yes, exactly. So think about benefits. What's the benefit? What's in it for them? You know, these people are busy right now, Sean. I think people see something like 4,000 ads a day. And they did a study and it showed that the human brain has the same intelligence span as a goldfish. It's like less than, you know, the ability of a goldfish to pay attention. So how do you grab their attention? Well, you have to talk about something that's exciting to them, something that keeps them up at night or something that they, you know, have a deep dream, hope and desire for. So I want to get back to that demonstration. Where did Claude get the idea for this demonstration? So 1854, there's a guy named Otis, and Otis gets into the elevator business and he didn't invent the elevator, but he came up with a braking system for the elevator. So back then, people were afraid to use elevators because every once in a while, just like today, you hear about a car accident, you'd hear about an elevator accident where, you know, people get on and the elevator falls down. Right. So Otis creates this great braking system. 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. And so everyone probably now knows P.T. Barnum, one of the greatest marketing and showmen of all time. And P.T. Barnum says, this is what we're going to do. We're going to go to the Crystal Palace in New York City, which was this big exhibition hall, and we're going to do a grand demonstration. So Otis gets up there on this elevator shaft and He has his assistant get up there with an ax. And so he's standing on it. The elevator goes up the shaft just like it normally would in a building. And he's like, cut the cord, Jimmy. He goes, boom. And he cuts the first cord. The elevator drops like just a little bit. And then there's one more cord hanging and everyone's looking out and they're like, oh shit, what's he going to do? You know, this is the cord. And then boom, it cuts actually the second cord and the elevator— only 2 feet and stops. And he's like, all safe here, gentlemen, all safe. Uh, and those are like the famous words that were published in the newspaper, all safe here. And it showed that Otis had invented a braking system for elevators that worked. So over the next decade, he sold 2,000 elevators. He got all the greatest commissions. He did the, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building. And even today, if you look at your elevator, I found about half of the elevators I get into have this little Otis logo. Otis is still crushing.

Yeah. So, so that's the power of a great demonstration. So what did, what did Otis do? The powerful demonstration stands in people's minds. And he also made it an event. So what's great about an event? Well, one, people are going to show up, and two, it's going to get covered by the newspaper. But if you think about it on a more primal level, have you ever heard the phrase, Sean, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd?

All right, so I am about to, uh, YouTube, don't be alarmed. This is inside here is a giant sword. And, um, this company, so this brand, they sell these, it's called Mini Katana, but it's actually humongous. So they sell these swords. Now the problem with selling swords is that Google and Facebook don't let you do it. You can't advertise weapons. So how does an e-commerce brand work when you can't advertise weapons? Well, What they did was they started, they hired like 20 YouTubers and TikTokers, and they would have them do what you just described, the powerful demonstration. So they would take this, they would take this sword and they would, instead of saying, you know, why you need a sword, because most people don't need a sword, let's be honest. Uh, instead of talking about how long it is or how sharp it is or whatever, they would show that the sword could cut through a bullet that was fired at them. So this video starts with a guy's holding the sword. And there's a bullet aimed at him and he's going to try to split it in half. And then when he does it, it's a powerful presentation about like how badass these swords are. And they, all of their marketing, they'll take a steak, though. You just see a steak plop down on a cutting board and then a giant sword cutting through it, which is completely unnecessary, but it is a powerful demonstration. And, you know, I remember seeing those TED Talks where guys take a glass and they, you know, it's like, here's dirty water. Would you drink this water? It's like, no way. And then they put it into their filter and then like with their bottle filter and then they start to drink it. And I don't know who this was, Bill Gates or something.

Yeah, he advertised these nutrients, and I don't know if he had some type of deal with manufacturers or something like that, but he advertise like, like resveratrol or like Garcinia cambogia berries, which were like weight loss, but he wouldn't ever advertise a specific brand. He would just talk about Garcinia cambogia. If you look, one of the reasons it's hard to advertise supplements online is because Dr. Oz would go and talk about Garcinia cambogia or whatever berry, and then all these scammers would create websites selling Garcinia Cambogia on auto-ship that you could never get out of. You know, you'd sign up on the website, the company would disappear, but that thing would be docking your credit card for years later, you know, whatever. So Dr. Oz, one of the ones I remember is he'd go on there and he'd say, this is your body and these balloons on it. And then he'd have like a mannequin with, with balloons on it. These balloons are the fat cells. Oh wow. Garcinia cambogia is a miracle berry that works for any body type. 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. It was, it was wild. And he did this with like 5 different berries over time. And eventually he got pulled into Congress to testify and all this shit. And like, no way. It was wild. He rolled with it cuz he was getting all these allegations that he was starting them. On one episode he goes, uh, he gets a camera crew behind him and he goes down to one of the companies that's selling the Garcinia Cambogia and he knocks on the door and he's got the camera behind him.

Yeah. Okay, let's get into some— So those last two are for good, right? We want people to brush their teeth. We want elevators to be safe. Now let's talk about some evil campaigns. All right, so, okay, 1930s. All the men had come back from the war and they gave them free cigarettes. So so many men were hooked on smoking that there was no room for growth. So the cigarette companies come to Eddie Bernays, Lucky Strike in particular is who came to him and they're like, "Hey, we need more customers." He's like, "Well, you already got all the men." But at that time, Sean, it was illegal for a woman to smoke in public. It was literally fucking illegal. And there was like cafes in New York City where, you know, there's, there's stories of, of like high society women getting asked to leave. And then women that could afford it would have like special smoking rooms in their homes that would, you know, that really liked it because they weren't allowed to do it in public. Oh, and I should add something too. Women didn't really want to smoke for the most part. You know, they weren't really pushing back against it. Yes, it was illegal, but it was also considered unladylike. It was a, it was a man thing, you know. So he says to Lucky Strike, he's like, look, you know, you got to, you got to get the women smoking. So what was going on at the time was the women's rights movement, you know. So women were out in the streets marching about, you know, wanting the right to vote. And, and Bernays capitalized on that. So the big social event of the day, kind of like the Oscars of today, was the Easter parade. Which would go down Fifth Avenue and all the reporters would be standing on the sidelines. And so Bernays organized a float and he called up all of the socialites and debutantes, like the Paris Hiltons and Kim Kardashians of the day. And he got them all to go on this float and they're cruising down Fifth Avenue, the parade's happening. You know, when they get to the corner where all the reporters were, The women go into their stocking, they pull out cigarettes, put them in their mouths and light them up. So imagine, you know, Paris and Khloé and all the Kardashians and even all the Jenners on one float. They all just start blazing up, right? And the reporters like, what is going on here? This is obscene. You know, women aren't supposed to do this. 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. Oh, wow. And so the newspapers ran with that. They're like, you know, uh, women, uh, present torches of freedom to show that they are equal with men and they can smoke too. And so turned it into a movement and If you think about smoking to this day, if you think about a woman, a woman who smokes, I think I'm a bit older than you, Sean, but I think of like Kate Moss and like the, you know, sexy models smoking. Now it might be considered gross for a woman to smoke again, you know, or anyone to smoke. I don't really know what the kids these days are thinking. But yeah, we, you know, you think of like some like badass, badass woman and you remember that old movies with Audrey Hepburn. You know that famous scene, I think it's Breakfast at Tiffany's where she's puffing that long cigarette, you know? So yeah, completely changed the world there.

Yeah, the plants. If you like that plant strategy, Ryan Holiday wrote a great book called Trust Me, I'm Lying, and he talks about all these phrases that he planted in the heads of these reporters when he was promoting things like Tucker Max books and wild stuff back then. So, there's a new lesson in here, a new hijack, so to speak, 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. And this is a really powerful concept that you're going to see appear throughout some of the other demonstrations here. But that's, that's what Bernays allowed them to do is, is to rebel and, and maybe even feel superior to the rest because they're, they're leading the charge, right?

Yeah. When Snapchat came out, it was getting really popular. One of the things that I remember in Silicon Valley, all the like product genius blogger guys were like, yeah, it's, you know, what Snapchat should do is make it easier to use. 'Cause look at this, like at the time, like, you know, to use those face filters, you had to like, there was no button on the screen. You had to just hold down on your face for 3 seconds, like a magic trick, uh, like a, like a secret door that you didn't know that nobody else knew about. Um, or even just in signing up, there was like all these like funky ways to do it. And, um, and then the people, I think one of the guys at Snapchat came out and was like, look, it's intentional that we want, you know, you know, you babyproof medicine. We're, we're boomer-proofing this app. Like the way that this is going to become really popular amongst young people is that we don't make it easy for older people to get in and figure out how this whole thing works. And we want to make it easy for one friend to tell another the secret on how to do something so that they feel like they're in on it with, with them. And it's like a word of mouth virality of how do you do that?

Okay, last campaign I'm going to share with you about Eddie Bernays is the Great American Breakfast. So early in the, you know, 19th century, 20th century, breakfast was like some coffee and maybe a roll or some oatmeal or something like that. No one actually had an actual hearty breakfast. And Beechnut Bacon comes to Bernays and they're like, "Hey, we want to sell more bacon." He's like, "Well, people are eating bacon usually for dinner, sometimes for lunch. There's another meal here we can take advantage of." So Bernays goes to his on-staff doctor, or actually no, it was Beechnut's on-staff doctor. And he says, hey, Doc, would you agree that a hearty breakfast containing bacon would be the best way to start your day? And the doctor is like, oh, of course I agree with you. Do you think some of your doctor friends would agree? 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. They didn't turn this into an ad campaign, but what they did do is they shared that result with all of the newspapers. And so newspapers started publishing headlines: Doctors Agree a Hearty Breakfast Containing Bacon Is the Best Way to Store Energy to Last Throughout Your Workday. And that's how people started eating, eating bacon for breakfast. And, you know, all the, all the bacon companies started going crazy because it became a breakfast thing. Wow. So what are we doing here? We're selling the dream, you know, of a breakfast that's going to give you more energy to get throughout your day, you know. So that's making it about them as well. The unquestionable proof— 4,500 doctors can't be wrong, right? And then there's even a little bit of a feeling superior here because If your buddy is over there eating a roll, you're like, hey, Sean, got something to tell you about that roll, man. It's not as hearty. Is this your bacon? Right. So it taps into all these same psychological hijacks. You keep seeing them over and over. Okay, so let's take a step back now, a couple of decades to the 1910s. Orange juice. Now, I grew up in the '80s and my mom had us drink orange juice every day for vitamin C. Was this a thing, Sean, when, when you were a kid?

Yeah. So orange juice actually has the same amount of sugar as a Coca-Cola. So orange juice is, you know, it's, it's glucose or something. I don't know. Maybe it's a different kind of sugar, but it ain't good for you. So this was all the result of a marketing man named Albert Lasker who was probably the man responsible for more consumer change in the early 1900s than anyone. Claude Hopkins, Pepsodent. Claude actually worked with Albert. He was his top copywriter. And prior to Claude coming on board, Albert was contacted by the California Growers Association. They're like, Albert, we got so many oranges here in California, we're going to cut down trees because They overproduce and then we need to get rid of them and it brings the bugs and all that stuff. You know, how can we sell more oranges? And he looked at the lay of the land and all these orange growers were competing against each other, trying to say like, we have the best orange, we have the best orange or whatever. He goes, okay, first of all, you guys are all teaming up. And so he teamed all up together and he put them under one brand name and he called it Sunkist, which I think is a pretty genius name. Yes. And then as he's meeting with them, he notices that what the growers would do for their kids as a special treat is they'd take that orange and they'd squeeze it into a cup and they'd give their kids little shots of the juice. 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. And so he had an engineer invent this device that you could, cheap plastic device that you can put an orange on. And then he created this campaign talking about how oranges have all these vitamins in them and will help you get more of your nutrients from food, tying orange juice to meals. So you think about, oh, well, I want to get the nutrients from this food, so I'm going to drink orange juice with it. And then he had this campaign where you buy a box of oranges and you send in your proof of purchase and they send you this juicer thing. So it was like you get something for free and created orange juice. And so what does he do? He's selling the dream of getting the more nutrients from your food. The unquestionable proof, you know, if you go and actually read that ad, there was like, you know, doctors recommend and things like that. He made it about them because it's showing them that they can get some benefit here. And then here's a new hijack that's appearing for the first time. Actually, maybe, I mean, I guess it would apply to toothpaste, but change daily behavior. If you can change someone's daily behavior, you can create something big. So two modern examples of this, Bulletproof Coffee. Are you familiar with Bulletproof Coffee?

So now he's changing the existing behavior. Yes, changing the existing behavior. And so there's a book called The Miracle Morning and it talks about the power of journaling every day. So you buy this book called The Miracle Morning and then you do this specific journal every day, right? Long after you read the book. And I met the author of that, Hal Elrod, and he told me something that stuck with me I thought was fascinating. He said, "When was the last time you recommended a book?" And I was like, "Well, I just read this book on Genghis Khan. I've been telling all my friends about it or whatever." He's like, "When were you telling them about it?" I was like, "Well, I was telling them about it when I was reading it." And he said, "Okay, well, most people recommend books during the time they're reading that book and then they go and they read the next book." Right now I'm reading Elon's biography. It's great. That's why I just told you about that, Sean. I'm literally in the middle of it. I can tell you what book I read last month or last year. 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. So that book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies or maybe even millions by now, because this is 10 years ago when he told me this, because people are doing this behavior every day. And so they're talking about it every day. They're like, "Oh, what'd you do today?" "Oh, I just did my morning miracle journaling. Like, oh, what's that? You know, so long after the book is through. So if you change daily behavior, it has a viral effect that is untouchable by anything else. Love that. Okay, so let's get to some more modern examples. The 1970s. Sean, do you know who this guy is?

Okay, so this, this guy's before our time, but, uh, gentleman's name Steve Prefontaine. And Prefontaine was, best comparison I can think of is the Michael Phelps of his time. No one was really thinking about swimming until Michael Phelps came around and was such a dominant athlete from the USA, so everyone wanted to get behind him. So Prefontaine was that guy for running. And Prefontaine had all these great quotes like Muhammad Ali. He's like, Yeah, someone can beat me, but if you're going to beat me, you're going to have to bleed. And he was like, if you don't run until you feel like you're going to die, you're not honoring your gift. So he had all these great quotes. He was a great media figure. He won every college record from 500-meter up to 2,000-meter. Prefontaine was the man, and Nike was just coming up. They'd actually just started going from being a distributor, making their own shoe. Fortunately, Prefontaine was in Oregon, so were they, and they got him to wear their shoes. And it was a big thing because the unquestionable proof— now you've got Prefontaine, the top runner in the country, wearing Nike shoes. Tragically, Prefontaine passed in a car accident before he could go and honor his Olympic glory. But before he did that, he really put Nike on the map because running was his thing. Running, what's the one accessory that you need? Shoes. And so this was such a big deal that it actually changed the entire industry. So prior to Prefontaine, Prefontaine was around in the '70s, right? If you read Phil Knight's book, he talks about if you went jogging in the '40s, '50s, or '60s, people were like throwing bottles at you from your car because they're just like mad. They're like, what is this idiot doing? You know, he's in the road or whatever. And it was just like really hated upon. And Prefontaine comes along and running actually becomes cool again. And so Nike got to ride that, that tailwind. And then what also happened is, is back then people were wearing shoes that were like, you know, kind of like the loafer or work shoe or whatever, like pretty basic shoes. And people wanted to rebel against that, rebel against the shoes that their dad was wearing. And so they started wearing these athletic shoes, these running shoes as a part of their daily attire to make a statement that like, I'm rebelling and I'm superior. And it changed the entire shoe market. 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. And then, of course, Nike had the amazing campaign with Jordan, which was more unquestionable proof, you know, making them feel superior because they got the best basketball shoe and selling the dream that they're going to be able to fly like Mike. So that was a world-changing campaign that not a lot of people think about when they put on their kicks every morning.

So like you would see one and you'd be like, what is this person wearing, a foot glove? Like, what is this thing? And then they would immediately go into the spiel about why this is better for you and like how they do whatever. And I think this is like, I've seen this a lot now. There's a, there's a popular YouTuber or Instagram guy called Knees Over Toes Guy, and he's basically like It's like a rebellion. He's like, have any of you ever been told when you're working out, like, don't let your knee go over your toe when you're squatting because it's bad form? He's like, bullshit. Like, I had all these knee surgeries. Nobody could tell me how to fix it. I fixed it myself because I started training that way specifically. So it's like a rebellion against the fitness industry. Then he's like a rebellion against Nike because now Nike's the big bad, like the incumbent. And so he's like, Nike shoes, those are like wearing high heels. Um, you know, you shouldn't have, uh, these like huge heeled shoes. You should have low drop, flat shoes basically. And so he came out with his own shoe, but also there's just like a bunch of these brands now that are kind of like, uh, flat, more like you're walking barefoot, uh, barefoot shoes, like you're walking on the ground. And it's funny that like now Nike is the big kind of status quo that they want to rebel against and point out why, why you shouldn't be wearing Nike shoes because of this other reason. 5,000 doctors agree that the Nike, you know, cushion is actually bad for you.

Trump's so effective at what he's doing. The blogger Scott Adams, if anybody wants to go deeper on this, the blogger Scott Adams who created Dilbert, he— when Trump was running in 2016 and nobody thought he would win, Scott Adams was one of the first people I saw that came out and was like, of not only can he win, he will win in a landslide, which is what exactly— which is what happened. And he explained, he goes, Trump has verbal kill shots. Um, you know, he has these phrases that he'll say about opponents where he'll be like, um, low energy Jeb Bush, and then you can never look at Jeb again and see anything but low energy. And Jeb's so offended by it that he feeds energy into that. Uh, like, you know, he starts to be flustered by it, and then he starts to try to up his energy, and then Trump will pat him on the head, be like, well, at least you're trying now, Jeb. Yeah, that's good, you're trying to pick up your energy, I like that. And he would just destroy candidates with like, you know, crooked Hillary, um, you know, and he would just, just brand people in a one-shot kill with, with these phrases. And even the one you— that video you just showed, the kind of, I have your back, like, you know, he, he's very, very good at just repeating simple messages and branding himself one way and positioning himself against the others the other way.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's got agave, it's got corn syrup, it's got like, you know, natural fruit juices, you know, all those things are sugars. And so I started digging into this and there was some shady stuff, man. There was some experiments done where like, you know, the sugar companies would pay a farmer to, you know, food is very expensive for livestock and farmers always dreamed that they could give their livestock sugar instead of food and they'd be able to use that as a nutrient so they could stop this big food expense. And like they'd do that and they'd try it and the cows would all die. You know, and then they tried it. Okay, well, let's take the food and let's add sugar and see what happens. And then the cows would still die, you know, and then they bury the studies, right? And then the artificial sweetener things were even worse. So there was a company, G.D. Searle, that invented artificial sweetener called aspartame. It's now known as NutraSweet. What a lot of people don't know is when they came up with this artificial sweetener, they knew it'd be a billion-dollar product. Because the sweetener market had already been built out. They started testing it on lab animals and the lab animals were growing tumors. And the scientists got popped for the first time ever that the government filed criminal charges against a food company for falsifying studies because the scientists were cutting the tumors out of the animals and sewing them back up and saying, oh, no tumors here. And they got caught doing that. Wow. And so I found out about all this and I was just I was like completely mystified. And so I wrote this presentation about this and I talked about probiotics and how a way to combat the artificial sweeteners and sugars that are being pumped into your foods, that it'd be impossible for you to discover them all, you know, is to add good bacteria because those, you know, the bad bacteria growth that, that happens because of all this consumption that makes the bad bacteria get really frothy, need to be offset by good bacteria. And so I put this video together and it went absolutely bananas. So it was seen by probably, you know, 100 million people. It's hard to track, but the last we checked, there was over 100 million. And this is in a period of about 4 months. Joe Rogan tweeted it out and someone wrote there like, hey Joe, do you realize this is actually an advertisement for a probiotic? And he wrote back, oh yeah, you know, I didn't see that till the end. I tweeted out before I got to the end of the video, but you should still watch it or something like that, you know? And it created the biggest probiotic brand in the world at the time. And it was because of this educational component. Showing people that your food supply is messed up and you have something called a microbiome that's getting affected by your food supply. And one way to aid that is with probiotics. And so if you look at the Google Trends, which we didn't have in the '20s, you know, I'm sure if we could do this for Google for the '20s, it would look like, you know, cigarettes, right? You'd see like a big spike after the Easter Day Parade, right? Or VW Bug, you'd see the big spike after the, the Think Small campaign. Well, we have this now. So if you look at probiotics, you know, probiotics were gaining some steam here. And here's where our ad comes online is Keybiotics was our brand. So look at the general spike in probiotics. Okay, so what, what happened there? Well, you can see basically the day we get kicked off of Google and it goes down. And you see the trend line goes down too, but then you see it goes back up again. And, you know, this is what we launched our next probiotic brand, Perfect Biotics. You know, it did okay. It wasn't the huge banger of success that, that KeyBiotics was. But fear not. Met a guy named Dr. Gundry in 2016. We launched a brand with him. And look at, look at these spike lines. Look at the probiotic spike lines compared with, with the term Gundry. And the reason— perfectly synchronized— some days is when the campaigns would be running really strong, you know, read the, the videos running, running a lot. That's where the, the searches would go crazy. And that was because Dr. Gundry is out there with, with our educational presentations talking about the microbiome and talking about probiotics and prebiotics and really just educating the world on this stuff. And, you know, we didn't bring probiotics to America or anything like that, but I like to think we were probably a company that taught more people than anyone about the microbiome. And now, you know, the probiotic trends, you know, keeps, keeps going. And I think it just keeps going up and to the right. If you, if you find the current data, you know, and by now the market has changed. You know, 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? So back then when I started, no one knew anything about probiotics. So if I just said like, hey, here's probiotics, try them out. No one would have cared. But I started with something they did care about was it was like, hey, is your digestion messed up? Are you having irregularity at the bathroom? Well, here's a reason why. And then the next stage of the market is, is curious where someone's probably heard the term probiotics and, and you can jump in. And so while my ads in 2013, 2014 were starting with digestive health. I had an ad in 2018, I believe it was, and the headline was, "Doctor says throw your probiotics in the trash." And enough people knew about probiotics by then, they were like, "Oh, that's— wait, wait, I heard these are good for you," you know? Right. And then you click on it and it goes on to talk about how most probiotics don't have enough strains of potency. And also, you know, prebiotics are important and this and that, you know? So that's just knowing the market where it was and where you need to jump in. And then the next level of the market is saturation. And that's kind of where the probiotics market is now. I'm not launching new probiotics. You know, every time I go to a conference, someone comes up to me, they're like, I'm launching a probiotic. I mean, good luck. You know, it's, it's pretty commoditized by now, but there's still some that have broken through with, with strong campaigns.