DoesEmail + Sports Bra + Sunscreen = Habit?

Kristy Allenbyhabits.stanford.edu

How do you create a sunscreen habit?

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The Sports Bra Trigger Campaign

The Intervention Step-by-Step

Susan, a grad student, checks her email when she first wakes up. She has an email with the day’s weather and a reminder to put her sunscreen by her sports bra in case she runs outside that day.

Susan applies sunscreen before her run.

The email and visual cue reminds Susan to check to make sure her sunscreen is next to her sports bra.

When she gets dressed for her run later that day, she sees the sunscreen next to her sports bra and remembers to put it on. This is the trigger.

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Why target female 20-something women?

Twenty-somethings check email every morning

Twenty-somethings use internet to check the weather before running outside

Female runners need to put on a sports bra before running

Female twenty-somethings are more likely to care about sun damage and have latent motivation to use sunscreen due to age and outdoor activity, which can be easily tapped by a trigger

Tracking Results

Intervention Results

0% 55%More than half of participants reported using sunscreen when they ran outside during the email intervention.

n=8

Did this become a habit?

60%A week after the intervention ended, over half of participants reported using sunscreen when they ran outside.

n=5

What was most useful in habit creation?

Participants rated both the email and the sunscreen by the sports bra as effective triggers

Putting the sunscreen by the sports bra was, on average, a more useful trigger than the email Sports bra sunscreen reminder: 3.8* Daily email: 3.4*

But…a double-trigger inspired more action than just one trigger The email campaign proved to be a significant motivator for participants who weren’t

influenced by putting sunscreen by the sports bras

* Rated on a scale of 1 (not useful) to 5 (very useful)

Additional Impact

“You also inspired me to run more!” Kimberly

“I ran a very sunny 10 miler on Sunday and was frequently applying sunscreen (when i got dressed, before the start, and at the finish!). While I did not use sunscreen at all during the test period, the message about using sunscreen was fresh in my mind. Knowing that it would be a very sunny day AND putting the sunscreen by my running clothes, I easily remembered and used a lot of sunscreen.” Kathleen

Takeaways

Pairing physical reminders with technological reminders helped a greater number of participants change their behavior.

The intervention inspired longer-term behavior change, which can lead to an automated habit of applying sunscreen before an outdoor run.