The Power of Habit
by Charles Duhigg

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Andrew Pole Character Analysis

Andrew Pole is a talented statistician who used Target’s extensive data to build an algorithm to determine if its customers are pregnant. While Pole’s success demonstrates how companies and organizations can gain an edge by manipulating consumers’ habits, it also shows that this kind of manipulation carries dangerous ethical implications.

Andrew Pole Quotes in The Power of Habit

The The Power of Habit quotes below are all either spoken by Andrew Pole or refer to Andrew Pole . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Habits, Human Behavior, and Success Theme Icon
).

Chapter 7 Quotes

As Pole’s computer program crawled through the data, he was able to identify about twenty-five different products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to, in a sense, peer inside a woman’s womb. Most important, he could guess what trimester she was in—and estimate her due date—so Target could send her coupons when she was on the brink of making new purchases. By the time Pole was done, his program could assign almost any regular shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score.

Related Characters: Charles Duhigg (speaker), Andrew Pole
Page Number and Citation: 194-195
Explanation and Analysis:
Target, the retail giant, hired the mathematical analyst Andrew Pole to try and sell more items to pregnant women and new mothers. Its core assumption was that shopping is essentially based on habits: not only are most of people’s purchases habitual, but people habitually go to the same stores and buy the same goods over time. This meant that, if Target could lure in large numbers of pregnant women, it would likely have return customers for years—specifically, for the years when these women had small children and would buy more household goods than at any other time in their lives. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. An
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Andrew Pole Character Timeline in The Power of Habit

The timeline below shows where the character Andrew Pole appears in The Power of Habit. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7: How Target Knows What You Want Before You Do: When Companies Predict (and Manipulate) Habits
Habits, Human Behavior, and Success Theme Icon
Habit Change and Personal Growth  Theme Icon
Social Habits and Cultural Influence Theme Icon
The Moral Consequences of Habits Theme Icon
Just after the eclectic statistician Andrew Pole started working at Target, he was tasked with building a model to figure out if... (full context)
Habits, Human Behavior, and Success Theme Icon
Habit Change and Personal Growth  Theme Icon
Social Habits and Cultural Influence Theme Icon
The Moral Consequences of Habits Theme Icon
...tactics, but Target is one of the most successful—largely due to its talented analysts, like Andrew Pole . (full context)
Habits, Human Behavior, and Success Theme Icon
Habit Change and Personal Growth  Theme Icon
Social Habits and Cultural Influence Theme Icon
...to push things even further by getting to couples before they had babies. That’s where Andrew Pole came in. He analyzed data from the Target baby-shower registry to determine what women bought... (full context)
The Moral Consequences of Habits Theme Icon
...for baby items—only to find out a couple days later that she was pregnant. Therefore, Andrew Pole had to figure out how to get ads to pregnant women without them knowing they... (full context)
Habits, Human Behavior, and Success Theme Icon
Habit Change and Personal Growth  Theme Icon
Andrew Pole also followed the same formula with his algorithm to predict pregnancy among Target customers. His... (full context)