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Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, spent the last decade answering one question. What makes things so popular? We will follow Jonah throughout his book to discover why ideas, products, behaviors, and services are contagious and catch on in our world. 

Introduction:  

  • Why do products, ideas, and behaviors catch on? Some become popular because they are just plain better. Other because of an attractive price, and advertising. Although quality, price, and advertising contribute to products and ideas being successful, they don't explain the whole story.

Social Transmission:

  • Social influence and word of mouth. People share more than 16,000 words per day and every hour there are more than 100 million conversations about brands. The things others tell us, email us, and text us have a significant impact on what we think, read, buy, and do.
  • Word of mouth is more effective than traditional advertising for two key reasons.
    • It's more persuasive. Advertisements tell you how great a product is but they are biased towards their own product. Our friends, however, tend to tell it to us straight. Their objectivity, coupled with their candidness, make us more likely to trust, listen to, and believe our friends.
    • Word of mouth is more targeted. Companies try to advertise to reach the largest number of interested customers. An add about skis would only be useful in a ski magazine because everyone isn't interested in skis. But if a friend told you about a certain set of skis you could become possibly interested.
  • What percent of word of mouth do you think happens online? 50%? 70%
    • The actual number is 7%. Research by Keller Fay Group finds that only 7 percent of word of mouth happens online.
  • By focusing so much on the messenger, we've neglected a much more obvious driver of sharing: the message.

Six Principles of Contagiousness

  1. Social Currency

    1. How does it make people look to talk about a product or idea? What we talk about influences how others see us.

  1. Triggers

    1. How do we remind people to talk about our products and ideas? Triggers are stimuli that prompt people to think about related things. Top of the mind leads to the tip of the tongue.

  1. Emotion

    1. When we care, we share. So, how can we craft messages and ideas that make people feel something?

  1. Public

    1. Can people see when others are using our product or engaging in our desired behavior? The famous phrase, "Monkey see, monkey do" captures more than just the human tendency to imitate.

  1. Practical Value

    1. How can we craft content that seems useful?

  1. Stories

    1. What broader narrative can we wrap our idea in?

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