Introduction:
Why Things Catch On
By the time H ow ard W ein moved to Philadelphia in M arch
2004, he already had lots o f experience in the hospitality industry.
H e had earned an MBA in hotel management, helped Starwood
Hotels launch its W brand, and managed billions o f dollars in rev­
enue as Starwood’s corporate director o f food and beverage. But he
was done with “big.” H e yearned for a smaller, m ore restaurantfocused environm ent. So he moved to Philly to help design and
launch a new luxury boutique steakhouse called Barclay Prime.
T he concept was simple. Barclay Prim e was going to deliver
the best steakhouse experience imaginable. T he restaurant is
located in the toniest part o f dow ntow n Philadelphia, its dim ly
lit entry paved w ith marble. Instead o f traditional dining chairs,
patrons rest on plush sofas clustered around small marble tables.
They feast from an extensive raw bar, including East and W est
Coast oysters and Russian caviar. And the m enu offers delicacies
like truffle-w hipped potatoes and line-caught halibut FedExed
overnight directly from Alaska.
But W ein knew that good food and great atm osphere
w ouldn’t be enough. After all, the thing restaurants are best at is
C O N TA G IO U S
2
going out o f business. M ore than 25 percent fail w ithin twelve
m onths o f opening their doors. Sixty percent are gone w ithin the
first three years.
Restaurants fail for any num ber o f reasons. Expenses are
high— everything from the food on the plates to the labor that
goes into preparing and serving it. And the landscape is crow ded
w ith com petitors. For every new Am erican bistro that pops up in
a m ajor city, there are two m ore right around the corner.
Like m ost small businesses, restaurants also have a huge
awareness problem . Just getting the w ord out that a new restau­
rant has opened its doors— m uch less that it’s w orth eating at— is
an uphill battle. And unlike the large hotel chains W ein had
previously w orked for, m ost restaurants don’t have the resources
to spend on lots o f advertising or marketing. T hey depend on
people talking about them to be successful.
W ein knew he needed to generate buzz. Philadelphia already
boasted dozens o f expensive steakhouses, and Barclay Prim e
needed to stand out. W ein needed som ething to cut through the
clutter and give people a sense o f the uniqueness o f the brand.
But what? H ow could he get people talking?
H ow about a hundred-dollar cheesesteak?
T he standard Philly cheesesteak is available for four or five
bucks at hundreds o f sandwich shops, burger joints, and piz­
zerias throughout Philadelphia. It’s not a difficult recipe. C hop
some steak on a griddle, throw it on a hoagie (hero) roll, and
m elt some Provolone cheese or Cheez W hiz on top. It’s delicious
regional fast food, but definitely not haute cuisine.
W ein thought he could get some buzz by raising the hum ble
cheesesteak to new culinary heights— and attaching a newsworthy
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
3
price tag. So he started w ith a fresh, house-m ade brioche roll
brushed w ith hom em ade m ustard. H e added thinly sliced Kobe
beef, m arbleized to perfection. T hen he included caramelized
onions, shaved heirloom tomatoes, and triple-cream Taleggio
cheese. All this was topped o ff w ith shaved hand-harvested black
truffles and butter-poached M aine lobster tail. And ju st to make
it even m ore outrageous, he served it w ith a chilled split o f Veuve
C licquot champagne.
T he response was incredible.
People didn’t ju st try the sandwich, they rushed to tell others.
O ne person suggested that groups get it “as a starter . . . that way
you all get the absurd story-telling rights.” A nother noted that
the sandwich was “honestly indescribable. O ne does not throw
all these fine ingredients together and get anything subpar. It was
like eating gold.” And given the sandw ich’s price, it was almost as
expensive as eating gold, albeit far m ore delicious.
W ein d idn’t create ju st another cheesesteak, he created a con­
versation piece.
It worked. T he story o f the hundred-dollar cheesesteak was
contagious. Talk to anyone w h o ’s been to Barclay Prim e. Even if
people d idn’t order the cheesesteak, m ost will likely m ention it.
Even people w ho’ve never been to the restaurant love to talk about
it. It was so new sw orthy that U SA Today, The Wall StreetJournal,
and other m edia outlets published pieces on the sandwich. T he
Discovery channel filmed a segm ent for its Best Food Ever show.
David Beckham had one w hen he was in town. David Letterman
invited Barclay’s executive ch ef to N ew York to cook him one
on the Late Show. All that buzz for w hat is still, at its heart, ju st a
sandwich.
4
C O N TA G IO U S
T he buzz helped. Barclay Prim e opened nearly a decade ago.
Against the odds, the restaurant has not only survived b u t flour­
ished. It has w on various food awards and is listed am ong the best
steakhouses in Philadelphia year after year. But m ore im portant,
it built a following. Barclay Prim e caught on.
WHY DO PRODUCTS, IDEAS,
AND BEHAVIORS CATCH ON?
T here are lots o f examples o f things that have caught on. Yellow
Livestrong wristbands. N onfat G reek yogurt. Sue Sigma manage­
m ent strategy. Sm oking bans. Low-fat diets. T h en Atkins, South
Beach, and the low-carb craze. T h e same dynamic happens on a
smaller scale at the local level. A certain gym will be the trendy
place to go. A new church or synagogue will be in vogue. Everyone
will get behind a new school referendum .
These are all examples o f social epidem ics. Instances w here
products, ideas, and behaviors diffuse through a population. T hey
start w ith a small set o f individuals or organizations and spread,
often from person to person, alm ost like a virus. O r in the case o f
the hundred-dollar cheesesteak, an over-the-top, w allet-busting
virus.
B ut w hile it’s easy to find examples o f social contagion, it’s
m uch harder to actually get som ething to catch on. Even w ith all
the m oney poured into m arketing and advertising, few products
becom e popular. M ost restaurants bom b, m ost businesses go
under, and m ost social m ovem ents fail to gain traction.
W hy do som e products, ideas, and behaviors succeed w h en
others fail?
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
5
O n e reason som e products and ideas becom e popular is that
they are ju s t plain better. W e tend to prefer websites that are
easier to use, drugs that are m ore effective, and scientific theories
that are true rather than false. So w hen som ething comes along
that offers better functionality or does a better jo b , people tend to
switch to it. R em em ber how bulky televisions or com puter m on­
itors used to be? T hey w ere so heavy and cum bersom e that you
had to ask a couple o f friends (or risk a strained back) to carry
one up a flight o f stairs. O n e reason flat screens took o ff was that
they w ere better. N o t only did they offer larger screens, but they
weighed less. N o w onder they became popular.
A nother reason products catch on is attractive pricing. N o t
surprisingly, m ost people prefer paying less rather than m ore.
So if two very sim ilar products are com peting, the cheaper one
often w ins out. O r if a com pany cuts its prices in half, that tends
to help sales.
Advertising also plays a role. C onsum ers need to know about
som ething before they can buy it. So people tend to think that
the m ore they spend on advertising, the m ore likely som ething
will becom e popular. W ant to get people to eat m ore vegetables?
Spending m ore on ads should increase the n u m b er o f people
w ho hear your message and buy broccoli.
B ut although quality, price, and advertising contribute to
products and ideas being successful, they d o n ’t explain the w hole
story.
Take the first nam es Olivia and Rosalie. B oth are great
nam es for girls. O livia m eans “olive tree” in Latin and is associ­
ated w ith fruitfulness, beauty, and peace. Rosalie has Latin and
F rench origins and is derived from the w ord for roses. Both are
C O N TA G IO U S
6
about the same length, end in vowels, and have handy, cute nick­
names. Indeed, thousands o f babies are nam ed Olivia or Rosalie
each year.
But think for a m om ent about how m any people you know
w ith each name. H ow m any people you’ve m et nam ed Olivia
and how m any people you’ve m et nam ed Rosalie.
I’ll bet you know at least one Olivia, but you probably d o n ’t
know a Rosalie. In fact, if you do know a Rosalie, I’ll bet you
know several Olivias.
H ow did I know that? Olivia is a m uch m ore popular name.
In 2010, for example, there were alm ost 17,000 Olivias born in
the U nited States but only 492 Rosalies. In fact, w hile the nam e
Rosalie was som ew hat popular in the 1920s, it never reached the
stratospheric popularity that Olivia recently achieved.
W hen trying to explain w hy Olivia becam e a m ore popular
nam e than Rosalie, familiar explanations like quality, price, and
advertising get stuck. It’s not like one nam e is really “better” than
the other, and both nam es are free, so there is no difference in
price. T here is also no advertising campaign to try to get everyone
to nam e their kids Olivia, no com pany determ ined to make that
name the hottest thing since Pokem on.
T he same thing can be said for videos on Y ouTube. T h ere’s
no difference in price (all are free to watch), and few videos receive
any advertising or m arketing push. And although som e videos
have higher production values, m ost that go viral are blurred and
out o f focus, shot by an am ateur on an inexpensive camera or cell
phone.*
* W hen I use the word “viral” in this book, I mean som ething that is more
likely to spread from one person to another. T he analogy to diseases is
a good one, but only up to a point. Diseases also spread from person to
person, but one key difference is the expected length o f the transmission
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
7
So if quality, price, and advertising d o n ’t explain w hy one
first nam e becomes m ore popular than another, or w hy one You­
T ube video gets m ore views, w hat does?
SOCIAL TRANSMISSION
Social influence and w ord o f m outh. People love to share sto­
ries, news, and inform ation w ith those around them . W e tell our
friends about great vacation destinations, chat w ith our neighbors
about good deals, and gossip w ith coworkers about potential
layoffs. W e w rite online reviews about movies, share rum ors on
Facebook, and tw eet about recipes w e ju s t tried. People share
m ore than 16,000 w ords per day and every h our there are m ore
than 100 m illion conversations about brands.
B ut w ord o f m o u th is n ot ju s t frequent, it’s also im portant.
T he things others tell us, e-m ail us, and text us have a significant
im pact on w hat w e think, read, buy, and do. W e try websites
ou r neighbors recom m end, read books o u r relatives praise, and
vote for candidates o u r friends endorse. W ord o f m o u th is the
prim ary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent o f all purchasing
decisions.
C onsequently, social influence has a huge im pact on w hether
chain. O n e person can easily be the initiator o f a disease that spreads to a
few people, and then from them to a few m ore people, and so on, until a
large num ber o f people have been infected, solely due to that initial indi­
vidual. Such long chains, however, may be less com m on w ith products and
ideas (G oel, Watts, and Goldstein 2012). People often share products and
ideas with others, but the likelihood that one person generates an extremely
long chain may be small. So w hen I say that doing X will make an idea
more viral, for example, I mean that it w ill be m ore likely to spread from
one person to another, regardless o f w hether it eventually generates a long
chain or “infects” an entire population.
CO N TA G IO U S
8
products, ideas, and behaviors catch on. A w ord-of-m outh con­
versation by a new custom er leads to an almost $200 increase
in restaurant sales. A five-star review on Am azon.com leads to
approximately twenty m ore books sold than a one-star review.
Doctors are m ore likely to prescribe a new drug if other doc­
tors they know have prescribed it. People are m ore likely to quit
smoking if their friends quit and get fatter if their friends becom e
obese. In fact, while traditional advertising is still useful, w ord o f
m outh from everyday Joes and Janes is at least ten tim es m ore
effective.
W ord o f m outh is m ore effective than traditional advertising
for two key reasons. First, it’s m ore persuasive. Advertisem ents
usually tell us how great a product is. Y ou’ve heard it all— how
nine out o f ten dentists recom m end C rest or how no other deter­
gent will get your clothes as clean as Tide.
But because ads will always argue that their products are the
best, they’re not really credible. Ever seen a C rest ad say that only
one out o f ten dentists prefers Crest? O r that four o f the other
nine think C rest will rot your teeth?
O u r friends, however, tend to tell it to us straight. I f they
thought C rest did a good jo b , they’ll say that. B ut they’d also tell
us if C rest tasted bad or failed to w hiten their teeth. T h eir objec­
tivity, coupled w ith their candidness, make us m uch m ore likely
to trust, listen to, and believe our friends.
Second, w ord o f m outh is m ore targeted. C om panies try to
advertise in ways that allow them to reach the largest n u m b er o f
interested custom ers. Take a com pany that sells skis. Television
ads during the nightly news probably w o u ld n ’t be very efficient
because m any o f the viewers d o n ’t ski. So the com pany m ight ad­
vertise in a ski magazine, or on the back o f lift tickets to a popular
slope. B ut w hile this w ould ensure that m ost people w ho see the
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
9
ad like skiing, the com pany w ould still end up w asting m oney
because lots o f those people d o n ’t need new skis.
W ord o f m outh, on the other hand, is naturally directed to ­
ward an interested audience. W e d o n ’t share a news story or rec­
om m endation w ith everyone we know. Rather, w e tend to select
particular people w ho we th in k w ould find that given piece o f
inform ation m ost relevant. W e’re not going to tell a friend about
a new pair o f skis if we know the friend hates skiing. A nd w e’re
not going to tell a friend w ho doesn’t have kids about the best way
to change a diaper. W ord o f m o u th tends to reach people w ho are
actually interested in the thing being discussed. N o w onder cus­
tom ers referred by their friends spend m ore, shop faster, and are
m ore profitable overall.
A particularly nice exam ple o f how w ord o f m o u th im proves
targeting came to m e in the mail a few years ago. Every so often
publishers will send m e free books. U sually they’re related to
m arketing and the publisher hopes that if I’m given a free copy,
I’ll be m ore likely to assign the book to m y students (and sell
them a bu n ch o f copies in the process).
B ut a few years ago, one com pany did som ething slightly
different. It sent m e tw o copies o f the same book.
N ow , unless I’m m istaken, th ere ’s no reason for m e to read
the second copy, once I’ve read the first. B ut these publishers had
a different goal in m ind. T h ey sent a note explaining w hy they
thought the book w o uld be good for m y students, b u t they also
m entioned that they sent a second copy so that I could pass it
along to a colleague w ho m ight be interested.
T h a t’s how w ord o f m o u th helps w ith targeting. R ather than
sending books to everyone, the publishers got m e, and others, to
do the targeting for them . Ju st like a searchlight, each recipient o f
the double m ailing w ould look th ro u g h his o r her personal social
C O N TA G IO U S
10
network, find the person that the book w ould be m ost relevant
for, and pass it along.
GENERATING WORD OF MOUTH
But w ant to know the best thing about w ord o f m outh? It’s avail­
able to everyone. From Fortune 500 companies trying to increase
sales to corner restaurants trying to fill tables. And from non­
profits trying to fight obesity to newbie politicians trying to get
elected. W ord o f m outh helps things catch on. W ord o f m outh
even helps B2B companies get new clients from existing ones.
And it doesn’t require m illions o f dollars spent on advertising. It
ju st requires getting people to talk.
T he challenge, though, is how to do that.
From start-ups to starlets, people have embraced social media
as the wave o f the future. Facebook, Tw itter, Y ouTube, and other
channels are seen as ways to cultivate a following and engage
consum ers. Brands post ads, aspiring musicians post videos, and
small businesses post deals. Com panies and organizations have
fallen over themselves in their rush to ju m p on the buzz m ar­
keting bandwagon. T he logic is straightforward. If they can get
people to talk about their idea or share their content, it will spread
through social networks like a virus, m aking their product or idea
instantly popular along the way.
But there are two issues w ith this approach: the focus and the
execution.
H elp me out w ith a quick pop quiz. W hat percent o f word
o f m outh do you think happens online? In other words, what
percent o f chatter happens over social media, blogs, e-m ail, and
chat rooms?
If you’re like m ost people you probably guessed som ething
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
11
around 50 or 60 percent. Some people guess upward o f 70 percent
and som e guess m uch lower, but after having asked this question
o f hundreds o f students and executives, I find that the average is
around 50 percent.
And that num ber makes sense. After all, social media have cer­
tainly exploded as o f late. M illions o f people use these sites every
day, and billions o f pieces o f content get shared every m onth.
These technologies have made it faster and easier to share things
quickly w ith a broad group o f people.
But 50 percent is wrong.
N o t even close.
T he actual num ber is 7 percent. N o t 47 percent, not 27 per­
cent, but 7 percent. Research by the Keller Fay G roup finds that
only 7 percent o f w ord o f m outh happens online.
M ost people are extremely surprised w hen they hear that
num ber. “B ut that’s way too low,” they protest. “People spend a
huge am ount o f tim e online!” And that’s true. People do spend
a good bit o f tim e online. Close to two hours a day by some esti­
mates. B ut we forget that people also spend a lot o f tim e offline.
M ore than eight tim es as m uch, in fact. And that creates a lot
m ore tim e for offline conversations.
We also tend to overestim ate online w ord o f m outh because
it’s easier to see. Social media sites provide a handy record o f all
the clips, com m ents, and other content we share online. So w hen
we look at it, it seems like a lot. B ut we don’t think as m uch about
all the offline conversations we had over that same tim e period
because we can’t easily see them . T here is no recording o f the
chat we had w ith Susan after lunch o r the conversation we had
w ith T im while waiting for the kids to be done w ith practice. But
while they may not be as easy to see, they still have an im portant
impact on our behavior.
\
12
C O N TA G IO U S
Further, while one m ight think that online w ord o f m outh
reaches m ore people, that’s not always the case. Sure, online con­
if y
listi
versations could reach m ore people. After all, while face-to-face
But
conversations tend to be one-on-one, or am ong a small handful
ides
o f people, the average tw eet or Facebook status update is sent
run
to m ore than one hundred people. B ut not all o f these potential
com
recipients will actually see every message. People are inundated
1
spei
He’s
papi
wor
ever
wea:
I
w ith online content, so they don’t have the tim e to read every
tweet, message, or update sent their way. A quick exercise am ong
my students, for example, showed that less than 10 percent o f
their friends responded to a message they posted. M ost T w itter
posts reach even fewer. O nline conversations could reach a m uch
larger audience, b ut given that offline conversations m ay be m ore
in-depth, it’s unclear that social m edia is the better way to go.
behi
So the first issue w ith all the hype around social m edia is that
Disc
people tend to ignore the im portance o f offline w ord o f m outh,
thin
even though offline discussions are m ore prevalent, and poten­
ucts
You!
C
with
hous
tially even m ore im pactful, than online ones.
T he second issue is that Facebook and T w itter are technolo­
gies, not strategies. W o rd-of-m outh m arketing is effective only
if people actually talk. Public health officials can tw eet daily b ul­
stea
letins about safe sex, b u t if b u t no one passes th em along, the
actus
campaign will fail. Ju st putting up a Facebook page or tweeting
m illi
doesn’t m ean anyone will notice or spread the w ord. Fifty percent
seem
o f Y ouT ube videos have few er than five h u n d red views. O nly
Ii
shan
Conti
these
provi
helpi:
advei
share
one-third o f 1 percent get m ore than 1 m illion.
H arnessing the pow er o f w ord o f m o u th , online or offline,
requires understanding w hy people talk and w hy som e things
get talked about and shared m ore than others. T h e psychology o f
sharing. T h e science o f social transm ission.
T h e next tim e you’re chatting at a party or grabbing a bite to
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
13
eat w ith a coworker, imagine being a fly on the wall, eavesdrop­
ping on your conversation. You m ight end up chatting about a
new movie or gossiping about a colleague. You m ight trade stories
about vacation, m ention som eone’s new baby, or com plain about
the unusually warm weather.
W hy? You could have talked about anything. T here are m illions o f different topics, ideas, products, and stories you could
have discussed. W hy did you talk about those things in particular?
W hy that specific story, movie, or cow orker rather than a differ­
ent one?
C ertain stories are m ore contagious, and certain rum ors are
m ore infectious. Som e online content goes viral w hile other
content never gets passed on. Som e products get a good deal o f
w ord o f m outh, while others go unm entioned. W hy? W hat causes
certain products, ideas, and behaviors to be talked about m ore?
T h a t’s w hat this book is about.
O n e com m on intuition is that generating w ord o f m outh is
all about finding the right people. T hat certain special individuals
are ju st m ore influential than others. In The Tipping Point, for ex­
ample, M alcolm Gladwell argues that social epidemics are driven
“by the efforts o f a handful o f exceptional people” w hom he calls
mavens, connectors, and salesmen. O thers suggest that “one in 10
Americans tells the other nine how to vote, w here to eat, and w hat
to buy.” M arketers spend m illions o f dollars trying to find these
so-called opinion leaders and get them to endorse their products.
Political campaigns look for the “influentials” to support their side.
T h e notion is that anything these special people touch will
turn to gold. I f they adopt o r talk about a p roduct or idea, it will
become popular.
1
14
C O N TA G IO U S
But conventional w isdom is wrong. Yes, we all know people
Ify
w ho are really persuasive, and yes, some people have m ore friends
than others. But in m ost cases that doesn’t make them any m ore
list
But
ide;
run
influential in spreading inform ation or m aking things go viral.
Further, by focusing so m uch on the m essenger, w e’ve ne­
glected a m uch m ore obvious driver o f sharing: the message.
T o use an analogy, think about jokes. We all have friends w ho
con
are better joke tellers than we are. W henever they tell a joke the
spe
room bursts out laughing.
He’:
pap
woi
eve
wea
B ut jokes also vary. Som e jokes are so funny that it doesn’t
m atter w ho tells them . Everyone laughs even if the person shar­
ing the joke isn’t all that funny. C ontagious content is like that—
so inherently viral that it spreads regardless o f w ho is doing the
talking. Regardless o f w hether the m essengers are really persua­
beh
sive or not and regardless o f w hether they have ten friends or ten
Disi
thousand.
thir
ucts
You
t
w it!
hou
stes
So w hat about a message makes people w ant to pass it on?
N o t surprisingly, social m edia “gurus” and w o rd -o f-m o u th
practitioners have m ade lots o f guesses. O n e prevalent theory is
that virality is com pletely random — that it’s im possible to predict
actu
w hether a given video or piece o f co n ten t will be highly shared.
mill
O th e r people conjecture based on case studies and anecdotes.
seer
Because so m any o f the m ost popular Y ouT ube videos are either
1
shai
Com
thes
prov
help
adv<
shar
funny o r cute— involving babies or kittens— you com m only hear
that h u m o r or cuteness is a key ingredient for virality.
But these “theories” ignore the fact that m any funny or cute
videos never take off. Sure, som e cat clips get m illions o f views, but
those are the outliers, not the norm . M ost get less than a few dozen.
You m ay as well observe that Bill C linton, Bill Gates, and Bill
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
15
Cosby are all fam ous and conclude that changing your name to
Bill is the route to fame and fortune. A lthough the initial obser­
vation is correct, the conclusion is patently ludicrous. By merely
looking at a handful o f viral hits, people miss the fact that many
o f those features also exist in content that failed to attract any
audience whatsoever. T o fully understand w hat causes people to
share things, you have to look at both successes and failures. And
w hether, m ore often than not, certain characteristics are linked to
success.
ARE SOME THINGS JUST BORN
WORD-OF-MOUTH WORTHY?
N o w at this point you m ight be saying to yourself, great, some
things are m ore contagious than others. B ut is it possible to make
anything contagious, or are som e things ju s t naturally m ore in­
fectious?
Sm artphones tend to be m ore exciting than tax returns, talk­
ing dogs are m ore interesting than to rt reform , and H ollyw ood
movies are cooler than toasters or blenders.
Are m akers o f the form er ju s t better o ff than the latter? Are
some products and ideas ju s t born contagious w hile others aren’t?
O r can any product o r idea be engineered to be m ore infectious?
T o m D ickson was looking for a new jo b . B om in San Fran­
cisco, he was led by his M o rm o n faith to attend school at Brigham
Young U niversity in Salt Lake City, w here he graduated in 1971
with a degree in engineering. H e m oved hom e after graduation,
but the jo b m arket was tough and there w eren ’t m any o p portuni­
ties. T h e only position he could find was at a com pany m aking
CO N TA G IO U S
16
birth control and intrauterine devices. These devices helped pre­
vent pregnancy, but they could also be seen as abortives, w hich
w ent against T o m ’s M orm on beliefs. A M orm on helping to
develop new m ethods o f birth control? It was tim e to find som e­
thing new.
T om had always been interested in bread making. W hile prac­
ticing his hobby, he noticed that there were no good cheap hom e
grinders w ith w hich to make flour. So T o m put his engineering
skills to work. After playing around w ith a ten-dollar vacuum
m otor, he cobbled together som ething that m illed finer flour at a
cheaper price than anything currently on the market.
T he grinder was so good that T o m started producing it on a
larger scale. T he business did reasonably well, and playing around
w ith different m ethods o f processing food got him interested
in m ore general blenders. Soon he m oved back to U ta h to start
his ow n blender company. In 1995 he produced his first hom e
blender, and in 1999 Blendtec was founded.
But although the product was great, no one really knew about
it. Awareness was low. So in 2006, T o m hired George W right,
another BYU alum, as his m arketing director. Later, George
w ould joke that the m arketing budget at his prior com pany was
greater than all o f Blendtec’s revenues.
O n one o f his first days on the jo b , George noticed a pile o f
sawdust on the floor o f the m anufacturing plant. G iven that no
construction was in progress, George was puzzled. W hat was
going on?
It turned out that T o m was in the factory doing w hat he
did every day: trying to break blenders. T o test the durability
and pow er o f Blendtec blenders, T o m w ould cram tw o-by-tw o
boards, am ong other objects, into the blenders and tu rn them
on— hence the sawdust.
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
17
George had an idea that w ould m ake T o m ’s blender famous.
W ith a m eager fifty-dollar budget (not fifty m illion or even
fifty thousand), George w ent o u t and bought m arbles, golf balls,
and a rake. H e also purchased a w hite lab coat for T om , ju s t like
w hat a laboratory scientist w ould wear. T h e n he p u t T o m and
a blender in front o f a camera. G eorge asked T o m to do exactly
w hat he had done w ith the tw o-by-tw os‘: see if they w ould blend.
Im agine taking a handful o f m arbles and tossing them into
your hom e blender. N o t the cheap kind o f m arbles m ade o f
plastic or clay, but the real ones. T h e half-inch orbs m ade o u t o f
solid glass. So strong that they could w ithstand a car driving over
them .
T h at is exactly w hat T o m did. H e dropped fifty glass m arbles
in one o f his blenders and hit the b u tto n for slow churn. T he
m arbles bounced furiously around the blender, m aking rat-tat-tat
noises like a hailstorm on the ro o f o f a car.
T o m waited fifteen seconds and th en stopped the blender.
H e cautiously lifted the top as w hite sm oke poured out: glass
dust. All that was left o f the m arbles was a fine pow der that
looked like flour. R ather than cracking from the pu n ish m en t, the
blender had flexed its m uscles. G o lf balls w ere pulverized, and
the rake was reduced to a pile o f slivers. G eorge posted the videos
on Y ouT ube and crossed his fingers.
H is in tuition was right. People w ere am azed. T h e y loved the
videos. T h ey w ere surprised at the blen d er’s pow er and called it
everything from “insanely aw esom e” to “the ultim ate blen d er.”
Some co u ld n ’t even believe that w hat they w ere seeing was pos­
sible. O th ers w ondered w hat else the blen d er could pulverize.
C o m p u ter hard drives? A sam urai sword?
In the first w eek the videos racked up 6 m illion views. T o m
and G eorge had h it a viral hom e run.
C O N TA G IO U S
18
T o m w ent on to blend everything from Bic lighters to N in ­
tendo Wii controllers. H e ’s tried glow sticks, Justin Bieber C D s,
and even an iPhone. N o t only did Blendtec blenders dem olish all
these objects, but their video series, titled Will It Blend?, received
m ore than 300 m illion views. W ithin two years the campaign
increased retail blender sales 700 percent. All from videos made
for less than a few hundred dollars apiece. And for a product that
seemed anything but w ord-of-m outh w orthy. A regular, boring
old blender.
T he Blendtec story dem onstrates one o f the key takeaways o f
contagious content. Virality isn’t born, it’s made.
And that is good news indeed.
Some people are lucky. T heir ideas or initiatives happen to be
things that seem to naturally generate lots o f excitem ent and buzz.
But as the Blendtec story shows, even regular everyday prod­
ucts and ideas can generate lots o f w ord-of-m outh if someone
figures out the right way to do it. Regardless o f how plain or bor­
ing a product or idea may seem, there are ways to make it conta­
gious.
So how can we design products, ideas, and behaviors so that
people will talk about them ?
STUDYING SOCIAL INFLUENCE
M y path to studying social epidemics was anything but direct. M y
parents didn’t believe in sweets or television for their children,
and instead gave us educational rewards. O ne holiday season I re­
m em ber being particularly excited to get a book o f logic puzzles,
w hich I explored incessantly over the next few m onths. These
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
19
experiences fostered an interest in m ath and science, and after
doing a research project in high school on urban hydrology (how
the com position o f a stream ’s watershed affects its shape), I w ent
to college thinking I w ould become an environm ental engineer.
But som ething funny happened in college. W hile sitting in
one o f my “hard” science classes, I started to w onder if I could
apply the same toolkit to study complex social phenom ena. I had
always liked people-watching, and w hen I did happen to watch
TV, I enjoyed it m ore for the ads than the programs. But I real­
ized that rather than ju st abstractly m using about w hy people
did things, I could apply the scientific m ethod to find out the
answers. T h e same research tools used in biology and chemistry
could be used to understand social influence and interpersonal
com m unication.
So I started taking psychology and sociology courses and got
involved in research on how people perceive themselves and
others. A few years in, my grandm other sent m e a review o f
a new book she thought I m ight find interesting. It was called
The Tipping Point.
I loved the book and read everything related I could find. But
I kept being frustrated by a singular issue. T he ideas in that book
w ere amazingly powerful, but they w ere m ainly descriptive. Sure
som e things catch on, but why? W hat was the underlying hum an
behavior that drove these outcom es? These were interesting
questions that needed answers. I decided to start finding them .
After completing my PhD and m ore than a decade o f research,
I’ve discovered some answers. I’ve spent the last ten years, most
recently as a m arketing professor at the W harton School at the
C O N TA G IO U S
20
University o f Pennsylvania, studying this and related questions.
W ith an incredible array o f collaborators I’ve examined things like
• W hy certain N ew York Times articles or Y ouT ube videos go
viral
• W hy som e products get m ore w ord o f m outh
• W hy certain political messages spread
• W hen and w hy certain baby names catch on or die out
• W hen negative publicity increases, versus decreases, sales
W e’ve analyzed hundreds o f years o f baby nam es, thousands
o f N ew York Times articles, and m illions o f car purchases. W e’ve
spent thousands o f hours collecting, coding, and analyzing every­
thing from brands and Y ouT ube videos to urban legends, prod­
uct reviews, and face-to-face conversations. All w ith the goal o f
understanding social influence and w hat drives certain things to
becom e popular.
A few years ago, I started teaching a course at W harton called
“Contagious.” T he premise was simple. W hether you’re in m arket­
ing, politics, engineering, or public health, you need to understand
how to make your products and ideas catch on. Brand managers
w ant their products to get m ore buzz. Politicians w ant their ideas
to diffuse throughout the population. H ealth officials w ant people
to cook rather than eat fast food. H undreds o f undergraduates,
MBAs, and executives have taken the class and learned about how
social influence drives products, ideas, and behaviors to succeed.
Every so often I’d get e-m ails from people w h o co u ld n ’t
take the class. T h e y ’d heard about it fro m a friend and liked the
m aterial b u t had a scheduling conflict o r d id n ’t find o u t about
it in tim e. So they asked if there was a b o o k they could read to
catch th em up o n w h at they m issed.
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
21
T here are certainly som e great books out there. The Tipping
Point is a fantastic read. B ut while it is filled w ith entertaining
stories, the science has com e a long way since it was released over
a decade ago. Made to Stick, by C hip and D an H eath, is another
favorite o f m ine (full disclosure: C hip was m y m entor in graduate
school, so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree). It weaves to ­
gether clever stories w ith academic research on‘cognitive psychol­
ogy and hum an m em ory. But although the H eaths’ book focuses
on m aking ideas “stick”— getting people to rem em ber them — it
says less about how to make products and ideas spread, or getting
people to pass them on.
So w henever people asked to read som ething about w hat
drives w ord o f m outh, I w ould direct th em to the various aca­
dem ic papers I and others had published in the area. Inevitably,
som e people w ould e-m ail back to say thanks but request som e­
th ing m ore “accessible.” In other w ords, som ething that was rig­
orous b u t less dry than the typical jargon-laden articles published
in academ ic journals. A book that provided them w ith researchbased principles for understanding w hat m akes things catch on.
T his is that book.
SIX PRINCIPLES OF CONTAGIOUSNESS
T his book explains w hat m akes content contagious. By “content,”
I m ean stories, news, and inform ation. Products and ideas, m es­
sages and videos. E verything from fund-raising at the local public
radio station to the safe-sex messages w e ’re trying to teach o u r
kids. By “contagious,” I m ean likely to spread. T o diffuse from
person to person via w ord o f m o u th and social influence. T o be
talked about, shared, o r im itated by consum ers, cow orkers, and
constituents.
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C O N TA G IO U S
In ou r research, my collaborators and I noticed some com ­
m on them es, or attributes, across a range o f contagious content.
A recipe, if you will, for m aking products, ideas, and behaviors
m ore likely to become popular.
Take Will It Blend? and the hundred-dollar cheesesteak at
Barclay Prim e. Both stories evoke em otions like surprise or
amazement: W ho w ould have thought a blender could tear
through an iPhone, or that a cheesesteak w ould cost anywhere
near a hundred dollars? Both stories are also pretty remarkable,
so they make the teller look cool for passing them on. And both
offer useful inform ation: it’s always helpful to know about prod­
ucts that w ork well or restaurants that have great food.
Just as recipes often call for sugar to make som ething sweet,
we kept finding the same ingredients in ads that w ent viral, news
articles that were shared, or products that received lots o f w ord
o f m outh.
After analyzing hundreds o f contagious messages, products,
and ideas, we noticed that the same six “ingredients,” or prin­
ciples, were often at work. Six key STEPPS, as I call them , that
cause things to be talked about, shared, and imitated.
Principle 1: Social Currency
H ow does it make people look to talk about a product or idea?
M ost people w ould rather look sm art than dum b, rich than
poor, and cool than geeky. Ju st like the clothes we w ear and the
cars we drive, w hat we talk about influences how others see us.
It’s social currency. Know ing about cool things— like a blender
that can tear through an iPhone— makes people seem sharp and
in the know. So to get people talking we need to craft messages
that help them achieve these desired impressions. W e need to
find ou r inner rem arkability and make people feel like insiders.
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
23
We need to leverage game mechanics to give people ways to
achieve and provide visible symbols o f status that they can show
to others.
Principle 2: Triggers
H ow do we rem ind people to talk about our products and ideas?
Triggers are stim uli that prom pt people to think about related
things. Peanut butter rem inds us o f jelly and the w ord “dog”
rem inds us o f the w ord “cat.” If you live in Philadelphia, seeing
a cheesesteak m ight rem ind you o f the hundred-dollar one at
Barclay Prim e. People often talk about whatever comes to m ind,
so the m ore often people think about a product or idea, the more
it will be talked about. We need to design products and ideas that
are frequently triggered by the environm ent and create new trig­
gers by linking ou r products and ideas to prevalent cues in that
environm ent. T op o f m ind leads to tip o f tongue.
Principle 3: Emotion
W hen we care, we share. So how can we craft messages and ideas
that make people feel something? N aturally contagious content
usually evokes some sort o f em otion. Blending an iPhone is sur­
prising. A potential tax hike is infuriating. Em otional things often
get shared. So rather than harping on function, we need to focus
on feelings. B ut as w e’ll discuss, some em otions increase sharing,
while others actually decrease it. So we need to pick the right
em otions to evoke. We need to kindle the fire. Som etimes even
negative em otions may be useful.
Principle 4: Public
Can people see w hen others are using our product or engaging in
our desired behavior? T he fam ous phrase “M onkey see, m onkey
24
C O N TA G IO U S
d o” captures m ore than ju st the hum an tendency to imitate. It
also tells us that it’s hard to copy som ething you can’t see. M ak­
ing things m ore observable makes them easier to imitate, w hich
makes them m ore likely to becom e popular. So we need to make
our products and ideas m ore public. W e need to design products
and initiatives that advertise them selves and create behavioral
residue that sticks around even after people have bought the
product or espoused the idea.
Principle 5: Practical Value
H ow can we craft content that seems useful? People like to help
others, so if w e can show them how ou r products or ideas will
save tim e, im prove health, or save m oney, they’ll spread the word.
B ut given how inundated people are w ith inform ation, we need
to make ou r message stand out. W e need to understand w hat
makes som ething seem like a particularly good deal. W e need to
highlight the incredible value o f w hat we offer— m onetarily and
otherwise. And w e need to package our know ledge and expertise
so that people can easily pass it on.
Principle 6: Stories
W hat broader narrative can w e w rap o u r idea in? People d o n ’t
ju s t share inform ation, they tell stories. B u t ju s t like the epic tale
o f the T ro jan H orse, stories are vessels th at carry things such as
m orals and lessons. Info rm atio n travels u n d e r the guise o f w hat
seem s like idle chatter. So w e need to b u ild o u r ow n T ro jan
horses, em b ed d in g o u r products and ideas in stories th at people
w an t to tell. B ut w e need to do m ore th an ju s t tell a great story.
W e need to m ake virality valuable. W e need to m ake o u r m es­
sage so integral to the narrative th at people can’t tell th e story
w ith o u t it.
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
25
These are the six principles o f contagiousness: products or
ideas that contain Social Currency and are Triggered, Emotional,
Public, Practically Valuable, and wrapped into Stories. Each chapter
focuses on one o f these principles. These chapters bring together
research and examples to show the sciehce behind each principle
and how individuals, companies, and organizations have applied
the principles to help their products, ideas, and behaviors catch on.
These principles can be com pacted into an acronym . Taken
together they spell STEPPS. T h in k o f the principles as the six
STEPPS to crafting contagious content. T hese ingredients lead
ideas to get talked about and succeed. People talked about the
hundred-dollar cheesesteak at Barclay Prim e because it gave them
Social Currency, was Triggered (high frequency o f cheesesteaks in
Philadelphia), Emotional (very surprising), Practically Valuable (use­
ful inform ation about high-quality steakhouse), and w rapped in
a Story. E nhancing these com ponents in messages, products, or
ideas will m ake them m ore likely to spread and becom e popular.
I hope that ordering the principles this way will m ake th em easier
to rem em b er and use.*
* N o te, however, that the recipe analogy breaks down in one respect. T he
principles are unlike a recipe because not all six ingredients are required to
make a product or idea contagious. Sure, the m ore the better, but it’s not as
though a product that is Public w ill fail because it’s not wrapped in a Story.
So think o f these principles less like a recipe and m ore like tasty salad top­
pings. C obb salads, for example, often com e w ith chicken, tomato, bacon,
egg, avocado, and cheese. But a salad w ith ju st cheese and bacon is still
delicious. T h e principles are relatively independent, so you can pick and
choose w hichever ones you want to apply.
Som e o f the principles are easier to apply to certain types o f ideas or
initiatives. N onp rofits usually have a good sense o f h ow to evoke Em otion,
26
C O N TA G IO U S
T he book is designed w ith two (overlapping) audiences in
m ind. You may have always w ondered w hy people gossip, w hy
online content goes viral, w hy rum ors spread, or w hy everyone
always seems to talk about certain topics around the water cooler.
Talking and sharing are some o f our m ost fundam ental behaviors.
These actions connect us, shape us, and make us hum an. This
book sheds light on the underlying psychological and sociological
processes behind the science o f social transmission.
This book is also designed for people w ho w ant their prod­
ucts, ideas, and behaviors to spread. Across industries, companies
big and small w ant their products to become popular. T h e neigh­
borhood coffee shop wants m ore custom ers, lawyers w ant m ore
clients, movie theaters w ant m ore patrons, and bloggers w ant
m ore views and shares. N onprofits, policy makers, scientists,
politicians, and m any other constituencies also have “products”
or ideas that they w ant to catch on. M useum s w ant m ore visitors,
dog shelters w ant m ore adoptions, and conservationists w ant
m ore people to rally against deforestation.
W hether you’re a m anager at a big company, a small business
ow ner trying to boost awareness, a politician running for office,
or a health official trying to get the w ord out, this book will help
you understand how to make your products and ideas m ore con­
tagious. It provides a fram ew ork and a set o f specific, actionable
techniques for helping inform ation spread— for engineering
stories, messages, advertisements, and inform ation so that people
and it’s often easier to play up Public visibility for products or behaviors
that have a physical component. That said, contagious content often comes
from applying principles that originally might have seemed unlikely.
Heavy-duty blenders already have Practical Value, but Will It Blend? went
viral because it found a way to give a blender Social Currency. The video
showed how a seemingly regular product was actually quite remarkable.
Introduction: Why Things Catch On
27
will share them . Regardless o f w hether those people have ten
friends o r ten thousand. A nd regardless o f w hether they are talk­
ative and persuasive o r quiet and shy.
This book provides cutting-edge science about how w ord o f
m outh and social transm ission work. And how you can leverage
them to make your products and ideas succeed.
1. Social Currency
A m ong the brow nstones and vintage shops on St. M ark’s
Place near T om pkins Square Park in N ew York City, you’ll no­
tice a small eatery. It’s m arked by a large red hot-dog-shaped sign
w ith the words “eat m e” w ritten in what looks like m ustard. Walk
dow n a small flight o f stairs and you’re in a genuine old hole-inthe-wall hot dog restaurant. T h e long tables are set w ith all your
favorite condim ents, you can play any num ber o f arcade-style
video games, and, o f course, order o ff a m enu to die for.
Seventeen varieties o f hot dogs are offered. Every type o f
frankfurter you could imagine. T he G ood M orning is a baconwrapped hot dog sm othered w ith m elted cheese and topped
w ith a fried egg. T h e Tsunam i has teriyaki, pineapple, and green
onions. And purists can order the N ew Yorker, a classic grilled
all-beef frankfurter.
B ut look beyond the gingham tablecloths and hipsters enjoy­
ing their dogs. N otice that vintage w ooden phone booth tucked
into the corner? T he one that looks like som ething Clark Kent
m ight have dashed into to change into Superman? Go ahead,
peek inside.
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C O NTAG IO US
You’ll notice an old-school rotary dial phone hanging on the
inside o f the booth, the type that has a finger wheel w ith little
holes for you to dial each num ber. Just for kicks, place your finger
in the hole under the num ber 2 (ABC). Dial clockwise until you
reach the finger stop, release the wheel, and hold the receiver to
your ear.
To your astonishm ent, som eone answers. “D o you have a
reservation?” a voice asks. A reservation?
Yes, a reservation. O f course you don’t have one. W hat w ould
you even need a reservation for? A phone booth in the corner o f
a hot dog restaurant?
But today is your lucky day, apparently: they can take you.
Suddenly, the back o f the booth swings open— it’s a secret
door!— and you are let into a clandestine bar called, o f all things,
Please D on’t Tell.
In 1999, Brian Shebairo and his childhood friend C hris
Antista decided to get into the hot dog business. T he pair had
grown up in N ew Jersey eating at fam ous places like R u tt’s H u t
and Johnny & Hanges and w anted to bring that same hot dog
experience to N ew York City. After tw o years o f R & D , riding
their motorcycles up and dow n the East C oast tasting the best
hot dogs, Brian and C hris w ere ready. O n O ctober 6, 2001, they
opened C rif Dogs in the East Village. T h e nam e com ing from
the sound that poured out o f Brian’s m outh one day w hen he
tried to say C hris’s name w hile still m unching on a hot dog.
C rif Dogs was a big hit and w on the best h o t dog award from
a variety o f publications. B ut as the years passed, Brian was look­
ing for a new challenge. H e w anted to open a bar. C rif Dogs had
always had a liquor license b u t had never taken full advantage o f
Social Currency
31
it. H e and C hris had experim ented w ith a frozen m argarita m a­
chine, and kept a bottle o f Jagerm eister in the freezer every once
in a while, but to do it right they really needed m ore space. N ext
door was a struggling bubble tea lounge. Brian’s lawyer said that
if they could get the space, the liquor license w ould transfer. After
three years o f consistent prodding, the neighbor fipally gave in.
B ut now came the tough part. N e w Y ork C ity is flush w ith
bars. In a four-block radius around C r if Dogs there are m ore than
sixty places to grab a drink. A handful are even on the same block.
Originally, Brian had a grungy rock-and-roll bar in m ind. B ut that
w o u ld n ’t cut it. T h e concept needed be som ething m ore rem ark­
able. Som ething that w ould get people talking and draw them in.
O n e day Brian ran into a friend w ho had an antique business.
A big o utdoor flea m arket selling everything from art deco dress­
ers to glass eyes and stuffed cheetahs. T h e guy said he had found
a neat old 1930s phone booth that he th o u g h t w ould w ork well
in B rian’s bar.
Brian had an idea.
W hen Brian was a kid, his uncle w orked as a carpenter. In
addition to helping to build houses and the usual things that car­
penters do, the uncle built a room in the basem ent that had secret
doors. T h e doors w eren ’t even that concealed, ju s t w ood that
m eshed into o th er w ood, but if you pushed in the right place, you
could get access to a hidden storage space. N o secret lair o r loot
concealed inside, b u t cool nonetheless.
Brian decided to tu rn the phone booth into the d o o r to a se­
cret bar.
E verything about Please D o n ’t T ell suggests that y o u ’ve been
let into a very special secret. Y ou w o n ’t find a sign posted on the
32
C O N TA G IO U S
street. You w on’t find it advertised on billboards or in magazines.
And the only entrance is through a sem ihidden phone booth in­
side a hot dog diner.
O f course, this makes no sense. D o n ’t m arketers preach that
blatant advertising and easy access are the cornerstones o f a suc­
cessful business?
Please D on’t Tell has never advertised. Yet since opening in
2007 it has been one o f the m ost sought-after drink reservations
in N ew York City. It takes bookings only the day of, and the
reservation line opens at 3:00 p.m., sharp. Spots are first-com e,
first-served. Callers madly hit redial again and again in the hopes
o f cutting through the busy signals. By 3:30 all spots are booked.
Please D o n ’t Tell doesn’t push m arket. It doesn’t try to
hustle you in the door or sell you w ith a flashy w ebsite. It’s
a classic “discovery brand.” Jim M eehan, the w izard behind
Please D o n ’t T ell’s cocktail m enu, designed the custom er expe­
rience w ith that goal in m ind. “T h e m ost pow erful m arketing is
personal recom m endation,” he said. “N o th in g is m ore viral or
infectious than one o f your friends going to a place and giving it
his full recom m endation.” And w hat could be m ore rem arkable
than w atching two people disappear into the back o f a phone
booth?
In case it’s not already clear, here’s a little secret about secrets:
they tend not to stay secret very long.
T h in k about the last tim e som eone shared a secret w ith you.
R em em ber how earnestly she begged you n ot to tell a soul? And
rem em ber w hat you did next?
Well, if you’re like m ost people, you probably w en t and told
som eone else. (D on’t be embarrassed, your secret is safe w ith me.)
Social Currency
33
As it turns out, if som ething is supposed to be secret, people m ight
well be more likely to talk about it. T h e reason? Social currency.
People share things that make them look good to others.
M IN TIN G A NEW TYPE OF CURRENCY
Kids love art projects. W hether draw ing w ith crayons, gluing
elbow m acaroni to sheets o f construction paper, or building elab­
orate sculptures o ut o f recyclables, they revel in the jo y o f m aking
things. B ut w hatever the type o f project, m edia, or venue, kids all
seem to do the same thing once they are finished.
T hey show som eone else.
“Self-sharing” follows us th ro u g h o u t o u r lives. W e tell friends
about o u r new clothing purchases and show fam ily m em bers the
op-ed piece w e’re sending to the local new spaper. T his desire to
share our thoughts, opinions, and experiences is one reason social
m edia and online social netw orks have becom e so popular. People
blog about their preferences, post Facebook status updates about
w hat they ate for lunch, and tw eet about w hy they hate the c u r­
ren t governm ent. As m any observers have com m ented, today’s
social-netw ork-addicted people can’t seem to stop sharing— w hat
they think, like, and w ant— w ith everyone, all the tim e.
Indeed, research finds that m ore than 40 percent o f w hat
people talk about is their personal experiences o r personal rela­
tionships. Similarly, around h a lf o f tw eets are “m e ” focused, cov­
ering w hat people are doing now o r so m eth in g that has happened
to them . W hy do people talk so m u ch about th eir ow n attitudes
and experiences?
It’s m ore than ju s t vanity; w e ’re actually w ired to find it plea­
surable. H arvard neuroscientists Jason M itchell and D iana T a m ir
found th at disclosing inform ation about the self is intrinsically
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C O N TA G IO U S
rewarding. In one study, M itchell and T am ir hooked subjects up
to brain scanners and asked them to share either their ow n opin­
ions and attitudes (“I like snow boarding”) or the opinions and
attitudes o f another person (“H e likes puppies”). T hey found that
sharing personal opinions activated the same brain circuits that
respond to rewards like food and m oney. So talking about w hat
you did this w eekend m ight feel ju s t as good as taking a delicious
bite o f double chocolate cake.
In fact, people like sharing their attitudes so m uch that they
are even w illing to pay m oney to do it. In another study, T am ir
and M itchell asked people to com plete a n u m b er o f trials o f a
basic choice task. Participants could choose either to hang o u t
for a few seconds or answ er a question about them selves (such as
“H o w m uch do you like sandw iches?”) and share it w ith others.
Respondents m ade hundreds o f these quick choices. B ut to make
it even m ore interesting, T am ir and M itchell varied the am o u n t
that people got paid for choosing a particular option. In som e trials
people could get paid a couple o f cents m ore for choosing to wait
for a few seconds. In others they could get paid a couple o f cents
m ore for choosing to self-disclose.
T he result? People w ere w illing to forgo m oney to share their
opinions. Overall, they w ere w illing to take a 25 percent pay cut to
share their thoughts. C om pared w ith doing nothing for five sec­
onds, people valued sharing their opinion at ju st under a cent. T his
puts a new spin on an old maxim. M aybe instead o f giving people a
penny for their thoughts, w e should get paid a penny for listening.
It’s clear that people like to talk about them selves, b u t w hat
m akes people talk about som e o f th eir th o u g h ts and experiences
m ore th an others?
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35
Play a game w ith m e for a m inute. M y colleague Carla drives
a m inivan. I could tell you m any other things about her, b ut for
now, I w ant to see how m uch you can deduce based solely on the
fact that she drives a m inivan. H o w old is Carla? Is she tw entytwo? Thirty-five? Fifty-seven? I know you know very little about
her, but try to make an educated guess.
Does she have any kids? If so, do they play sports? Any idea
w hat sports they play?
O nce you’ve m ade a m ental note o f your guesses, let’s talk
about m y friend T odd. H e ’s a really cool guy. H e also happens to
have a M ohaw k. Any idea w hat h e ’s like? H o w old he is? W hat
type o f m usic he likes? W here he shops?
I’ve played this game w ith hundreds o f people and the re­
sults are always the same. M ost people th in k Carla is som ew here
betw een thirty and forty-five years old. All o f them — yes, 100
percent— believe she has kids. M ost are convinced those kids play
sports, and alm ost everyone w ho believes that guesses that soccer
is the sport o f choice. All that from a m inivan.
N o w T odd. M ost people agree that h e ’s som ew here betw een
fifteen and thirty. T h e m ajority guess that he’s into som e sort
o f edgy m usic, w h eth er punk, heavy m etal, or rock. And alm ost
everyone thinks he buys vintage clothes o r shops at som e sort o f
surf'skate store. All this from a haircut.
L et’s be clear. T o d d doesn’t have to listen to edgy m usic or
shop at H o t Topic. H e could be fifty-three years old, listen to
Beethoven, and buy his clothes at any o th er place he w anted. It’s
not like G ap w ould bar the d o o r if he tried to buy chinos.
T h e sam e th in g is tru e o f Carla. She could be a tw enty-tw oyear-old rio t grrrl w h o plays d ru m s and believes kids are for the
boring bourgeoisie.
B ut the p o in t is that w e d id n ’t th in k those things about Carla
C O N TA G IO U S
36
and Todd. Rather, we all made similar inferences because choices
signal identity. Carla drives a m inivan, so we assum ed she was a
soccer m om . T odd has a M ohawk, so we guessed he’s a young
punk-type guy. We make educated guesses about other people
based on the cars they drive, the clothes they wear, and the music
they listen to.
W hat people talk about also affects w hat others think o f them .
T elling a funny joke at a party makes people th ink w e’re witty.
K now ing all the info about last night’s big game or celebrity
dance-off makes us seem cool or in the know.
So, not surprisingly, people prefer sharing things that make
them seem entertaining rather than boring, clever rather than
dum b, and hip rather than dull. C onsider the flip side. T h in k
about the last tim e you considered sharing som ething b u t d id n ’t.
Chances are you d id n ’t talk about it because it w ould have m ade
you (or som eone else) look bad. W e talk about how we got a res­
ervation at the hottest restaurant in tow n and skip the story about
how the hotel we chose faced a parking lot. W e talk about how the
camera we picked was a Consumer Reports Best Buy and skip the
story about how the laptop we bought ended up being cheaper at
another store.
W ord o f m outh, then, is a prim e tool for m aking a good im ­
pression— as potent as that new car or Prada handbag. T h in k o f it
as a kind o f currency. Social currency. Ju st as people use m oney to
buy products or services, they use social currency to achieve desired
positive impressions am ong their families, friends, and colleagues.
So to get people talking, com panies and organizations need to
m in t social currency. Give people a way to m ake them selves look
good w hile p rom oting their products and ideas along the way.
T h ere are three ways to do that: (1) find in n er rem arkability; (2)
leverage game m echanics; and (3) m ake people feel like insiders.
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37
INNER REMARKABILITY
Imagine it’s a sweltering day and you and a friend stop by a con­
venience store to buy some drinks. Y ou’re tired o f soda but you
feel like som ething w ith m ore flavor than ju st water. Som ething
light and refreshing. As you scan the drink case, a pink lem onade
Snapple catches your eye. Perfect. You grab it and take it up to
the cash register to pay.
O nce outside, you twist the top o ff and take a long drink.
Feeling sufficiently revitalized, you’re about to get in your friend’s
car w hen you notice som ething w ritten on the inside o f the
Snapple cap.
Real Fact # 27: A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber.
W ow. Really?
Y ou’d probably be pretty im pressed (after all, w ho even knew
glass could bounce), but think for a m om ent about w hat you’d
do next. W hat w ould you do w ith this new found tidbit o f infor­
m ation? W ould you keep it to yourself or w ould you tell your
friend?
In 2002, M arke R ubenstein, executive VP o f Snapple’s ad
agency, was trying to th ink o f new ways to entertain Snapple
custom ers. Snapple was already know n for its quirky T V ads
featuring the Snapple Lady, a peppy, m iddle-aged w om an w ith
a thick N e w Y ork accent, w h o read and answ ered letters from
Snapple fans. She was a real Snapple em ployee, and the letter
w riters ranged from people asking for dating advice to people
soliciting Snapple to host a soiree at a senior citizens hom e. T he
C O N TA G IO U S
38
ads were pretty funny, and Snapple was looking for som ething
similarly clever and eccentric.
D uring a m arketing m eeting, som eone suggested that the
space under the cap was unused real estate. Snapple had tried
putting jokes under the cap w ith little success. But the jokes
were terrible (“If the # 2 pencil is the m ost popular, w hy is it
still # 2 ? ”), so it was hard to tell if it was the strategy or the jokes
that were failing. Rubenstein and her team w ondered w hether
real facts m ight w ork better. Som ething “out o f the ordinary
that [Snapple drinkers] w ouldn’t know and w ouldn’t even know
they’d want to know .”
So Rubenstein and her team came up w ith a long list o f clever
trivia facts and began putting them under the caps— visible only
after custom ers have purchased and opened the bottles.
Fact #1 2 , for example, notes that kangaroos can’t walk back­
ward. Fact # 7 3 says that the average person spends tw o weeks
over his/her lifetime waiting for traffic lights to change.
These facts are so surprising and entertaining that it’s hard
not to want to share them w ith som eone else. T w o weeks w aiting
for the light to change? T hat’s unbelievable! H o w do they even
calculate som ething like that? T h in k o f w hat else we could do
w ith that time! If you’ve ever happened to drink a Snapple w ith
a friend, you’ll find yourself telling each other w hich fact you
received— similar to w hat happens w hen your family breaks open
fortune cookies after a meal at a C hinese restaurant.
Snapple facts are so infectious that they’ve becom e em bedded
in popular culture. H undreds o f websites chronicle the various
facts. Com edians poke fun at them in their routines. Som e o f the
facts are so unbelievable that people even debate back and forth
w hether they are actually correct. (Yes, the idea that kangaroos
can’t walk backward does seem pretty crazy, b u t it’s true.)
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39
D id you know that frow ning burns m ore calories than sm il­
ing? T hat an ant can lift fifty tim es its ow n weight? You probably
d id n ’t. B ut people share these and sim ilar Snapple facts because
they are remarkable. And talking about rem arkable things provides
social currency.
Rem arkable things are defined as unusual, extraordinary, or
w orthy o f notice o r attention. S om ething can be rem arkable be­
cause it is novel, surprising, extrem e, or ju s t plain interesting. B ut
the m ost im portant aspect o f rem arkable things is that they are
worthy o f remark. W orthy o f m ention. Learning that a ball o f glass
will bounce higher than a ball o f rubber is ju s t so n otew orthy that
you have to m ention it.
Rem arkable things provide social currency because they m ake
the people w ho talk about th em seem , well, m ore rem arkable.
Som e people like to be the life o f the party, b u t no one w ants to
be the death o f it. W e all w ant to be liked. T h e desire for social
approval is a fundam ental h u m an m otivation. I f w e tell som eone
a cool Snapple fact it m akes us seem m ore engaging. I f we tell
som eone about a secret bar hidden inside a h o t dog restaurant, it
makes us seem cool. Sharing extraordinary, novel, o r entertaining
stories or ads m akes people seem m ore extraordinary, novel, and
entertaining. It m akes th em m ore fun to talk to, m ore likely to get
asked to lunch, and m ore likely to get invited back for a second
date.
N o t surprisingly, then, rem arkable things get b ro u g h t up
m ore often. In one study, W harton professor R aghu Iyengar and
I analyzed h o w m u ch w ord o f m o u th different com panies, p ro d ­
ucts, and brands get online. W e exam ined a huge list o f 6,500
products and brands. E verything fro m big brands like W ells
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CO N TA G IO U S
S ocial Currency
Fargo and Facebook to small brands like the Village Squire Res­
and chicken, the researchers had planted a small— but decidedly
taurants and Jack Link’s. From every industry you can imagine.
creepy— family o f cockroaches. Eww! T h e students shrieked and
Banking and bagel shops to dish soaps and departm ent stores.
recoiled from the food.
40
T hen we asked people to score the remarkability o f each product
A fter the bedlam subsided, the experim enter said that som e­
or brand and analyzed how these perceptions were correlated
one m ust be playing a jo k e on them and quickly canceled the
with how frequently they were discussed.
study. B ut rather than send people hom e early? he suggested that
T he verdict was clear: m ore remarkable products like Facebook or Hollywood movies were talked about alm ost twice as
they go participate in another study that was (conveniently) taking
place ju s t next door.
often as less remarkable brands like Wells Fargo and Tylenol.
T hey all walked over, b u t along the way they w ere quizzed
O th er research finds similar effects. M ore interesting tweets are
about w hat had happened d u rin g the aborted experim ent. H a lf
shared m ore, and m ore interesting or surprising articles are m ore
w ere asked by the experim enter, w hile the o th er h a lf w ere asked
likely to make the N ew York Times M ost E-M ailed list.
by w hat seem ed like another student (w ho was actually covertly
Remarkability explains w hy people share videos o f eight-year-
helping the experim enter).
old girls flawlessly reciting rap lyrics and w hy my aunt forw arded
D e p en d in g on w h o m participants happened to tell the story
me a story about a coyote w ho was hit by a car, got stuck in the
to, it cam e o u t differently. I f they w ere talking to an o th e r stu ­
bum per for six hundred miles, and survived. It even explains w hy
d en t— that is, if they w ere trying to im press and en tertain rath er
doctors talk about som e patients m ore than others. Every tim e
than sim ply rep o rt the facts— the cockroaches w ere larger, m ore
there is a patient in the ER w ith an unusual story (such as som e­
n u m ero u s, and the entire experience m o re disgusting. T h e
one swallowing a w eird foreign object), everyone in the hospital
students exaggerated th e details to m ake the story m o re rem a rk ­
hears about it. A code pink (baby abduction) makes big new s even
able.
if it’s a false alarm, w hile a code blue (cardiac arrest) goes largely
unm entioned.
Rem arkability also shapes how stories evolve over tim e. A
W e’ve all had sim ilar experiences. H o w big was the tro u t w e
caught last tim e w e w e n t fishing in C olorado? H o w m any tim es
did the baby wake up crying d u rin g th e night?
group o f psychologists from the U niversity o f Illinois recruited
O fte n w e’re n o t even trying to exaggerate; w e ju s t can’t recall
pairs o f students for w hat seem ed like a study o f group planning
all the details o f the story. O u r m em ories a re n ’t perfect records
and perform ance. Students w ere told they w ould get to cook a
o f w hat happened. T h e y ’re m ore like d in o sau r skeletons patched
small meal together and w ere escorted to a real w orking kitchen.
together by archeologists. W e have th e m ain ch u n k s, b u t som e o f
In front o f them w ere all the ingredients necessary to cook a
the pieces are m issing, so w e fill th e m in as best w e can. W e m ake
meal. Piles o f leafy green vegetables, fresh chicken, and succulent
an educated guess.
pink shrim p, all ready to be chopped and th ro w n in to a pan.
B ut then things got interesting. H id d en am ong the vegetables
B ut in th e process, stories often b ecom e m o re extrem e o r e n ­
tertaining, particularly w h e n people tell th e m in fro n t o f a group.
42
C O N TA G IO U S
We don’t ju st guess randomly, we fill in num bers or inform ation
to make us look good rather than inept. T h e fish doubles in size.
T he baby didn’t wake ju st twice during the night— that w ouldn’t
be remarkable enough— she woke seven times and required skill­
ful parenting each tim e to soothe her back to sleep.
It’s ju st like a game o f telephone. As the story gets transm it­
ted from person to person, some details fall out and others are
exaggerated. And it becomes m ore and m ore remarkable along
the way.
T h e key to finding inner remarkability is to think about w hat
makes som ething interesting, surprising, or novel. C an the prod­
uct do som ething no one w ould have thought possible (such as
blend golf balls like Blendtec)? Are the consequences o f the idea
or issue m ore extreme than people ever could have imagined?
O ne way to generate surprise is by breaking a pattern people
have come to expect. Take low-cost airlines. W hat do you expect
w hen you fly a low-cost carrier? Small seats, no movies, limited
snacks, and a generally no-frills experience. But people w ho fly
JetB lue for the first tim e often tell others because the experience
is remarkably different. You get a large, comfortable seat, a variety
o f snack choices (from T erra Blues chips to animal crackers), and
free D IR EC TV program m ing from your ow n seat-back televi­
sion. Similarly, by using Kobe beef and lobster, and charging one
h undred dollars, Barclay Prim e got buzz by breaking the pattern
o f w hat people expected from a cheesesteak.
Mysteries and controversy are also often remarkable. The
Blair Witch Project is one o f the m ost famous examples o f this ap­
proach. Released in 1999, the film tells the story o f three student
filmmakers w ho hiked into the m ountains o f M aryland to film
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43
a docum entary about a local legend called the Blair W itch. They
supposedly disappeared, however, and viewers were told that the
film was pieced together from “rediscovered” am ateur footage
that was shot on their hike. N o one was sure if this was true.
W hat do we do w hen confronted with a controversial mystery
like this? Naturally, we ask others to help us so rt out the answer.
So the film garnered a huge buzz simply from people w ondering
w hether it depicted real events or not. It underm ined a funda­
mental belief (that witches d o n ’t exist), so people wanted the
answer, and the fact that there was disagreem ent led to even m ore
discussion. T he buzz drove the movie to become a blockbuster.
Shot on a handheld camera w ith a budget o f about $35,000, the
movie grossed m ore than $248 m illion worldwide.
T he best thing about remarkability, though, is that it can be
applied to anything. You m ight think that a product, service, or
idea w ould have to be inherently remarkable— that remarkability
isn’t som ething you can impose from the outside. N ew high-tech
gadgets or Hollyw ood movies are naturally m ore remarkable
than, say, custom er service guidelines o r toasters. W hat could be
remarkable about a toaster?
But it’s possible to find the inner rem arkability in any prod­
uct or idea by thinking about w hat makes that thing stand out.
Rem ember Blendtec, the blender com pany we talked about in
the Introduction? By finding the product’s inner remarkability,
the com pany was able to get millions o f people to talk about a
boring old blender. And they were able to do it with no advertis­
ing and a fifty-dollar m arketing budget.
Toilet paper? H ardly seems remarkable. B ut a few years ago
I made toilet paper one o f the m ost talked-about conversation
topics at a party. H ow ? I put a roll o f black toilet paper in the bath­
room. Black toilet paper? N o one had ever seen black toilet paper
C O N TA G IO U S
44
before. And that rem arkability provoked discussion. Emphasize
w hat’s remarkable about a product or idea and people will talk.
LEVERAGE GAME MECHANICS
I was short by 222 miles.
A few years ago I was booking a round-trip flight from the
East C oast to California. It was late D ecem ber, and the end o f the
year is always slow, so it seemed like a perfect tim e to visit friends.
I w ent online, scanned a bunch o f options, and found a direct
flight that was cheaper than the connecting ones. Lucky me! I
w ent to go find my credit card.
But as I entered m y frequent flier num ber, inform ation about
m y status tier appeared on the screen. I fly a decent am ount,
and the previous year I had flow n enough on U n ited Airlines to
achieve Prem ier status. C alling the perks I was receiving “Pre­
m ier” seem ed like a m arketing person’s idea o f a sick joke, but
it was slightly better treatm ent than you usually get in econom y
class. I could check bags for free, have access to seats w ith slightly
m ore leg room , and theoretically get free upgrades to business
class (though that never actually seem ed to happen). N o th in g to
w rite hom e about, but at least I d id n ’t have to pay to check a bag.
T his year had been even busier. I tend to stick w ith one air­
line if I can, and in this case, it seem ed it m ight ju s t pay off. I had
alm ost achieved the next status level: Prem ier Executive.
B ut the key w ord here is “alm ost.” I was 222 m iles short.
Even w ith the direct flights to C alifornia and back, I w o u ld n ’t
have enough m iles to m ake it to Prem ier Executive.
T h e perks for being a Prem ier Executive w ere only slightly
better than those for Prem ier. I’d get to check a third bag for free,
have access to special airline lounges if I flew internationally, and
Social Currency
45
board the plane seconds earlier than I w ould have before. N othing
too exciting.
But I was so close! And I had only a few days left to fly the re­
quired extra miles. T his trip to San Francisco was m y last chance.
So I did w hat people do w ho are so focused on achieving
som ething that they lose their com m on sense. J paid m ore m oney
to book a connecting flight.
R ather than take a direct flight hom e, I flew a circuitous route,
stopping in Boston for tw o hours ju st to make sure I had enough
miles to make it over the threshold.
T he first m ajor frequent flier program was created in 1981 by
A m erican Airlines. O riginally conceptualized as a m ethod to give
special fares to frequent custom ers, the program soon m orphed
into the current system o f rewards. Today, m ore than 180 m il­
lion people accum ulate frequent flier m iles w hen they travel.
These program s have m otivated m illions o f people to pledge their
loyalty to a single airline and stop over in random cities or fly at
inopportune tim es ju s t to ensure that they accrue miles on their
desired carrier.
W e all know that miles can be redeem ed for free travel,
hotel stays, and o th er perks. Still, m ost people never cash in the
miles they accum ulate. In fact, less than 10 percent o f miles are
redeem ed every year. Experts estim ate that as m any as 10 tril­
lion frequent flier m iles are sitting in accounts, unused. E nough
to travel to the m oon and back 19.4 million times. T h a t’s a lot o f
miles.
So if they’re n o t actually using them , w hy are people so pas­
sionate about racking up miles?
Because it’s a fun game.
46
C O N TA G IO U S
T h in k about your favorite game. It can be a board game,
a sport, or even a com puter game or an app. M aybe you love
solitaire, enjoy playing golf, or go crazy for Sudoku puzzles. Ever
stopped to think about w hy you enjoy these games so m uch?
W hy you can’t seem to stop playing?
Gam e mechanics are the elem ents o f a game, application, or
program — including rules and feedback loops— that make them
fun and compelling. You get points for doing well at solitaire,
there are levels o f Sudoku puzzles, and golf tournam ents have
leaderboards. These elem ents tell players w here they stand in the
game and how well they are doing. Good game mechanics keep
people engaged, motivated, and always w anting m ore.
O ne way game mechanics motivate is internally. W e all enjoy
achieving things. Tangible evidence o f our progress, such as
solving a tough Solitaire game or advancing to the next level o f
Sudoku puzzles, makes us feel good. So discrete m arkers m oti­
vate us to w ork harder, especially w hen we get close to achieving
them . Take the buy-ten-get-one-free coffee punch cards that are
sometim es offered at local cafes. By increasing motivation, the
cards actually spur people to buy coffee m ore frequently as they
get closer to their tenth cup and claiming their reward.
But game mechanics also motivate us on an interpersonal
level by encouraging social comparison.
A few years ago, students at H arvard U niversity were asked
to make a seemingly straightforward choice: w hich w ould they
prefer, a jo b w here they made $50,000 a year (option A) or one
where they made $100,000 a year (option B)?
Seems like a no-brainer, right? Everyone should take option
B. But there was one catch. In option A, the students w ould get
Social Currency
47
paid twice as m uch as others, w ho w ould only get $25,000. In
option B, they would get paid half as m uch as others, w ho w ould
get $200,000. So option B w ould make the students m ore m oney
overall, but they w ould be doing worse than others around them .
W hat did the m ajority o f people choose?
O ption A. They preferred to do better than others, even if it
m eant getting less for themselves. T hey chose the option that was
worse in absolute term s but better in relative terms.
People d o n ’t ju st care about how they are doing, they care
about their perform ance in relation to others. G etting to board
a plane a few m inutes early is a nice perk o f achieving Prem ier
status. B ut part o f w hat makes this a nice perk is that you get to
board before everyone else. Because levels w ork on two, well,
levels. They tell us w here we are at any tim e in absolute terms.
But they also make clear w here we stand relative to everyone else.
Ju st like m any other animals, people care about hierarchy.
Apes engage in status displays and dogs try to figure out w ho is
the alpha. H um ans are no different. We like feeling that w e’re
high status, top dog, or leader o f the pack. But status is inherently
relational. Being leader o f the pack requires a pack, doing better
than others.
Gam e mechanics help generate social currency because
doing well makes us look good. People love boasting about the
things they’ve accomplished: their golf handicaps, how m any
people follow them on Tw itter, or their kids’ SAT scores. A
friend o f m ine is a Delta Airlines Platinum M edallion m em ber.
Every tim e he flies he finds a way to brag about it on Facebook.
Talking about how a guy he saw in the Delta Sky C lub lounge is
hitting on a waitress. O r m entioning the free upgrade he got to
first class. After all, w hat good is status if no one else knows you
have it?
C O N TA G IO U S
48
But every tim e he proudly shares his status, he’s also spread­
ing the word about Delta.
And this is how game mechanics boosts w ord o f m outh.
People are talking because they w ant to show o ff their achieve­
ments, but along the way they talk about the brands (Delta or
Tw itter) or dom ains (golf or the SAT) w here they achieved.
Building a Good Game
Leveraging game mechanics requires quantifying performance.
Some domains like golf handicaps and SAT scores have built-in
metrics. People can easily see how they are doing and compare
themselves w ith others w ithout needing any help. But if a product
or idea doesn’t automatically do that, it needs to be “gamified.”
M etrics need to be created or recorded that let people see w here
they stand— for example, icons for how m uch they have contrib­
uted to a com m unity message board or different colored tickets
for season ticket holders.
Airlines have done this nicely. Frequent flier program s didn’t
always exist. True, people have flown commercially for m ore than
h alf a century. B ut flying was gamified relatively recently, w ith
airlines recording miles flown and awarding status levels. And
because this provides social currency, people love to talk about it.
Leveraging game mechanics also involves helping people
publicize their achievements. Sure, som eone can talk about how
well she did, but it’s even better i f there is a tangible, visible sym­
bol that she can display to others. Foursquare, the location-based
social netw orking website, lets users check in at bars, restaurants,
and other locations using their m obile devices. Checking in helps
people find their friends, but Foursquare also awards special
badges to users based on their check-in history. C heck in to the
same venue m ore than anyone else in a sixty-day period and you’ll
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be crow ned the mayor o f that location. C heck in to five differ­
ent airports and get a Jetsetter badge. N o t only are these badges
posted on users’ Foursquare accounts, but because they provide
social currency, users also prom inently display them on their
Facebook pages.
Ju st like my Platinum M edallion friend, people display their
badges to show o ff or because they’re proud o f themselves. But
along the way they are also spreading the Foursquare brand.
Great game mechanics can even create achievement out o f
nothing. Airlines turned loyalty into a status symbol. Foursquare
made it a m ark o f distinction to be a fixture at the corner bar.
And by encouraging players to post their achievements on Facebook, online game makers have m anaged to convince people to
proclaim loudly—even boast— that they spend hours playing
com puter games every day.
Effective status systems are easy to understand, even by
people w ho aren’t familiar w ith the dom ain. Being the mayor
sounds good, but if you asked m ost people on the street, I bet they
couldn’t tell you w hether that is better or worse than having a
School N ight badge, a Super U ser badge, or any one o f the more
than one hundred other badges Foursquare offers.
Credit card companies struggled w ith the same issue. Gold
cards used to be restricted to people w ho spent heavily and had
a stellar credit history. But as companies started offering them to
people w ith all types o f credit, the gold card lost its meaning. So
companies came up w ith new options for their truly wealthy cus­
tomers: the platinum card, the sapphire card, and the diamond card,
among others. But which has more status, a diamond or a sapphire
card? Is platinum better or worse than sapphire? This bewildering
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50
mix o f colors, minerals, and exclusive words creates a chaos o f
consumer confusion such that people don’t know how well they
are doing— m uch less how they compare w ith anyone else.
C ontrast that w ith medals given out at the Olym pics or your
local track m eet. If entrants tell you they w on silver, you know
exactly how well they did. Even som eone w ho knows almost
nothing about track can tell right away w hether an entrant is a
star or ju st doing okay.
M any British superm arkets use a similarly intuitive label­
ing system. Ju st as w ith stoplights, they use red, yellow, or green
circles to denote how m uch sugar, fat, and salt are in different
products. Low -sodium sandwiches are m arked w ith a green circle
for salt while salty soups get a red circle. Anyone can im m ediately
pick up on the system and understand how to behave as a result.
M any contests also involve game mechanics. Burberry cre­
ated a website called “Art o f the T re n ch ” that is a m ontage o f
Burberry and all the people w ho wear it. Some photos were
taken by the w orld’s leading photographers, but people can also
send in photos o f themselves or their friends w earing the iconic
Burberry trench coat. If you’re lucky, B urberry posts your image
on its website. Your photo then becomes part o f a set o f images
reflecting personal style from across the globe.
Imagine if your photo was picked for the site. W hat w ould
be your first impulse? You’d tell som eone else! And n ot ju s t one
person. Lots o f people.
As apparently everyone did. T he Burberry site garnered m il­
lions o f views from m ore than a hundred different countries. And
the contest helped drive sales up 50 percent.
Recipe websites encourage people to post photos o f their
Social Currency
51
finished meals. W eight loss or fitness programs encourage beforeand-after photos so people can show others how m uch better they
look. A new bar in D .C . even nam ed a drink, the Kentucky Irby,
after m y best friend (his last nam e is Irby). H e felt so special he
told everyone he knows about the drink and along the way helped
spread the w ord about this new establishment.
Giving awards works on a similar principle. Recipients o f
awards love boasting about them — it gives them the opportunity
to tell others how great they are. But along the way they have to
m ention w ho gave them the award.
W ord o f m outh can also com e from the voting process itself.
Deciding the w inner by popular vote encourages contestants to
drum up support. B ut in telling people to vote for them , contes­
tants also spread awareness about the product, brand, or initiative
sponsoring the contest. Instead o f m arketing itself directly, the
com pany uses the contest to get people w ho w ant to w in to do
the m arketing themselves.
And this brings us to the third way to generate social currency:
making people feel like insiders.
MAKE PEOPLE FEEL LIKE INSIDERS
In 2005, Ben Fischm an became C E O o f SmartBargains.com.
T he discount shopping website sold everything from apparel and
bedding to hom e decor and luggage. T h e business m odel was
straightforward: companies w anting to offload clearance items or
extra m erchandise w ould sell them cheap to SmartBargains, and
SmartBargains w ould pass the deals on to the consum er. T here
was a broad variety o f m erchandise, and prices were often up to
75 percent lower than retail.
But by 2007 the website was floundering. Margins had always
CO N TA G IO U S
52
been low, but excitem ent about the brand had dissipated, and
m om entum was slowing. A num ber o f related websites had also
sprung up, and SmartBargains was struggling to differentiate itself
from similar competitors.
A year later Fischm an started a new website called Rue La La.
It carried high-end designer goods but focused on “flash sales” in
w hich the deals were available for only a lim ited tim e— tw entyfour hours or a couple o f days at m ost. And the site followed
the same m odel as sample sales in the fashion industry. Access
was by invitation only. You had to be invited by an existing
m em ber.
Sales took off, and the site did extremely well. So well, in fact,
that in 2009 Ben sold both websites for $350 million.
Rue La La’s success is particularly notew orthy, given one tiny
detail.
It sold the same products as SmartBargains. T he exact same
dresses, skirts, and suits. T he same shoes, shirts, and slacks.
So w hat transform ed w hat could have been a ho -h u m website
into one people were clam oring to get access to? H o w come Rue
La La was so m uch m ore successful?
Because it made people feel like insiders.
W hen trying to figure out how to save SmartBargains, Fisch­
m an noticed that one part o f the business was doing incredibly
well. Its Sm art Shopper loyalty club allowed people w ho signed
up to get reduced shipping fees and access to a private shopping
area. Deals that no one else could see. It was a small part o f the
site, but grow th was through the roof.
At the same tim e, Fischm an learned about a concept in
France called uente priuee, or private sale. O nline flash sales that
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53
were available only for a day. Fischm an decided that this was the
perfect way to p ut a unique spin on his business.
And it was. Rue La La hit the ground running because it
smartly leveraged the urgency factor. Part o f this started by ac­
cident. Every m orning the site posted new deals at 11:00 a.m. But
in the first couple o f m onths dem and was so m uch higher than
expected that by 11:03 a.m. everything w ould b e sold out. Gone.
So custom ers learned that if they d idn’t get there right away,
they’d miss out.
As it has grown, Rue La La has m aintained this lim ited avail­
ability. It still sells out 40 percent to 50 percent o f items in the
first hour. Sales have grown, but it’s not that revenue gets bigger
across the course o f the day. T he traffic spikes at 11:00 a.m. have
simply reached higher and higher levels.
G oing to a m em bership-only m odel also made the site’s
m em bers feel like insiders. Ju st as w ith the velvet rope that
prevents regular partygoers from ju st walking into an exclusive
nightclub, people assumed that if you had to be a m em ber, the
site m ust be really desirable.
Rue La La’s m em bers are its best ambassadors. They pros­
elytize better than any ad campaign ever could. As Fischman
noted:
It’s like the concierge at a hotel. You go down to the concierge tofind
out about a restaurant and he tells you a name right away. The
assumption is that he is getting paid to suggest that place and the
restaurant is probably mediocre. But if afriend recommends a place
you can’t wait to get there. Well when afriend tells you you’ve gotta
try Rue La La, you believe them. And you try it.
Rue La La unleashed the pow er o f friends telling friends.
C O N TA G IO U S
54
While it m ight not be obvious right away, Rue La La actually
has a lot in com m on w ith Please D o n ’t Tell, the secret bar we
talked about at the beginning o f the chapter. Both used scarcity
and exclusivity to make custom ers feel like insiders.
Scarcity is about how m uch o f som ething is offered. Scarce
things are less available because o f high dem and, lim ited produc­
tion, or restrictions on the tim e or place you can acquire them .
T he secret bar Please D o n ’t Tell has only forty-five seats and
doesn’t allow m ore people than that in. Rue La La’s deals were
available for only tw enty-four hours; some are even gone w ithin
thirty m inutes.
Exclusivity is also about availability, but in a different way.
Exclusive things are accessible only to people w ho m eet par­
ticular criteria. W hen we think o f exclusivity, we tend to think o f
flashy $20,000 diam ond-encrusted Rolexes or hobnobbing in St.
C roix w ith movie stars. But exclusivity isn’t ju st about m oney or
celebrity. It’s also about knowledge. Know ing certain inform a­
tion or being connected to people w ho do. And that is w here
Please D o n ’t Tell and Rue La La come in. You don’t have to be
a celebrity to get into Please D o n ’t Tell, b ut because it is hidden,
only certain people know it exists. M oney can’t buy you access to
Rue La La. Access is by invitation only, so you have to know an
existing user.
Scarcity and exclusivity help products catch on by making
them seem m ore desirable. If som ething is difficult to obtain,
people assume that it m ust be w orth the effort. I f som ething
is unavailable or sold out, people often infer that lots o f other
people m ust like it, and so it m ust be pretty good (som ething
w e’ll talk m ore about in the Public chapter). People evaluate
Social Currency
55
cookbooks m ore favorably w hen they are in lim ited supply, find
cookies tastier w hen they are scarce, and perceive pantyhose as
higher end w hen it’s less available.
Disney uses this same concept to increase demand for decadesold movies. It takes prim e anim ated features like Snow White and
Pinocchio o ff the m arket and puts them in the “Disney Vault”
until it decides to reissue them . This lim ited availability makes
us feel like we have to act now. If we don’t we m ight miss the
opportunity even if we m ight not have otherwise wanted the op­
portunity in the first place.*
Scarcity and exclusivity boost w ord o f m outh by making
people feel like insiders. If people get som ething not everyone
else has, it makes them feel special, unique, high status. And be­
cause o f that they’ll not only like a product or service m ore, but
tell others about it. Why? Because telling others makes them look
good. Having insider knowledge is social currency. W hen people
w ho waited hours in line finally get that new tech gadget, one o f
* N o te that making access difficult is different from making it impossible.
Sure, getting a reservation at Please D on ’t Tell is tough, but if people
call enough they should be able to snag a reservation. And while Rue La
La is open only to members, it recently instituted a policy where even
nonm em bers can get access by signing up with an e-mail address. U sing
scarcity and exclusivity early on and then relaxing the restrictions later is a
particularly good way to build demand.
Also be wary o f how restricting availability can com e o ff as snooty or
standoffish. People are used to getting what they want and if they hear
“no” too much they may go elsewhere. Jim Meehan at Please D on ’t Tell
addresses this problem explicitly by instructing his staff that if they need to
say “no” they should try to figure out a way to say “no, but.” Such as, “N o,
we are all booked up at eight-thirty, unfortunately, but how about eleven?”
or “N o , w e don’t have brand X but w e have brand Y, would you like to try
it?” By managing the disappointment, they maintain the allure while also
maintaining customer satisfaction.
C O N TA G IO U S
56
the first things they do is show others. Look at me and w hat I was
able to get!
And lest you think that only exclusive categories like bars and
clothes can benefit from m aking people feel like insiders, let me
tell you about how M cD onald’s created social currency around a
mix that includes tripe, heart, and stom ach meat.
In 1979, M cD onald’s introduced C hicken M cN uggets. They
were a huge hit and every franchise across the country wanted
them . But at the time M cD onald’s didn’t have an adequate system
to m eet the dem and. So Executive C h e f Rene Arend was tasked
w ith devising another new product to give to the unlucky fran­
chises that couldn’t get enough chicken. Som ething that w ould
keep them happy despite the shortages.
Arend came up w ith a pork sandwich called the M cRib. H e
had ju st come back from a trip to Charleston, South Carolina,
and was inspired by Southern barbecue. H e loved the rich,
smoky flavor and thought it w ould be a perfect addition to the
M cD onald’s m enu.
But contrary to w hat the name suggests, there is actually
very little rib m eat on the M cRib. Instead, imagine a pork patty
shaped into som ething that looks like a rack o f ribs. Subtract the
bones (and m ost o f the higher-quality meat), add barbecue sauce,
top it o ff w ith onions and pickles, toss it in a bun, and you pretty
m uch have the M cRib.
Lack o f rib m eat aside, the product test-m arketed quite well.
M cD onald’s was excited and soon added the product to the na­
tionwide m enu. M cRibs were everywhere from Florida to Seattle.
But then the sales num bers came in. U nfortunately, they were
m uch lower than expected. M cD onald’s tried prom otions and
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57
features, but not m uch worked. So after a few years it dropped the
M cRib, citing Am ericans’ lack o f interest in pork.
A decade later, however, M cD onald’s figured out a clever way
to increase dem and for the M cRib. It didn’t spend m ore m oney
on advertising. It didn’t change the price. It d idn’t even change
the ingredients.
It ju st m ade the product scarce.
Som etim es it w ould bring the product back nationally for a
lim ited time; in other cases it w ould offer it at certain locations
b ut not others. O ne m onth it would be offered only at franchises
in Kansas City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Tw o m onths later it
w ould be offered only in Chicago, Dallas, and Tampa.
And its strategy worked. C onsum ers got excited about the
sandwich. Facebook groups started popping up asking the com ­
pany to “bring back the M cRib!” Supporters used Tw itter to
proclaim their love for the snack (“Lucky me, the M cRib is back”)
and to learn w here they could find one (“I only really use T w itter
to find out w hen the M cRib is available”). Som eone even created
an online M cRib locator so fans could share locations that offered
the sandwich w ith others. All for w hat is mostly a mix o f tripe,
heart, and stom ach meat.
M aking people feel like insiders can benefit all types o f prod­
ucts and ideas. Regardless o f w hether the product is hip and cool,
or a m ix o f leftover pig parts. T he m ere fact that som ething isn’t
readily available can make people value it m ore and tell others to
capitalize on the social currency o f know ing about it or having it.
A BRIEF NOTE ON MOTIVATION
A few years ago I w ent through a fundamental male rite o f passage.
I joined a fantasy football league.
C O N TA G IO U S
58
Fantasy football has become one o f Am erica’s m ost popu­
lar unofficial pastimes. For those unfam iliar w ith the game,
it’s essentially like being the general manager o f an imaginary
team. M illions o f people spend countless hours scouting play­
ers, tweaking their rosters, and watching their perform ance each
week.
It always seemed funny to m e that people spent so m uch
time on what is essentially a spectator sport. B ut w hen a group o f
friends needed one m ore person and asked m e if I’d play, I said
why not.
And sure enough, I got sucked in. I spent hours every week
scanning through cheat sheets, reading up on players I’d never
heard of, and trying to find sleepers other people hadn’t drafted.
O nce the season started I found m yself watching football, som e­
thing I had never done before. And it w asn’t to see w hether my
local team won. I was watching teams I knew nothing about,
checking out which o f my players were doing better, and tweaking
my roster each week.
But the m ost interesting part?
I did this all for free.
N o one paid me for the hours I spent, and my friends and I
d idn’t even have a bet riding on the outcom e. W e were ju st play­
ing for fun. And, o f course, bragging rights. But since doing better
than others is social currency, everyone was m otivated to do well.
Even w ithout a m onetary incentive.
T he moral? People don’t need to be paid to be motivated.
M anagers often default to m onetary incentives w hen trying to
motivate employees. Some gift or other perk to get people to take
action. But that’s the w rong way to think about it. Lots o f people
will refer a friend if you pay them a hundred dollars to do so.
O ffer people the chance to win a gold Lam borghini and they’ll
Social Currency
59
do almost anything. B ut as w ith m any m onetary incentives,
handing out gold Lam borghinis is costly.
Furtherm ore, as soon as you pay people for doing som ething,
you crowd out their intrinsic motivation. People are happy to talk
about companies and products they like, and millions o f people
do it for free every day, w ithout prom pting. But as soon as you
offer to pay people to refer o ther custom ers, any interest they had
in doing it for free will disappear. C ustom ers’ decisions to share
or not will no longer be based on how m uch they like a product or
service. Instead, the quality and quantity o f buzz will be propor­
tional to the m oney they receive.
Social incentives, like social currency, are m ore effective in
the long term . Foursquare doesn’t pay users to check in to bars,
and airlines don’t give discounts to frequent flier members. But by
harnessing people’s desire to look good to others, their custom ers
did these things anyway— and spread w ord o f m outh for free.
PLEASE DON’T TELL? WELL, OKAY.
MAYBE JUST ONE PERSON . . .
H ow do we get people talking and make our products and ideas
catch on? O n e way is to m int social currency. People like to make
a good impression, so we need to make our products a way to
achieve that. Like Blendtec’s Will It Blend? we need to find the
inner remarkability. Like Foursquare or airlines w ith frequent
flier tiers, we need to leverage game mechanics. Like Rue La La,
we need to use scarcity and exclusivity to make people feel as if
they’re insiders.
T he drive to talk about ourselves brings us back full circle to
Please D o n ’t Tell. T he proprietors are smart. They understand
that secrets boost social currency, but they don’t stop there. After
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60
you’ve paid for your drinks, your server hands you a small busi­
ness card. All black, almost like the calling card o f a psychic or
wizard. In red script the card simply says “Please D o n ’t T ell” and
includes a phone num ber.
So while everything else suggests the proprietors w ant to keep
the venue under wraps, at the end o f the experience they make
sure you have their phone num ber. Just in case you w ant to share
their secret.
2. Triggers
W alt Disney W orld. Say those w ords to children under the
age o f eight and ju st wait for their excited screams. M ore than 18
million people from all over the w orld visit the O rlando, Florida,
them e park annually. O lder kids love the frightening plum m et
down Space M ountain and the T ow er o f Terror. Younger ones
savor the magic o f C inderella’s castle and the thrill o f exploring
the rivers o f Africa in the Jungle Cruise. Even adults beam jo y ­
ously w hen shaking hands w ith beloved Disney characters like
Mickey M ouse and Goofy.
M em ories o f m y ow n first visit in the early 1990s still make
me smile. M y cousin and I were picked from the audience to
play Gilligan and the Skipper in a reenactm ent o f Gilligan’s Island.
The look o f wild trium ph on m y face w hen I successfully steered
the boat to safety— after being doused w ith dozens o f buckets o f
water— is still family lore.
N o w compare these exhilarating images w ith a box o f H oney
N ut Cheerios. Yes, the classic breakfast cereal w ith a bee mascot
that “packs the goodness o f C heerios w ith the irresistible taste
o f golden honey.” C onsidered reasonably healthy, H oney N u t
C O N TA G IO U S
62
Cheerios is still sugary enough to appeal to children and anyone
w ith a sweet tooth and has becom e a staple o f m any American
households.
W hich o f these products— Disney W orld or H oney N u t
Cheerios— do you think gets m ore w ord o f m outh? T he Magic
Kingdom? T he self-described place w here dream s come true?
O r Cheerios? T he breakfast cereal made o f w hole grain oats
that can help reduce cholesterol?
Clearly, the answer is Disney W orld, right? After all, talk­
ing about your adventures there is m uch m ore interesting than
discussing w hat you ate for breakfast. If w ord-of-m outh pundits
agree on anything, it’s that being interesting is essential if you
w ant people to talk. M ost buzz m arketing books will tell you that.
So will social media gurus. “N obody talks about boring com ­
panies, boring products, or boring ads,” argues one prom inent
w ord-of-m outh advocate.
U nfortunately, he’s wrong. And so is everyone else who
subscribes to the interest-is-king theory. And lest you think this
contradicts w hat we talked about in the previous chapter about
Social Currency, read on. People talk about Cheerios m ore than
Disney W orld. T he reason? Triggers.
BUZZING FOR BZZAGENT
N o one w ould mistake Dave Balter for a M adison Avenue shark
as portrayed in the popular TV series Mad Men. H e’s young—-just
forty— and looks even younger, with downy cheeks, wire-rimmed
glasses, and a w ide-open grin. H e’s also genuinely passionate
about marketing. Yes, marketing. T o Dave, m arketing isn’t about'
trying to convince people to purchase things they don’t want or
need. M arketing is about tapping into their genuine enthusiasm.
Triggers
63
for products and services that they find useful. O r fun. O r beauti­
ful. M arketing is about spreading the love.
Dave started out as a so-called loyalty m arketer figuring out
ways to reward custom ers for sticking w ith a particular brand. H e
then created and sold two prom otional agencies before founding
his current firm, BzzAgent.
H e re ’s how BzzAgent works. Say you’re Philips, the m aker o f
the Sonicare electric toothbrush. Sales are good, but the product is
new and m ost people aren’t aware o f w hat it is or w hy they would
want to buy one. Existing Sonicare custom ers are beginning to
spread the word, but you w ant to accelerate things, get m ore
people talking.
T h at’s w here BzzAgent comes in.
O ver the years, the com pany has assembled a netw ork o f
more than 800,000 BzzAgents, people w ho have said that they
are interested in learning about and trying new products. Agents
span a broad range o f ages, incomes, and occupations. M ost are
between eighteen and fifty-four years old, are well educated, and
have a reasonable income. Teachers, stay-at-hom e m om s, w ork­
ing professionals, PhD s, and even C E O s are BzzAgents.
I f you w onder w hat type o f person w ould be a BzzAgent, the
answer is you. Agents reflect the U.S. population at large.
W hen a new client calls, Dave’s team culls through its large
database to find BzzAgents w ho fit the desired demographic or
psychographic profile. Philips believes its toothbrush will pri­
marily appeal to busy professionals aged twenty-five to thirty-five
from the East Coast? N o problem , Dave has several thousand on
call. You’d prefer w orking m om s w ho care about dental hygiene?
H e’s got them , too.
BzzAgent then contacts the appropriate agents in its netw ork
and invites them to jo in a campaign. Those w ho agree get a kit in
C O N TA G IO U S
64
the mail containing inform ation about the product and coupons
or a free trial. Participants in the Sonicare campaign, for example,
received a free toothbrush and ten-dollar m ail-in rebates for ad­
ditional toothbrushes to give to others. Participants in a Taco
Bell campaign received free taco coupons. Because actual tacos
are difficult to send in the mail.
Then, over the next few m onths, BzzAgents file reports
describing the conversations they had about the product. Im por­
tantly, BzzAgents are not paid. T hey’re in it for the chance to get
free stuff and learn about new products before the rest o f their
friends and families. And they’re never pressured to say anything
other than what they honestly believe, w hether they like the
product or not.
W hen people first hear about BzzAgent, some argue that it
can’t possibly work. People don’t ju st spontaneously m ention
products in everyday conversations, they protest. It ju st w ouldn’t
seem natural.
But what m ost people don’t realize is that they naturally talk
about products, brands, and organizations all the time. Every day,
the average American engages in m ore than sixteen word-of-m outh
episodes, separate conversations where they say something positive
or negative about an organization, brand, product, or service. We
suggest restaurants to coworkers, tell family mem bers about a great
sale, and recom mend responsible babysitters to neighbors. Ameri­
can consumers m ention specific brands m ore than 3 billion times
a day. This kind o f social talk is almost like breathing. It’s so basic
and frequent that we don’t even realize w e’re doing it.
If you w ant to get a better sense for yourself, try keeping a
conversation diary for tw enty-four hours. Carry pen and paper
Triggers
65
w ith you and write dow n all the things you m ention over the
course o f a day. Y ou’ll be surprised at all the products and ideas
you talk about.
C urious about how a BzzCampaign worked, I joined. I’m
a big fan o f soy milk, so w hen Silk did a campaign for alm ond
milk, I had to try it. (After all, how can th ey get m ilk from an
almond?) I used a coupon, got the product from the store, and
tried it. It was delicious.
N o t only was the product good, it was so good I simply had
to tell others about it. I m entioned Silk alm ond m ilk to friends
w ho d o n ’t drink regular m ilk and gave them coupons to try it
themselves. N o t because I had to. N o one was looking over
my shoulder to make sure I talked. I ju st liked the product and
thought others m ight as well.
And this is exactly w hy BzzAgent and other w ord-of-m outh
m arketing firms are effective. They d o n ’t force people to say nice
things about products they hate. N o r do they entice people to
insert product recom m endations artificially into conversations.
BzzAgent simply harnesses the fact that people already talk about
and share products and services w ith others. Give people a prod­
uct they enjoy, and they’ll be happy to spread the word.
WHY DO PEOPLE BUZZ ABOUT
SOME PRODUCTS MORE THAN OTHERS?
BzzAgent has run hundreds o f campaigns for clients as diverse
as Ralph Lauren, the M arch o f Dim es, and Holiday Inn Express.
Some campaigns were m ore successful at generating w ord o f
m outh than others. Why? D id some products or ideas ju st get
lucky? O r were there some underlying principles driving certain
products to get talked about more?
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66
I offered to help find the answer. Enthusiastic at the prospect,
Dave gave my colleague Eric Schwartz and me access to data from
the hundreds o f campaigns he’d run over the years.
We started by testing an intuitive idea: interesting products
get talked about m ore than boring ones. Products can be interest­
ing because they’re novel, exciting, or confound expectations in
some way. If interest drives talking, then action flicks and Disney
W orld should be talked about m ore than C heerios and dish soap.
Intuitively this makes sense. As we discussed in the Social
C urrency chapter, w hen we talk to others, w e’re not only com m u­
nicating information; w e’re also saying som ething about ourselves.
W hen we rave about a new foreign film or express disappointm ent
w ith the Thai restaurant around the corner, w e’re dem onstrating
our cultural and culinary knowledge and taste. Since we w ant
others to think w e’re interesting, we search for interesting things
to tell them . After all, w h o ’d w ant to invite people to a cocktail
party if all they talked about was dish soap and breakfast cereal?
Based on this idea, advertisers often try to create surprising or
even shocking ads. Dancing m onkeys or ravenous wolves chasing
a m arching band. Guerrilla and viral m arketing campaigns are
built on the same notion: Have people dress in chicken suits and
hand o ut fifty-dollar bills on the subway. Do som ething really
different or people w on’t talk.
But is this actually true? D o things have to be interesting to
be discussed?
T o find out, we took the hundreds o f products that had taken
part in BzzCampaigns and asked people how interesting they
found each o f them . An autom atic shower cleaning device? A ser­
vice that preserves new born babies’ umbilical cords? Both seemed
pretty interesting. M outhw ash and trail mix? N o t so interesting.
T h en we looked at the relationship betw een a product’s
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67
interest score and how frequently it was talked about over the
ten-w eek campaign.
But there was none. Interesting products didn’t receive any
m ore w ord o f m outh than boring ones.
Puzzled, we took a step back. Maybe “interest” was the wrong
term , potentially too vague or general a coneept? So we asked
people to score the products on m ore concrete dim ensions, like
how novel or surprising they were. An electronic toothbrush was
seen as m ore novel than plastic storage bags; dress shoes designed
to be as com fortable as sneakers were seen as m ore surprising
than bath towels.
But there was still no relationship betw een novelty or sur­
prise scores and overall w ord o f m outh. M ore novel or surprising
products didn’t get m ore buzz.
M aybe it was the people scoring the products. We had first
used undergraduate college students, so we recruited a new set o f
people, o f all ages and backgrounds.
N ope. Again the results rem ained the same. N o correlation
between levels o f interest, novelty, or surprise and the num ber o f
times people talked about the products.
We w ere truly bewildered. W hat w ere we doing wrong?
N othing, as it turned out. We ju st w eren’t asking the right
questions.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IMMEDIATE
AND ONGOING WORD OF MOUTH
We had been focused on whether certain aspects m atter— specifi­
cally, w hether m ore interesting, novel, or surprising products get
talked about m ore. B ut as we soon realized, we also should have
been exam ining when they m atter.
C O N TA G IO U S
68
Some w ord o f m outh is imm ediate, while some is ongoing.
Imagine you’ve ju st gotten an e-m ail about a new recycling ini­
tiative. D o you talk about it w ith your coworkers later that day?
M ention it to your spouse that weekend? If so, you’re engaging in
immediate word of mouth. This occurs w hen you pass on the details
o f an experience, or share new inform ation you’ve acquired, soon
after it occurs.
Ongoing word of mouth, in contrast, covers the conversations
you have in the weeks and m onths that follow. T he movies you
saw last m onth or a vacation you took last year.
Both types o f w ord o f m outh are valuable, b u t certain types
are m ore im portant for certain products or ideas. M ovies depend
on im m ediate w ord o f m outh. Theaters are looking for success
right off the bat, so if a film isn’t doing well right away, they’ll re­
place it w ith som ething else. N ew food products are under similar
pressure. Grocery stores have lim ited shelf space. If consum ers
don’t imm ediately start buying a new anticholesterol spread,
the store may stop stocking it. In such cases, im m ediate w ord o f
m outh is critical.
For m ost products or ideas, however, ongoing w ord o f m outh
is also im portant. Antibullying campaigns not only w ant to get
students talking right after the campaign is introduced, they w ant
them to keep spreading the w ord until bullying is eradicated.
N ew policy initiatives certainly benefit from huge discussion
w hen they are proposed, but to sway voter opinion, people need
to keep m entioning them all the way up until Election Day.
B ut w hat leads som eone to talk about som ething soon after
it occurs? And are these the same things that drive them to keep
talking about it for weeks or m onths after?
T o answer these questions, we divided the data on each
BzzCam paign into two categories: im m ediate and ongoing word
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69
o f m outh. T h en we looked at how m uch o f each type o f buzz
different types o f products generated.
As we suspected, interesting products received m ore im m e­
diate w ord o f m outh than boring products. T his reinforces w hat
we talked about in the Social C urrency chapter: interesting things
are entertaining and reflect positively on the person talking about
them .
B ut interesting products did not sustain high levels o f w ordof-m outh activity over time. Interesting products didn’t get any
m ore ongoing w ord o f m outh than boring ones.
Imagine I walked into w ork one day dressed as a pirate. A
bright red satin bandana, long black waistcoat, gold earrings, and
a patch over one eye. It w ould be pretty remarkable. People in my
office w ould probably gossip about it all day. (“W hat in the world
is Jonah doing? Casual Friday is supposed to be relaxed, but this
is taking it too far!”)
But while m y pirate getup w ould get lots o f imm ediate word
o f m outh, people probably w ouldn’t keep talking about it every
week for the next two m onths.
So if interest doesn’t drive ongoing w ord o f m outh, what
does? W hat keeps people talking?
FROM MARS BARS TO VOTING:
HOW TRIGGERS AFFECT BEHAVIOR
At any given m om ent, some thoughts are m ore top o f m ind, or
accessible, than others. Right now, for example, you m ight be
thinking about the sentence you are reading or the sandwich you
had for lunch.
Some things are chronically accessible. Sports fanatics or
foodies will often have those subjects top o f m ind. They are
C O N TA G IO U S
70
constantly thinking o f their favorite team ’s latest stats, or about
ways to com bine ingredients in tasty dishes.
B ut stim uli in the surrounding environm ent can also deter­
m ine w hich thoughts and ideas are top o f m ind. If you see a
puppy while jogging in the park, you m ight rem em ber that you’ve
always w anted to adopt a dog. I f you smell C hinese food while
walking past the corner noodle shop, you m ight start thinking
about w hat to order for lunch. O r if you hear an advertisem ent
for Coke, you m ight rem em ber that you ran o u t o f soda last
night. Sights, smells, and sounds can trigger related thoughts and
ideas, m aking them m ore top o f m ind. A hot day m ight trigger
thoughts about climate change. Seeing a sandy beach in a travel
magazine m ight trigger thoughts o f C orona beer.
U sing a product is a strong trigger. M ost people drin k m ilk
m ore often than grape juice, so m ilk is top o f m ind m ore often.
B ut triggers can also be indirect. Seeing a ja r o f peanut b u tter not
only triggers us to th ink about peanut butter, it also makes us
think about its frequent partner, jelly. Triggers are like little envi­
ronm ental rem inders for related concepts and ideas.
W hy does it m atter if particular thoughts or ideas are top o f
m ind? Because accessible thoughts and ideas lead to action.
Back in m id-1997, the candy com pany M ars noticed an unex­
pected uptick in sales o f its M ars bar. T h e com pany was surprised
because it had n ’t changed its m arketing in any way. It w asn’t
spending additional m oney on advertising, it h a d n ’t changed its
pricing, and it had n ’t ru n any special prom otions. Yet sales had
gone up. W hat had happened?
NA SA had happened. Specifically, NA SA’s Pathfinder m is­
sion.
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71
T he m ission was designed to collect samples o f atm osphere,
climate, and soil from a nearby planet. T he undertaking took
years o f preparation and m illions o f dollars in funding. W hen the
lander finally touched dow n on the alien landscape, the entire
w orld was rapt, and all news outlets featured NASA’s trium ph.
Pathfinder’s destination? Mars.
M ars bars are nam ed after the com pany’s founder, Franklin
M ars, n ot the planet. B ut the m edia attention the planet received
acted as a trigger that rem inded people o f the candy and increased
sales. Perhaps the makers o f Sunny D elight should encourage
NASA to explore the sun.
M usic researchers Adrian N o rth , David Hargreaves, and
Jennifer M cK endrick exam ined how triggers m ight affect su­
perm arket buying behavior m ore broadly. You know the M uzak
you’re used to hearing w hile you shop for groceries? Well, N o rth ,
Hargreaves, and M cK endrick subtly replaced it w ith m usic from
different countries. Som e days they played French m usic w hile
other days they played G erm an m usic— w hat y o u ’d expect to
hear outside a French cafe on the banks o f the Seine and w hat you
m ight expect to hear at O ktoberfest. T h e n they m easured the type
o f w ine people purchased.
W hen F rench m usic was playing, m ost custom ers bought
French w ine. W hen G erm an m usic was playing m ost custom ers
bought G erm an w ine. By triggering consum ers to think o f dif­
ferent countries, the m usic affected sales. T h e m usic m ade ideas
related to those countries m ore accessible, and those accessible
ideas spilled over to affect behavior.
Psychologist G ram ne Fitzsim ons and I conducted a related
study on how to encourage people to eat m ore fruits and vegeta­
bles. P rom oting healthy eating habits is tough. M ost people realize
they should eat m ore fruits and vegetables. M ost people will even
C O N TA G IO U S
72
say that they mean to eat m ore fruits and vegetables. B ut som ehow
w hen the tim e comes to put fruits and vegetables into shopping
carts or onto dinner plates, people forget. We thought w e’d use
triggers to help them rem em ber.
Students were paid twenty dollars to report what they ate every
day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at their nearby dining hall.
Monday: a bowl o f Frosted Flakes cereal, two helpings o f turkey
lasagna with a side salad, and a pulled pork sandwich w ith spinach
and fries. Tuesday: yogurt w ith fruit and walnuts, pepperoni pizza
with Sprite, and shrim p pad thai.
Halfway through the two weeks w e’d designated for the
study, the students w ere asked to participate in w hat seem ed like
an unrelated experim ent from a different researcher. T hey were
asked to provide feedback on a public-health slogan targeting
college students. Ju st to be sure they rem em bered the slogan,
they w ere show n it m ore than tw enty tim es, printed in different
colors and fonts.
O n e group o f students saw the slogan “Live the healthy way,
eat five fruits and veggies a day.” A nother group saw “Each and
every dining-hall tray needs five fruits and veggies a day.” Both
slogans encouraged people to eat fruits and vegetables, but the tray
slogan did so using a trigger. T he students lived on cam pus, and
m any o f them ate in dining halls that used trays. So w e w anted to
see if we could trigger healthy eating behavior by using the dining
room tray to rem ind students o f the slogan.
O u r students d id n ’t care for the tray slogan. T hey called it
“corny” and rated it as less than h a lf as attractive as the m ore
generic “live healthy” slogan. F urther, w hen asked w h eth er the
slogan w ould influence their ow n fruit and vegetable consum p­
tion, the students w ho had been show n the “tray” slogan were
significantly m ore likely to say no.
Triggers
73
But w hen it came to actual behavior, the effects were strik­
ing. Students w ho had been show n the m ore generic “live
healthy” slogan d id n ’t change their eating habits. But students
w ho had seen the “tray” slogan and used trays in their cafeterias
m arkedly changed their behavior. T he trays rem inded them o f
the slogan and they ate 25 percent m ore fruits and vegetables as a
result. T he trigger worked.
W e were pretty excited by the results. G etting college students
to do anything— let alone eat m ore fruits and vegetables— is an
impressive feat.
B ut w hen a colleague o f ours heard about the study he w o n ­
dered w hether triggers w ould impact an even m ore consequential
behavior: voting.
W here did you cast your ballot in the last election?
M ost people will answ er this question w ith the nam e o f their
city o r state. Evanston. Birm ingham . Florida. Nevada. If asked
to clarify, they m ight add “near m y office” o r “across from the
superm arket.” Few will be m ore specific. A nd w hy should they
be? A lthough geography clearly m atters in voting— the East Coast
leans D em ocratic while the South skews Republican— few people
w ould th in k that the exact venue in w hich they vote m atters.
B ut it does.
Political scientists usually assum e that voting is based on
rational and stable preferences: people possess core beliefs and
weigh costs and benefits w h en deciding how to vote. I f we care
about the environm ent, w e vote for candidates w ho prom ise to
protect natural resources. I f w e’re concerned about health care,
we support initiatives to m ake it m ore affordable and available to
greater n u m b ers o f people. In this calculating, cognitive m odel o f
C O N TA G IO U S
74
voting behavior, the particular kind o f building people happen to
cast their ballot in shouldn’t affect behavior.
But in light o f w hat we were learning about triggers, we
w eren’t so sure. M ost people in the U nited States are assigned
to vote at a particular polling location. T hey are typically public
buildings— firehouses, courthouses, or schools— but can also be
churches, private office buildings, or other venues.
Different locations contain different triggers. Churches are
filled with religious imagery, which m ight rem ind people o f church
doctrine. Schools are filled with lockers, desks, and chalkboards,
which m ight rem ind people o f children or early educational experi­
ences. And once these thoughts are triggered, they m ight change
behavior.
C ould voting in a church lead people to think m ore negatively
about abortion or gay marriage? C ould voting in a school lead
people to support education funding?
T o test this idea, M arc M eredith, C hristian W heeler, and I
acquired data from each polling place in Arizona’s 2000 general
election. W e used the name and address o f each polling location
to determ ine w hether it was a church, a school, or some other
type o f building. Forty percent o f people w ere assigned to vote
in churches, 26 percent in schools, 10 percent in com m unity
centers, and the rest in a m ix o f apartm ent buildings, golf courses,
and even RV parks.
T hen we examined w hether people voted differently at dif­
ferent types o f polling places. In particular, we focused on a ballot
initiative that proposed raising the sales tax from 5.0 percent to
5.6 percent to support public schools. T his initiative had been
hotly debated, w ith good argum ents on both sides. M ost people
support education but few people enjoy paying m ore taxes. It was
a tough decision.
Triggers
75
If w here people voted didn’t matter, then the percent support­
ing the initiative should be the same at schools and other polling
locations.
B ut it w asn’t. M ore than ten thousand m ore people voted in
favor o f the school funding initiative w hen the polling place was a
school. Polling location had a dramatic impact On voting behavior.
And the initiative passed.
This difference persisted even after we controlled for things
like regional differences in political preferences and demographics.
We even compared two similar groups o f voters to double-check
our findings. People w ho lived near schools and were assigned to
vote at one versus people who lived near schools but were assigned
to vote at a different type o f polling place (such as a firehouse). A
significantly higher percentage o f the people w ho voted in schools
were in favor o f increasing funding for schools. T he fact that they
were in a school w hen they voted triggered m ore school-friendly
behavior.
A ten-thousand-vote difference in a statewide election m ight
not seem like m uch. But it was m ore than enough to shift a close
election. In the 2000 presidential election the difference between
George Bush and A1 G ore came dow n to less than 1,000 votes. If
1,000 votes is enough to shift an election, 10,000 certainly could.
Triggers matter.
So how do triggers help determ ine w hether products and
ideas catch on?
SEARCHING FOR "FRIDAY" ON . . . FRIDAY
In 2011, Rebecca Black accomplished a m om entous achievement.
The thirteen-year-old released w hat m any music critics dubbed
the worst song ever.
C O N TA G IO U S
76
Born in 1997, Rebecca was just a kid w hen she released her first
full-length song. But this was far from her first foray into music.
She had auditioned for shows, had attended music sum m er camp,
and had sung publicly for a num ber o f years. After hearing from a
classmate w ho had turned to outside help for her music career, Re­
becca’s parents paid four thousand dollars to ARK M usic Factory, a
Los Angeles label, to write a song for their daughter to sing.
T h e result was decidedly, well, awful. Entitled “Friday,” the
tune was a whiny, overproduced num ber about teenage life and
the joys o f the weekend. T he song starts w ith her getting up in the
m orning and getting ready to go to school:
Seven a.m., waking up in the morning
Gotta befresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
T hen she hustles down to the bus stop, sees her friends drive
by, and ponders w hether to sit in the front seat or the back. Finally,
after all those tough decisions, she hits the chorus, an ode to her
excitement about the im pending two days o f freedom:
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’forward to the weekend, weekend.
All in all, the piece sounds m ore like a m onologue o f the ran­
dom thoughts going through an especially vacant teenager’s head
than a real song.
Yet this song was one o f the m ost viral videos o f 2011. It was
viewed m ore than 300 m illion tim es on Y ouTube, and m any mil­
lions m ore listened to it over other channels.
Triggers
77
W hy? T h e song was terrible, but lots o f songs are terrible. So
w hat made this one a success?
Take a look at the num ber o f daily searches for “Rebecca
Black” on Y ouTube in M arch 2011, soon after the song was first
released. See if you notice a pattern.
Searches for "Rebecca Black” on YouTube
/
75
/
✓
50
\
\
/
25
>
'
/'s
/
S
0 ~ rr t t t n -i-r r T i i i i i i i
M T W T h F
S
S M T W T h F
S
i i i i
S M I
W Til F
March 2011
S
............. —
S M T W T h F
S
S
April 2011
N otice the spike once every week? Look closer and you’ll see
that the spike happens on the same day every week. There was
one on M arch 18, seven days later on M arch 25, and seven days
later, on April 1.
T he particular day o f the week? You guessed it. Friday—ju st
like the name o f Rebecca Black’s song.
So while the song was equally bad every day o f the week, each
Friday it received a strong trigger that contributed to its success.
TRIGGERED TO TALK
As discussed in the Social C urrency chapter, some w ord o f
m outh is m otivated by peoples’ desire to look good to others.
M entioning clever or entertaining things makes people seem
clever and entertaining. But that isn’t the only factor that drives
us to share.
C O N TA G IO U S
78
M ost conversations can be described as small talk. W e chat
w ith parents at our kids’ soccer games or schmooze w ith cow ork­
ers in the break room . These conversations are less about finding
interesting things to say to make us look good than they are about
filling conversational space. W e d o n ’t w ant to sit there silently, so
we talk about something. Anything. O u r goal isn’t necessarily to
prove that we are interesting, funny, or intelligent. W e ju st w ant
to say som ething to keep the conversation going. A nything to
prove that w e’re not terrible conversationalists.
So w hat do we talk about? W hatever is top o f m ind is a good
place to start. If som ething is accessible, it’s usually relevant to the
situation at hand. Did you read about the new bridge construc­
tion? W hat did you think about the game last night?
We talk about these topics because they are going on in the
surrounding environm ent. We saw the bulldozers on our drive
in, so construction is on ou r m ind. We bum p into a friend w ho
likes sports, so we think about the big game. Triggers boost word
o f m outh.
R eturning to the BzzAgent data, triggers helped us answer
w hy some products get talked about m ore. M ore frequently
triggered products got 15 percent m ore w ord o f m outh. Even
m undane products like Ziploc bags and m oisturizer received
lots o f buzz because people were triggered to think about them
so frequently. People w ho use m oisturizer often apply it at least
once a day. People often use Ziploc bags after meals to wrap up
leftovers. These everyday activities make those products m ore
top o f m ind and, as a result, lead them to be talked about m ore.
Furtherm ore, not only did triggered products get m ore im ­
mediate w ord o f m outh, they also got m ore w ord o f m outh on
an ongoing basis.
In this way, Ziploc bags are the antithesis o f m e going to
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79
teach dressed like a pirate. T he pirate story is interesting, but
it’s here today, gone tom orrow . Ziploc bags may be boring, but
they get m entioned week in and week out because they are fre­
quently triggered. By acting as rem inders, triggers not only get
people talking, they keep them talking. T op o f m ind means tip o f
tongue.
So rather than ju st going for a catchy message, consider the
context. T h in k about w hether the message will be triggered by
the everyday environm ents o f the target audience. Going for in­
teresting is our default tendency. W hether running for class presi­
dent or selling soda, we think that catchy or clever slogans will get
us w here we need to go.
But as we saw in our fruits and vegetables study, a strong
trigger can be m uch m ore effective than a catchy slogan. Even
though they hated the slogan, college students ate m ore fruits and
vegetables w hen cafeteria trays triggered rem inders o f the health
benefits. Just being exposed to a clever slogan didn’t change be­
havior at all.
A few years ago, auto insurance company G E IC O ran ads that
said switching to G E IC O was so simple that even a caveman could
do it. O n the cleverness dim ension the ads were great. They were
funny and made the point that switching to G E IC O was easy.
B ut judged on triggers, the ads fail. W e don’t see m any cave­
m en in our daily lives, so the ad is unlikely to come to m ind often,
m aking it less likely to be talked about.
C ontrast that w ith the Budweiser beer “W assup?” campaign.
Tw o guys are talking on the phone while drinking Budweiser
and watching a basketball game on television. A third friend
arrives. H e yells, “W assup?” O ne o f the first two guys yells
C O N TA G IO U S
80
“W assup?” back. This kicks o ff an endless cycle o f wassups be­
tween a growing num ber o f Budw eiser-drinking buddies.
N o, it wasn’t the cleverest o f commercials. But it became
a global phenom enon. And at least part o f its success was due
to triggers. Budweiser considered the context. “W assup” was a
popular greeting am ong young m en at the time. Just greeting
friends triggered thoughts o f Budweiser in Budw eiser’s prim e
demographic.
T he m ore the desired behavior happens after a delay, the
m ore im portant being triggered becomes. M arket research
often focuses on consum ers’ im m ediate reaction to an advertis­
ing message or campaign. T hat m ight be valuable in situations
w here the consum er is im m ediately offered a chance to buy the
product. But in m ost cases, people hear an ad one day and then
go to the store days or weeks later. I f they’re not triggered to
think about it, how will they rem em ber that ad w hen they’re at
the store?
Public health campaigns w ould also benefit from consider­
ing the context. Take messages that encourage college students
to drink responsibly. W hile the messages m ight be really clever
and convincing, they’re posted at the campus health center, far
away from the frat houses or other places w here students actually
drink. So while students may agree w ith the message w hen they
read it, unless they are triggered to think about it w hen they are
actually drinking, the message is unlikely to change behavior.
Triggers even shed light on w hen negative word o f m outh
has positive effects. Econom ist Alan Sorensen, Scott Rasmussen,
and I analyzed hundreds o f N ew York Times book reviews to see
how positive and negative reviews affected book sales.
In contrast to the notion that any publicity is good publicity,
negative reviews h u rt sales for some books. But for books by new
Triggers
81
or relatively unknow n authors, negative reviews increased sales
by 45 percent. A book called Fierce People, for example, got a ter­
rible review. T h e Times noted that the author “does not have a
particularly sharp eye” and complained that “the change in tone
is so abrupt that the dissonance it creates is almost distasteful.”
Yet sales m ore than quadrupled after the review.
Triggers explain why. Even a bad review or negative word
o f m outh can increase sales if it inform s or rem inds people that
the product or idea exists. T h at’s w hy a sixty-dollar Tuscan red
wine saw sales rise by 5 percent after a prom inent w ine website
described it as “redolent o f stinky socks.” It’s also one reason why
the Shake W eight, a vibrating dum bbell that was widely ridiculed
by the m edia and consum ers, w ent on to do $50 m illion in sales.
Even negative attention can be useful if it makes products and
ideas top o f m ind.
KIT KAT AND COFFEE: GROWING THE HABITAT
O ne product that used triggers brilliantly is Kit Kat.
“Give me a break, give me a break, break m e o ff a piece o f
that Kit Kat bar!” Introduced in the U nited States in 1986, the
Kit Kat tune is one o f the m ost iconic jingles ever made. Sing
the first couple o f w ords to almost anyone over twenty-five and
the person can finish the line. Researchers even deem ed it one
o f the top ten “earw orm s”— a m elody that gets stuck in your
head— o f all tim e. Even m ore m em orable than “YM CA” (take
that, Village People).
B ut in 2007, C olleen C horak was tasked w ith reviving the
Kit Kat brand. In the tw enty-plus years since the jingle was first
introduced, the brand had run out o f gas. H ershey produces
everything from Reese’s Pieces and H ershey’s Kisses to Alm ond
82
C O N TA G IO U S
Joy, Twizzlers, and Jolly Ranchers. W ith this huge slate o f differ­
ent items, it’s not surprising that a brand can get lost. And that
is exactly w hat had happened w ith Kit Kat. H ershey had floun­
dered w ith replacing the “give me a break” campaign. Sales were
declining around 5 percent a year, and the brand had contracted
considerably. People still loved the product, but consum er inter­
est was way down.
Colleen needed a way to get consum ers to start thinking
about the brand again. T o make Kit Kat m ore top o f m ind. And
given the years o f failed new directions, upper m anagem ent was
unwilling to spend the m oney to put the brand back on TV. Any
financial support w ould be m odest at best.
So she did some research. Colleen looked at w hen people
actually consum ed Kit Kats. She found two things: consum ers
often ate Kit Kats to take a break, and m any consum ed it in coor­
dination w ith a hot beverage.
She had an idea.
Kit Kat and coffee.
C olleen pulled the campaign together in a m atter o f m onths.
Described as “a break’s best friend,” the radio spots featured
the candy bar sitting on a counter next to a cup o f coffee, or
som eone grabbing coffee and asking for a Kit Kat. Kit Kat and
coffee. Coffee and Kit Kat. T he spots repeatedly paired the two
together.
T he campaign was a hit.
By the end o f the year it had lifted sales by 8 percent. After
twelve m onths, sales were up by a third. Kit Kat and coffee put
Kit Kat back on the map. T h e then-$300 m illion brand has since
grown to $500 million.
M any things contributed to the campaign’s success. “Kit Kat
and coffee” has a nice alliteration, and the idea o f taking a break
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83
to have a Kit Kat fits well w ith the existing notion o f a coffee
break. But I’d like to add one m ore reason to the list.
Triggers. “Kit Kat and cantaloupe” is equally alliterative, and
break dancing would also have fitted w ith the break concept. But
coffee is a particularly good thing to link the brand to because it is
afrequent stim ulus in the environm ent. A huge num ber o f people
drink coffee. M any drink it a num ber o f times throughout the day.
And so by linking Kit Kat to coffee, C olleen created a frequent
trigger to rem ind people o f the brand.
Biologists often talk about plants and animals as having habi­
tats, natural environm ents that contain all necessary elem ents for
sustaining an organism ’s life. Ducks need water and grasses to
eat. D eer thrive in areas that contain open spaces for grazing.
Products and ideas also have habitats, or sets o f triggers that
cause people to think about them .
Take hot dogs. Barbecues, sum m ertim e, baseball games, and
even w iener dogs (dachshunds) are ju st a few o f the triggers that
make up the habitat for hot dogs.
C om pare that w ith the habitat for Ethiopian food. W hat trig­
gers m ost people to think o f Ethiopian food? Ethiopian food is
certainly delicious, but its habitat is not as prevalent.
M ost products or ideas have a num ber o f natural triggers.
Mars bars and Mars the planet are already naturally connected.
The M ars com pany didn’t need to do anything to create that
link. Likewise, French m usic is a natural trigger for French wine,
and the last day o f the w orkweek is a natural trigger for Rebecca
Black’s song “Friday.”
But it’s also possible to grow an idea’s habitat by creat­
ing new links to stim uli in the environm ent. Kit Kat w o u ld n ’t
C O N TA G IO U S
84
norm ally be associated w ith coffee, b u t through repeated pair­
ing, C olleen C horak was able to link the two. Similarly, our
trays experim ent created a link betw een dining-room trays and
a message to eat fruits and vegetables by repeatedly pairing the
two ideas together. And by increasing the habitat for the m es­
sage, these newly form ed links helped the desired behavior
catch on.
C onsider an experim ent we conducted with BzzAgent and
Boston Market. This fast-casual restaurant is best know n for
home-style com fort food (rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes)
and was prim arily viewed as a lunch place. M anagem ent wanted
to generate m ore buzz. We thought we could help by growing
Boston M arket’s habitat.
D uring a six-week campaign, some people were exposed
to messages that repeatedly paired the restaurant w ith dinner.
“Thinking about dinner? T h in k about Boston M arket!”. O ther
people received a similar advertising campaign that contained a
m ore generic message: “T hinking about a place to eat? T hink
about Boston M arket!” W e then m easured how often the respec­
tive groups talked about the restaurant.
T he results were dramatic. C om pared to the generic message,
the message that grew the habitat (by associating Boston M arket
w ith dinner) increased word o f m outh by 20 percent among
people w ho previously had associated the brand only w ith lunch.
G row ing the habitat boosted buzz.
C om petitors can even be used as a trigger.
H ow can public health organizations com pete against the
m arketing strength o f better-funded rivals like cigarette com ­
panies? O n e way to com bat this inequality is to transform a
85
Triggers
weakness into a strength: by m aking a rival’s message act as a trig­
ger for your own.
A famous antism oking campaign, for example, spoofed
M arlboro’s iconic ads by captioning a picture o f one M arlboro
cowboy talking to another w ith the words: “Bob, I’ve got em ­
physema.” So now w henever people see a M arlboro ad, it triggers
them to think about the antism oking message.
*
Researchers call this strategy the poison parasite because it
slyly injects “poison” (your message) into a rival’s message by
making it a trigger for your own.
WHAT MAKES FOR AN EFFECTIVE TRIGGER?
Triggers can help products and ideas catch on, but some stimuli
are better triggers than others.
As we discussed, one key factor is how frequently the stim u­
lus occurs. H o t chocolate w ould also have fitted really well w ith
Kit Kat, and the sweet beverage m ight have even com plem ented
the chocolate bar’s flavor better than coffee. But coffee is a m ore
effective trigger because people think about and see it m uch
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C O N TA G IO U S
m ore frequently. M ost people drink hot chocolate only in the
w inter, w hile coffee is consum ed year-round.
Similarly, M ichelob ran a successful campaign in the 1970s
that linked weekends w ith the beer brand (ltW eekends are made
for M ichelob”). However, that w asn’t the slogan w hen the cam­
paign started out. Originally the slogan was “Holidays are made
for M ichelob.” But this proved ineffective because the chosen
stim uli— holidays— don’t happen that often. So Anheuser-Busch
revised the slogan to “W eekends are made for M ichelob,” w hich
was m uch m ore successful.
Frequency, however, m ust also be balanced w ith the strength
o f the link. T he m ore things a given cue is associated w ith, the
weaker any given association. It’s like poking a hole in the bottom
o f a paper cup filled w ith water. If you poke ju st one hole, a strong
stream o f water will gush out. B ut poke m ore holes, and the pres­
sure o f the stream from each opening lessens. Poke too many
holes and you’ll get barely a trickle from each.
Triggers w ork the same way. T he color red, for example, is as­
sociated with m any things: roses, love, Coca-Cola, and fast cars, to
name ju st a few. As a result o f being ubiquitous, it’s not a particu­
larly strong trigger for any o f these ideas. Ask different people to
say the word that first comes to their m ind w hen they think o f red
and you’ll see w hat I mean.
C om pare that w ith how m any people think “jelly” w hen you
say “peanut butter” and it will be clear w hy stronger, m ore un­
usual links are better. Linking a product or idea w ith a stimulus
that is already associated w ith m any things isn’t as effective as
forging a fresher, m ore original link.
It is also im portant to pick triggers that happen near w here the
desired behavior is taking place. C onsider a clever b u t ultimately
ineffective public service ad from N ew Zealand. A handsome,
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87
m uscular m an is taking a shower. In the background you hear a
catchyjingle about HeatFlow , a new tem perature-control system
that ensures you’ll always have sufficient hot water for long, luxu­
rious showers. T he m an turns off the water. W hen he opens the
show er door, an attractive w om an tosses him a towel. H e smiles.
She smiles. H e begins to step out o f the shower stall.
Suddenly, he slips. Falling, he cracks his head on the tile floor.
As he lies there, motionless, his arm twitches slightly. A voice­
over som berly intones: “Preventing slips around your hom e can
be as easy as using a bath m at.”
Wow. Definitely surprising. Extremely memorable. So m em ­
orable, I th ink about it every tim e I take a show er in a bathroom
that doesn’t have a m at on the floor.
But there’s only one problem.
I can’t buy a bath m at in a bathroom . T he message is physi­
cally rem oved from the desired behavior. U nless I leave the
bathroom , tu rn on my laptop, and buy a m at online, I have to
rem em ber the message until I get to a store.
C ontrast that w ith a N ew York City D epartm ent o f H ealth
(D O H ) antisoda campaign. W hile soda m ight seem like a rela­
tively low-calorie item com pared to all the food we eat during
the course o f a day, drinking sugary beverages actually has a big
impact on w eight gain. B ut the D O H didn’t ju st w ant to tell
people how m uch sugar was in soda, it wanted to make sure
people w ould rem em ber to change their behavior and spread the
message to others.
So the D O H m ade a video showing som eone opening w hat
seems like a norm al soda can. B ut w hen he starts to pour it into
a glass, out spills fat. Blob after blob o f white, chunky fat. T he
guy picks the glass up and knocks the fat back ju st as one w ould a
regular soda— chunks and all.
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88
T he “Man Drinks Fat” clip closes with a huge congealed chunk
o f fat being dropped on a dinner plate. It oozes over the table as a
message flashes up on the screen: “Drinking one can o f soda a day
can make you 10 pounds fatter a year. So don’t drink yourself fat.”
T he video is clever. But by showing fat pouring out o f a can,
the D O H also nicely leveraged triggers. U nlike the bath m at ad,
its video triggered the message (don’t consum e sugary drinks) at
precisely the right time: w hen people are thinking o f drinking a
soda.
CONSIDER THE CONTEXT
These campaigns underscore how im portant it is to consider the
context: to think about the environm ents o f the people a message
or idea is trying to trigger. Different environm ents contain differ­
ent stimuli. Arizona is surrounded by desert. Floridians see lots
o f palm trees. Consequently, different triggers will be m ore or
less effective depending on w here people live.
Similarly, the effectiveness o f the hundred-dollar cheesesteak
that we talked about in the introduction depends on the city
w here it is introduced.
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89
A hundred-dollar sandwich is pretty remarkable, wherever
you are. B ut how frequently people will be triggered to think
about it depends on geography. In places w here people eat lots o f
cheesesteaks (Philadelphia), people w ould be triggered often, but
in other places (such as Chicago) not so m uch.
Even w ithin a given city or geographic region, people expe­
rience different triggers based on the tim e o f day or year. O ne
study we conducted around Hallow een, for example, found that
people were m uch m ore likely to think about products associated
w ith the color orange (such as orange soda or Reese’s Pieces) the
day before Hallow een than a week later. Before Halloween, all
the orange stim uli in the environm ent (pum pkins and orange
displays) triggered thoughts o f orange products. But as soon
as the holiday was over, those triggers disappeared, and so did
thoughts o f orange products. People m oved on to thinking about
Christm as or w hatever holiday came next.
So w hen thinking about, say, how to rem em ber to take your
reusable grocery bags to the grocery store, think about w hat will
trigger you at exactly the right time. U sing reusable grocery bags
is like eating m ore vegetables. We know we should do it. We
even w ant to do it (most o f us have bought the bags). But w hen it
r^)comes tim e to take action, we forget.
T hen, right as we pull into the grocery store parking lot, we
rem em ber. Argh, I forgot the reusable grocery bags! But by then
it’s too late. W e’re at the store and the grocery bags are at hom e in
the closet.
It’s no accident that we th in k about reusable bags right
w hen we get to the store. T he grocery is a strong trigger for the
bags. B ut unfortunately it is a badly tim ed one. Just as w ith the
bath m at public service announcem ent, the idea is com ing to
m ind, but at the w rong tim e. T o solve this problem , we need
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90
to be rem inded to bring the bags right w hen we are leaving the
house.
W hat’s a good trigger in this instance? A nything you have to
take w ith you to buy groceries. Your shopping list, for example,
is a great one. Imagine if every tim e you saw your shopping list, it
made you think o f your reusable bags. It w ould be m uch harder
to leave the bags at hom e.
WHY CHEERIOS GETS MORE WORD
OF MOUTH THAN DISNEY WORLD
T o return to the example that started the chapter, triggers help
explain w hy Cheerios get m ore w ord o f m outh than Disney
W orld. True, Disney W orld is interesting and exciting. T o use
the language o f other chapters in the book, it has high Social C u r­
rency and evokes lots o f Em otion (next chapter). But the problem
is that people don’t think about it very frequently. M ost people
don’t go to D isney W orld unless they have kids. Even those w ho
do go don’t go that often. O nce a year if that. And there are few
triggers to rem ind them about the experience after the initial ex­
citem ent evaporates.
But hundreds o f thousands o f people eat C heerios for break­
fast every day. Still m ore see the bright orange boxes every tim e
they push their shopping carts dow n the superm arket cereal aisle.
And these triggers make Cheerios m ore accessible, increasing the
chance that people will talk about the product.
T he num ber o f times C heerios and Disney are m entioned
on T w itter illustrates this nicely. Cheerios are m entioned m ore
frequently than Disney W orld. But examine the data closely and
you’ll notice a neat pattern.
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Mention of Cheerios on Twitter
M entions o f C heerios spike every day at approximately the
same tim e. T h e first references occur at 5:00 a.m. They peak
betw een 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. And they dim inish around
11:00 a.m. T his sharp increase and corresponding decline align
precisely w ith the traditional tim e for breakfast. T he pattern
even shifts slightly on weekends w hen people eat breakfast later.
Triggers drive talking.
Triggers are the foundation o f w ord o f m outh and conta­
giousness. T o use an analogy, think o f m ost rock bands. Social
C urrency is the front m an or w om an. It’s exciting, fun, and gets
lots o f attention. Triggers could be the drum m er or bassist. It’s
not as sexy a concept as Social C urrency, but it’s an im portant
workhorse that gets the jo b done. People may not pay as m uch
attention to it, b ut it lays the groundw ork that drives success. T he
m ore som ething is triggered, the m ore it will be top o f m ind, and
the m ore successful it will become.
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C O N TA G IO U S
So we need to consider the context. Like Budw eiser’s “was­
sup” or Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” our products and ideas need
to take advantage o f existing triggers. We also need to grow the
habitat. Like C olleen C horak’s Kit Kat and coffee, we need to
create new links to prevalent triggers.
Triggers and cues lead people to talk, choose, and use. Social
currency gets people talking, but Triggers keep them talking.
Top o f m ind m eans tip o f tongue.