The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: Notes & Review, The Art of Everyday Assertiveness: Notes & Review, 7 Proven Responses to 7 Offensive Jokes (W/ Examples), WIIFT: When & How to Use It (& When to Avoid It), Dating For Low Self-Esteem Women: Consequences & Fixes. Berger explains that “regardless of how plain or boring a product or idea may seem, there are ways to make it contagious…” if you know the right way to do it. “When trying to generate word of mouth, many people forget one important detail. Jonah details multiple examples of viral content that was shared widely, but failed to have any positive impact on the brand. “As prospect theory illustrates, one key factor in highlighting incredible value is what people expect. The author says that Mars bars saw a big uptick in sales when NASA launched an expedition to, guess where? Contagious: Why Things Catch On examines why certain media goes viral—videos, articles, memes—and others never get shared at all. Jonah suggests brands use scarcity and exclusivity to make customers feel like insiders. We share our likes, opinions, and more, letting other people know who we are. Jonah Berger goes after the idea that you have to hit the opinion leaders to make your message spread. Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger's new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, distills six principles that cause people to talk about … In fact, we will see in Chapter 3 of this summary that one is better than the other to increase the chances of an idea going viral. Make your product remarkable, so people will want to share it. “Another factor that affects whether deals seem valuable is their availability. How viral happens. If you’ve ever wondered why certain ideas get shared, brands get more word of mouth, or videos go viral, this book explains why. In an analysis of thousands of New York Times articles to better understand why certain … The case study is about how a popular yellow wristband came about. The STEPPS “Making something more observable makes it easier to imitate. I’m afraid that virality is, in good part, the product of pure randomness. Some ideas catch on for simply being better than the alternatives. “Researchers find that whether a discount seems larger as money or percentage off depends on the original price.”. Putting a product on sales, even when the price stays the same, increases demand. Game Mechanics help create social currency because it can give a positive impression to others in our group whose opinions we value. Did you know the reason why the Apple logo on laptops doesn’t face you when the laptop is closed? They figured out how to take support for an abstract cause—something not typically observable—and make it something that everyone can see.”. Emotion. Even this summary is hard to read, because Berger’s editor failed to catch writing elements, like mixed metaphors, that detract from the message: “Contagious … Judgments and decisions are not always rational or optimal. For example, many college students don’t enjoy drinking, but drink anyway because externally everybody is drinking and all others whom don’t enjoy drinking are actually keeping it private. But that doesn’t mean you can’t somewhat increase the odds with some good knowledge, research and creativity. Just remember, one of the ways to help make a product or idea contagious is to somehow make it publically observable. Jonah Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior. Very interestingly, Jonah Berger says that when we are in aroused states we tend to share more than we’d normally want. One way he says to do this is by “breaking a pattern people have to come to expect” or just focus on what about your product makes it stand out from all the rest. : Few people have time to seek out the best content in this ocean of. Once again, I suggest you read the book so you can understand the studies and stories he uses to back up these points and to understand them more in depth. A company needs to “give people a way to make themselves look good while promoting their products and ideas along the way.” He says, “There are three ways to do that: (1) find inner remarkability; (2) leverage game mechanics; and (3) make people feel like insiders.” (36). Jonah Berger says that interesting products receive more immediate word of mouth than boring ones, but interesting per se doesn’t sustain word of mouth over time. And sharing something that others will find interesting will give us social points. As you can probably put together, immediate happens very quickly after being influenced by a product, while ongoing can happen way later. “When we care, we share” (96) There are emotions that most people deem positive while … He is considered an expert on word of mouth, social influence and viral marketing. The ads basically said that drugs are bad but also, crucially, that other people are doing it. Just as perceptual processes influence whether we see a particular sweater as red or view an object on the horizon as far away, they also influence whether a price seems high or a deal seems good.” (163), “One of the main tenets of prospect theory is that people don’t evaluate things in absolute terms. The author says that focusing on feelings is likely to increase sharing and even seemingly dull products can find a way (example of Google search with the story of a couple told through their search queries). “People don’t think in terms of information. Sadness and contentment decrease arousal, slow us down and make us relax, leading us to share less. Emotion. Not just virality but valuable virality.”. PUBLIC. But if the tip jar is already brimming with money, they assume that everyone must be tipping, and thus they should tip as well.”, The observability of a product “has a huge impact on whether products and ideas catch on.”, An example he provides of this is, “The Movember Foundation succeeded because they figured out how to make the private public. Jonah Berger beings by saying that one of the elements of virality is simply having a great product. "Going viral" is, at its heart, people telling their friends about something interesting, useful, funny, or just plain cool. Similarly, when a presentation has finished and the presenter asks if there are any questions nobody asks anything, because while nobody else has probably understood, the public and visible tell us that we are probably the only ones who didn’t get it. When the ads said that only 37% of music was being paid for, the author implies the message was counterproductive. It isn’t the only reason we share though. He describes two types of word of mouth: immediate and ongoing. What is then the secret to make our messages contagious? Contagious: Why Things Catch On - Ebook written by Jonah Berger. Humans like to share things — it is one of the main reasons social media is so popular. What did you learn from Contagious? I want to note that to really take away the most from this section you will want to read the book because he shares a lot of useful information to back up his point. Contagious Book Summary & Review in PDF The Power Moves - Jonah Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Contagious: Why Things Catch On. Make the customer try to achieve something or accrue some kind of currency, such as Regal crown club points that make a person more likely to visit a Regal theater again rather than a competitor because they want to accrue more points. The example of the music industry was simply a big laugh for me. About The Author: Jonah Berger holds a PhD in marketing and is currently a professor at the Wharton School. What Jonah found was that the most viral articles usually included high arousal emotions. Contagious analyzes that traits and characteristics that viral products, ads and ideas all have in common. Introduction: Why Things Catch On. As Jonah puts it, “If the tip jar is empty, their customers may assume that other people aren’t really tipping and decide not to tip much themselves either. These values also have to be easy for people to see. People share things that makes them look good. Jonah Berger says that we don’t think in terms of information, but in terms of narrative. If You Want Your Message to Spread, You Need to Get People Talking, and Imitating b. The benefit of a product that can be seen in the public eye is that “every time people use the product or service, they also transmit social proof or passive approval because usage is observable.” Its usage by others thus helps advertise it to others. You may not have realized it, but often times in bars or coffee shops, the employees stuff the tip jar before their shift. In fact, “sadness articles were actually 16 percent less likely to make the Most E-Mailed list.”, Jonah Berger suggests to marketers that “rather than harping on features or facts, we need to focus on feelings; the underlying emotions that motivate people to action.”, The way he suggests marketers go about this is by mentioning advice from the book Made To Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, which says “talk about using the ‘Three Whys’ to find the emotional core of an idea. What about the color red and the word soda together? He goes into several case studies of how marketers were able to link up certain triggers with certain brands causing sales to rise because people would buy them more oftenbecause they were be triggered to do so whether they were aware of it or not. He says that, “Sights, smells, and sounds can trigger related thoughts and ideas, making them more top of mind…Why does it matter if particular thoughts or ideas are top of mind? Social Currency. Reading over some uncharitable reviews on Amazon, I saw that some felt Berger’s observations were “obvious,” and “common sense.”I disagree.Deep truths can seem obvious when someone smart simplifies them for us, but the process of actually identifying them is not a trivial one. Contagious content, like a good joke, is inherently viral because it spreads regardless of who is doing the talking Social currency – people share things that make them look good to others People don’t just care how they’re doing, they care about their performance in relation to other As Jonah Berger puts it, “just as people use money to buy products or services, they use social currency to achieve desired positive impressions among their families, friends, and colleagues.”, Jonah says marketers need to use social currency to achieve great word-of-mouth for a product. What do hot dogs tend to make you think about if you’re an American? Have you ever wondered why items sometimes use a percentage instead of a number when they offer a discount? Happiness, awe, and joy are considered positive, while sadness, anger, and anxiety tend to be viewed as negative. This complete summary of the ideas from Jonah Berger’s book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” reveals the six key principles that make a product or an idea contagious. What was your favorite takeaway? There are emotions that most people deem positive while there are other emotions that are deemed negative. Owen Exec. Summary of Contagious: Why Things Catch On By Jonah Berger 1-Page Summary The book starts by laying out what the author believes are the Six Principles of Contagiousness called STEPPS: social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories. People shared the video of a blender smashing marbles because it was interesting and unexpected. “Contagious” is easy to read, insightful and highly applicable. Jobs realized that seeing others do something makes people more likely to … That of activation, or physiological arousal.”, And as a side note, though you probably know what arousal is, but just in case, “arousal is a state of activation and readiness for action.”. Then ask “Why is this important?” three times. Comment below or tweet to us @storyshots. “The key, then, is to not only make something viral, but also make it valuable to the sponsoring company or organization. “Great game mechanics can even create achievement out of nothing. by Kim Hartman This is a summary of what I think is the most important and insightful parts of the book. It was reversed where and advertising campaign linked KitKat to coffe, so that people would use the coffe trigger to eat a KitKat bar. They focus so much on getting people to talk that they ignore that part that really matters: what people are talking about.”, You don’t want to create a story that has people talking about the story and sharing it, but not talking about the organization behind it. Thus a key factor in driving products to catch on is public visibility.”. He did it by using great ingredients and asking for an exorbitant price: a hundred dollars. They think in terms of narratives… Stories carry things. The author says that for product above 100 it’s better to highlight the amount and for products worth less than 100 it’s better to state the percentage. If possible, marketers should implement game mechanics into their marketing and product plan. CHAPTER 1. There is also an argument by psychologists “that emotions can also be classified based on a second dimension. Principle 4: Public ideas, products or social things make them much easier to share and imitate. “Just like many other animals, people care about hierarchy,” aka we are prone to status displays. Observability. TRIGGERS. Jonah Berger presents a very few interesting cases on how what’s public influences us even when in private most people would think otherwise. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger Summary This book is perfect for anyone who wants to learn more about how to spread ideas, increase brand awareness, or grow their customer base. “Behavioral residue is the physical traces or remnants that most actions or behaviors leave in their wake.” He goes in-depth into a case study about this effect. When it’s woven so deeply into the narrative that people can’t tell the story without mentioning it.”, So make the message you are trying to tell critical to the story. Advertising also helps, Jonah Berger says that word of mouth is more effective than advertising because it’s more persuasive and more targeted. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. We see this theory in use all of the time when it comes to the concept of a ‘sale’ at a store. Top of mind means tip of tongue.”, He says, “one key factor is how frequently the stimuli occurs” and that “linking a product or idea with a stimulus that is already associated with many things isn’t as effective as forging a fresher, more original link.”, “It is also important to pick triggers that happen near where the desired behavior is taking place” and to “think about the environments of the people a message or idea is trying to trigger.”. Jonah Berger says that it’s six principles: It’s important to notice that Jonah Berger says that the principles are not like ingredients. 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