Gone Viral

A digital book review of Jonah Berger's Contagious: Why Things Catch On

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Why Things Catch On.

I’ve always wondered how Chewbacca Mom,  the infamous Dress debate, or the Cronut became so colectively popular.  Internet memes, products and popular hashtags seemingly arrive out of nowhere and become part of our collective internet experience in much of the world. What qualities promote virality? Is there a common thread between these very different viral ideas? Can you produce this type of content or is it part luck and internet alchemy?  i’m reading the book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger for a digital book review as part of the online class “Social Media Marketing”. Jonah Berger believes that using his STEPPS framework (see infographic below) it is possible to make any idea, service or product catch on. The book is divided into sections based on the framework: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories. I will be using this space to discuss each section of his premise and evaluate his thesis that STEPPS can make any idea catch on. 

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Social Currency + Yelp

I was a member of the Yelp Elite Squad for many years. There were perks in the form of exclusive parties but the main reason I was motivated came from my desire to share and seem in-the-know.  Yelp created an online community using great game mechanics - hierarchy and insider status was leveraged through elite status that could be gained through popular and consistent reviewing, metrics such as votes of being ‘useful’, ‘funny’, or ‘cool’ by the yelp community added to the fun, and being the ‘reviewer of the day’ boosted your influence. My favourite review status to garner was “First to Review” - the ultimate yelp social currency that meant you were ahead of the pack and you had found that new restaurant or coffee shop before your peers. Yelp was addictive and fun for an over-sharer like myself. Yelp’s revenue model is based on advertising but has users generate content for free because are aware that people like to share, as Jonah Berger mentions:

"…sharing personal opinions activated the same brain circuits that respond to rewards like food and money"*

The gamification of Yelp is the perfect example of Jonah Berger’s theory that social currency, or looking good to others, can help things catch on without the use of monetary incentives. This section of his STEPPS model is clearly written with actionable ideas about creating social currency through exclusivity, loyalty programs, leveraging game theory, and finding remarkable qualities in ideas and products that people naturally want to share. 

*p.34, Jonah Berger, Contagious referencing Jason Mitchell + Diana Tamir study “Disclosing Information about the Self is Instrically Rewarding” (2012)

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Triggers

Jonah Berger continues his research on social currency in this section to figure out what keeps people talking about products, brands, and ideas. Testing the hypothesis that these ideas must be interesting, through research he realizes the frequency with which we encounter something is important, suggesting we naturally talk about cheerios more than Disney World because we are TRIGGERED to talk about them.  

“The more something is triggered, the more it will be top of the mind, and the more successful it will become.”*

Berger suggests creating triggers and associations between frequent occurrences in your target market’s life such as Kit Kat and their ‘A Break’s Best Friend’ campaign.  Kit Kat skillfully created a psychological association between coffee breaks and Kit Kat bars. To this day when I think of Kit Kat bars, the “Give me a Break” jingle pops into my head. This type of ‘earworm’ jingle is easy to suggest as a marketing tool but isn’t so easy to achieve. The ideas in this section of Contagious are incredibly interesting but do not seem as easily actionable for smaller scale marketers. 

photo source: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/psychology-marketing-spotlight-success-01523995#wWuDBSWr3mux6rEW.97 *p.91, Jonah Berger, Contagious.

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Emotion

Do all emotions lead consumers to action? Jonah Berger has outlined that ‘high arousal’ emotions - both positive and negative - are the key to emotionally actionable responses. The emotions of awe, excitement, amusement (humour), anger and anxiety are extremely effective for marketing while contentment and sadness are not. 

"Emotions drive people to action. They make us laugh, shout and cry, and they make us talk, share and buy. So rather than quoting statistics or providing information, we need to focus on feelings.”*

With this in mind, I thought of my own social sharing and what makes me share on Facebook? I took a snapshot of the last 8 items I shared to see if they were congruent with Berger’s theory on what emotions lead to action. Take a look at the screen shots below and you see that all but one of the articles I shared evoke awe, anger, anxiety or amusement with the “Cheese Boutique” article proving useful for my friends in my neighbourhood. 

Jonah Berger clearly states something marketers have known for a long time - that emotions are key. This doesn’t appear to be groundbreaking but his research methods and inclusion of negative emotions does seem to be a addition to the conversation. 

*p.123. Jonah Berger, Contagious.

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Public

“We need to make the private public. If something is built to show, it’s built to grow.”*

Apple are masters of creating public social proof - the idea that if other people are doing something, we should as well. Apple makes it clear in every design choice that they intend everyone to know you are using their product. The laptop I am typing on to write this report has a glowing apple on its exterior, the iPod and now iPhone have distinctive white headphones, but why does this matter? Berger explains that products and ideas become popular when they are observable. Social proof is apparent in my everyday life. All of the parents in my neighbourhood use one of two brands of high-end strollers, everyone at the gym likes Swell water bottles, MacBooks are essentially the only laptops at my local coffee shop and on Saturday morning the line-up at one particular brunch spot is longer than the rest. Are we sheep? Or do we like to know the products we consume are vouched for, thereby making it easier to make decisions? I’d like to say the latter, but I do tend to wonder if we all can be sheepish in our purchasing.  This section of Berger's Contagious hits home that design is paramount. It is more effective to have a product people are talking about AND seeing in public. Small marketers should heed the advice of creating a public visual cue when trying to create a buzz about their ideas or products.    

Ipod ad image source: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/greatest-marketer-age-135597?page=2 *p.153, Jonah Berger, Contagious. 

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Practical Value

I read about this video of Ken Craig and his amazing corn shucking viral sensation in Contagious before i watched the video. In theory, I understood how this could have gone viral but when I saw the video, the culinary dork in me gasped when I saw how effective his technique was. My first reaction was that I needed to share the video on Facebook. Jonah Berger reminds readers of one of the most obvious reasons why things become popular - practical value. Practical things become popular because we need good products in our lives and we like to pass on practical information.

I think the best part of the Ken Craig video is when he laughs. It’s a sweetly authentic moment that emotionally connects me to this man. Would this video have been as popular if a teenage boy was shucking corn? Doubtful. This type of virality is truly like catching lightning in a bottle. There was no motive to become a viral sensation and it shows. Creating practical value may be easy but making it “catch on” is a whole other matter that must employ many of his other STEPPS. Practicality is not necessarily the main driver of popularity but certainly helps.

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Stories

“So build a Social Currency-laden, Triggered, Emotional, Public, Practically Valuable Trojan Horse, but don’t forget to hide your message inside. Make sure your desired information is so embedded into the plot that people can’t tell the story without it.”* 

Reading the passage above in Contagious made me extremely anxious. My first thought was, “Oh really, Jonah, IS THAT ALL?!” and my second thought was that many companies do this type of storytelling very well. Lululemon are masters at creating a narrative that subtly highlights their product by creating a clear story of health, wellness and mindful living with their photos (see Lululemon’s Instagram account below). While all marketers may not have the reach and budget of the best brand storytellers, there is a lot of value in the idea that a brand should have a narrative to attach their product to. This section of the book, albeit short, was extremely actionable and practical. 

photo source: https://www.instagram.com/lululemon/ *p.201. Jonah Berger, Contagious.