In his book Contagious, Jonah Berger explained why some things catch on. In this interview he decodes the science behind why some things go viral and how companies can use it.
Seoul is hardly the nerve center for all things cool. Yet when South Korean singer Psy released his sixth album in July 2012, one song—Gangnam Style—rocked music charts, made Psy a superstar and firmly pinned Seoul’s hip Gangnam neighborhood on the world map. Within a month of release, the music video, which had Psy doing an amusing ‘horse dance’, was number one on Youtube’s most viewed list and a couple of days later it topped the iTunes music video charts. By the end of the year, the song had topped music charts in 30 countries. US president Barack Obama tried to imitate Psy’s funny dance on a TV show, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called the song a force for “world peace”.
Now was Gangnam Style such an out¬standing song? Maybe. Maybe not. So why did it become an overnight sensation?
Go back a couple of years and you’ll find similar instances—remember Los del Rio’s Macarena and Khaled’s Didi in the 1990s? And there is Susan Boyle’s more recent I Dreamed a Dream.
Why did these songs go viral? Most of us would attribute this to luck, chance or just random events. But Jonah Berger, Associate Professor of Marketing at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, firmly believes that there is a science behind why things go viral.
Still in his early thirties, Berger spent the last 10 years studying why things catch on. His research spans an array of areas: ranging from content on the internet, to brands, products and ideas, among other things. The result is a book titled Conta¬gious: Why Things Catch On, a New York Times bestseller.
Malcolm Gladwell is Only Partially Right
Back in the day when Berger was study¬ing at Stanford, his grandmother gave him Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book The Tipping Point, a book that sought to ex¬plain why ideas, trends and behaviors go viral. Gladwell’s thesis is simple: the ‘tip¬ping point’ is a moment when “an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a thresh¬old, tips, and spreads like wildfire”. He likens it to an epidemic, albeit a “social epidemic”, propagated in large part by people he classifies as connectors, mavens and salesmen. These people help spread the idea. Gladwell’s book had a profound influence on Berger and to a great extent, inspired his research.
Ask Berger about it today and he says that 50% of The Tipping Point is wrong— and it is his job to tell you which half. “The Tipping Point is very much based around the idea that certain special people, whether mavens, connectors, or salesmen, are more likely to make things catch on. “There is just no evidence to support that,” he says. “What our research shows is much more focused on the message rather than the messenger. I understand why all sorts of people, whether they have 10 friends or 10,000s, share things and how that drives things to catch on.”
What Berger is talking about is not about the “special people”—Gladwell’s mavens, connectors and salesmen—but the average Joes and Janes. If the message is convincing enough, it will appeal to them as well and encourage them to share. “The size of a forest fire doesn’t depend on the size of the initial spark, it depends on an entire forest being ready to catch blaze. The same is true with social influ¬ence,” explains Berger. Some people may have more friends or followers than oth¬ers, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into greater influence. “By understanding why people share, you can get all sorts of people passing along your message: [again] whether they have 10 friends or 10,000.”
The Science of Viral
Cat memes, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s ‘epic split’ video between two Volvo trucks, Honey Boo Boo clips, specs for the iPhone 6, the twin toilets at the Sochi Olympic stadium. Why do we share what we share? What is the psychology at work here?
The psychology of sharing is complex but Berger has boiled it down to six simple principles. He calls it his ‘STEPPS Mod¬el’: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value and Stories (See Jonah Berger's Six Stepps to Virality). The idea is that if you address these principles, you’ll be able to generate buzz and spread your message and idea quickly.
The second driver—Triggers—means that if something’s top of mind, the more it’s on the tip of a tongue. “If we are think¬ing of something more, it makes us more likely to share it,” says Berger. When Her¬shey’s was trying to rejuvenate Kit Kat, a brand on a downward spiral in 2007, it launched a campaign which positioned the chocolate wafers next to a cup of coffee with the tagline: “A break’s best friend”. Most Americans drink coffee a number of times in one day, and positioning Kit Kat next to coffee created a trigger that would remind people about the brand every time they had coffee. The strategy worked ap¬parently: sales went up by around 8% by the end of 2007, and up by a third at the end of 2008.
[This article has been reproduced with permission from CKGSB Knowledge, the online research journal of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), China's leading independent business school. For more articles on China business strategy, please visit CKGSB Knowledge.]