Contagious Flashcards
Things catch on because
they’re better, better priced, or well-advertised.
The better reason things catch on is because
of social transmission:
Social transmission:
people love to share stories, news and information with those around them.
A huge influence on our purchasing decisions is
word of mouth.
We need to design things so
people talk about them.
Virality isn’t born, it’s made.
1st Principle of Contagiousness:
Social Currency: how does it make it people look?
To talk about a product or idea, people want to look:
smart over dumb, rich over poor, etc
What we talk about
influences how people see us, it’s a social currency.
We need to craft our products and ideas
to help people achieve their desired impressions: that they’re sharp and in the know
Make people feel like
insiders
2nd Principle of Contagious
Triggers: stimuli that prompt people to talk about related things.
Design products and ideas that
are frequently triggered by the environment.
Top of the mind leads to
tip of the tongue.
3rd Principle of Contagiousness:
Emotion
When we care
we share.
Make ideas and products that
make people feel something.
Some emotions
increase sharing, while others decrease it.
4th Principle of Contagiousness:
Publicity: if people can see others using the product or idea, monkey see, monkey do
Make products that ad…
advertise themselves and create behaviors (behavioral residue)
5th principle of contagiousness:
Practical Value: how do we make our thing useful?
People like to help others, so show people
how our product or idea helps people save time, money, improve health, etc, and people will spread the word.
Highlight what makes
the product a particularly good deal.
6th Principle of Contagiousness:
Stories: in what broader narrative can we wrap our product or idea?
People don’t just share information,
they tell stories
STEPPS:
Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Publicity, Practical Value, Stories
Please Don’t Tell
the fact that something is a secret makes it more likely that people will share something
(social currency)
We’re wired to enjoy sharing
our opinions and likes
SC
sharing personal opinions
triggers the same brain circuits that respond to food and money
SC
People in experiments were willing to forego small amounts of money to
share their opinions
SC
Word of mouth is how we
create a good impression:
Just as we use money to buy goods and services,
we use social currency to achieve desired positive impressions with other people.
Mint SC:
give people a way to make them look good, while also promoting your product
Mint SC #1: Find
Find inner remarkability
People talk about remarkable things because
it makes us more remarkable, like sharing a secret pub
We often exaggerate because
we fill in the pieces we forget as best we can, though not randomly, and in the process our stories get bigger and better
When we exaggerate, we fill in
numbers that make us look good: a fish doubles in size, the baby woke seven times in a night.
Remarkability:
breaks expectations: $100 Cheesesteak, blair witch project, a roll of black toilet paper
MINT SC #2: Leverage
Leverage game mechanics:
Good game (mechanics)
good game mechanics keep people having fun, engaged and wanting more
Examples of Game Mechanics:
Buy 10 get one free, frequent flyer miles,
People prefer to do better than others, such as picking
a $100K a year job where everyone else there makes $75, over making $150K a year, where everyone else makes $200K.
People don’t care so much about how they’re doing, so much as
how they’re doing in comparison to others.
People love __ so they can boast about how they’re doing.
Hierarchies
People talk because they want to __, and on the way, they talk about __
talk about their achievements, and they talk about the brands that enable them.
Gamify:
create metrics that let people know where they stand.
MINT #3: Make People feel like
Insiders.
How to make people feel like insiders:
membership (private shopping area that only members can access), membership by referral only, (if money can’t buy you in, then it’s who you know), Scarcity, exclusivity,
People think cookies taste better when
they’re scarce (etc)
Disney does the same thing as the cookie example with their movies, creating
scarcity/limited availability, which means we have to acct now.
McRib:
creates scarcity by making people want it
Triggers create ongoing
word of mouth, keeping them talking about it.
Triggers are made of…such as…
sights, sounds smells…such as mars bars selling more when NASA made a trip to mars.
French or German music triggers people
to buy French or German wine, respectively
Dining Room Tray Slogan: Each and every dining hall tray needs five fruits and veggies a day:
Students shown the corny tray slogan changed their eating habits because the tray used a trigger students see in the cafeteria, even though they said it wouldn’t and liked it less than the non corny one, but the tray was a trigger for the fruits and veggies
Polling location has dramatic effect on …, such as…
on voting behavior, such as voting in a school triggered more school-friendly voting, like more taxes to raise school budget
The Rebecca Black song Friday
triggered people to play it on Fridays, even though it was bad.
A strong trigger can be much stronger than
a catchy slogan, like the example with the tray
Geico’s catchy “so easy a caveman could do it”
wasn’t effective, because cavemen aren’t a trigger in our daily lives.
Kit Kat’s give me a break:
linked kit kats to coffee to increase sales
Triggers should happen
daily, not on holidays that are once a year
We forget out reusable grocery bags because
we don’t remember the bags until we get to the store to check out, which is a badly timed trigger.
Instead, link it to the shopping list?
Emotion: Our tendency to gossip
shapes our relationships with friends and strangers, for good or ill
People often check out what others have
shared, as we don’t have time to check out everything
An emotion that triggers people to share:
awe, such as provoked by science articles
Ask why 3-5 times until you not only drill down to the core of an idea, but to
the emotion behind it.
Emotion: Don’t just talk about global warming,
talking about polar bears dying or how kids will be affected.
Kindle the fire:
select high arousal emotions that drive people to action.
Excite or inspire people
by showing them how they can make a difference.
If it’s negative, get people mad,
not sad.
More __ or more __ led to more __
anger, humor, sharing
Arousing situations of any kind
drive people to share, even exercising
After exercising, or nearly getting into a car accident, or a novel life event,
we may overshare our experiences with others (highly aroused and talkative)
We talk more about ads in shows that
are closer to the exciting and highly arousing moments in the show (is this true?)
Observability:
seeing what other people are doing and using has a huge influence on sales and what people do, and how they act
Thoughts are private, but behavior is public, so
the majority of students who are uncomfortable with binge drinking choose to drink because they see everyone else doing it.
A small vocal majority can increase because
people see it and switch,
ike kids in MBA programs who initially say they wanted to do something in a random field, but a year in say they want to go into invenstment banking, because that had 20% at the beginning of program, the highest.
The easier something is to see,
the more people talk about it.
People may change their views for the worse
because they feel their views aren’t publicly supported (binge drinking)
Livestrong bands increased
social proof, yellow, striking, not associated with either gender
Just say no to drugs campaign:
backfired because it made drug use more public, increasing usage
Built to show
is built to grow.
Psychology of deals: grill
people will pay more for the same grill if it’s $100 off for
a total of $250 rather than the grill at another store that’s only $15 off but costs
a total of $240, because it seems like a better deal
Reference points:
people use the price they expect to pay for something as their reference point;
the first grill was 350, the other 255; out grandparents think a movie is expensive because they remember when it was 25 cents
Infomercials set the reference point of what you should pay,
and then a blast you with the deal
reference points
Retailers list the regular price even when things are on sale
reference points
so you can see the difference.
People are so set on getting a good deal,
they’ll even pay more to get it.
Reference Point Clock vs TV:
People would drive 10 minutes to another store if the $20 clock was on sale for $10, but they wouldn’t drive 10 minutes to another store if a tv for $650 dollars was on sale for $640 dollars, because it doesn’t seem like as much of a bargain
Reference Point: Winning Money
If you found out you won $20 instead of $10, you’d be happy, but if you won $1020 dollars instead of $1010, you wouldn’t be as happy
Restricting a deal through scarcity and exclusivity
makes it seem more valuable
Rewarding only members to a promotion or deal makes it more valuable and boosts sharing
Offers that are available for limited time seem more
appealing because of the restriction; because it won’t be around forever, it makes people feel like a good one
Framing Discounts:
for a $25 shirt, saying 20% off sounds better than saying $5 off, whereas for a laptop, saying $200 off sounds better than 10% off.
If the product is less than $100, percentage discounts wil seem larger. For more than $100, dollar amounts will seem larger
Highly shared content often
has short lists focused on key topics
Narrower content is often shared more because
it reminds people of a specific person in mind to share it with, and they feel compelled to pass it along
Stories: information travels udner the guise of
idle chatter
Homer ensured that lessons would be shared by
encasing lessons in stories
but just giving the lesson without a story means the lesson will probably be forgotten.
Narratives are more engrossing than
facts.
People tell the story of going through the phone booth at PDT because
it’s a narrative that makes them look cool and in the know.
Online reviews often have stories because
people are used to telling stories about things, and people like reading about stories.
If your ad has nothing to do with your product,
virality won’t help your sales, and could even hurt them
Make sure your brand or product is so embedded in the plot,
that people can’t tell the story without it.
