Contagious by Jonah Berger

Virality isn’t born, it’s made.

When we care, we share.

Virality is most valuable when the brand or product benefit is integral to the story. When it’s woven so deeply into the narrative that people can’t tell the story without mentioning it.

The Five Big Ideas

“One reason some products and ideas become popular is that they are just plain better”.

“We need to design products and ideas that are frequently triggered by the environment and create new triggers by linking our products and ideas to prevalent cues in that environment”.

“Naturally contagious content usually evokes some sort of emotion”.

“We need to design products and initiatives that advertise themselves and create behavioral residue that sticks around even after people have bought the product or espoused the idea”.

“People don’t just share information, they tell stories”.

Principles of Virality

Social Currency

Triggers

Emotion

Public

Practical Value

Stories

Contagious Summary

“Wein didn’t create just another cheesesteak, he created a conversation piece”.

“One reason some products and ideas become popular is that they are just plain better”.

“Research by the Keller Fay Group finds that only 7 percent of word of mouth happens online”.

“Virality isn’t born, it’s made”.

“How does it make people look to talk about a product or idea?”

“Triggers are stimuli that prompt people to think about related things”.

“People often talk about whatever comes to mind, so the more 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 environment and create new triggers by linking our products and ideas to prevalent cues in that environment”.

“When we care, we share”.

“Naturally contagious content usually evokes some sort of emotion”.

“Can people see when others are using our product or engaging in our desired behavior?”

“We need to design products and initiatives that advertise themselves and create behavioral residue that sticks around even after people have bought the product or espoused the idea”.

“People like to help others, so if we can show them how our products or ideas will save time, improve health, or save money, they’ll spread the word”.

“What broader narrative can we wrap our idea in?”

“People don’t just share information, they tell stories”.

“We need to make our message so integral to the narrative that people can’t tell the story without it”.

“People share things that make them look good to others”.

“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”.

“Give people a way to make themselves look good while promoting their products and ideas along the way. There are three ways to do that: (1) find inner remarkability; (2) leverage game mechanics; and (3) make people feel like insiders”.

“Remarkable things provide social currency because they make the people who talk about them seem, well, more remarkable”.

“One way to generate surprise is by breaking a pattern people have come to expect”.

“Emphasize what’s remarkable about a product or idea and people will talk”.

“People don’t just care about how they are doing, they care about their performance in relation to others”.

“Game mechanics help generate social currency because doing well makes us look good”.

“People are talking because they want to show off their achievements, but along the way they talk about the brands (Delta or Twitter) or domains (golf or the SAT) where they achieved”.

“Both used scarcity and exclusivity to make customers feel like insiders”.

“People don’t need to be paid to be motivated”.

“People are happy to talk about companies and products they like, and millions of people do it for free every day, without prompting. But as soon as you offer to pay people to refer other customers, any interest they had in doing it for free will disappear”.

“Give people a product they enjoy, and they’ll be happy to spread the word”.

“Interesting products didn’t get any more ongoing word of mouth than boring ones”.

“Triggers are like little environmental reminders for related concepts and ideas”.

“Why does it matter if particular thoughts or ideas are top of mind? Because accessible thoughts and ideas lead to action”.

“Different locations contain different triggers”.

“Could voting in a church lead people to think more negatively about abortion or gay marriage? Could voting in a school lead people to support education funding?”

“Top of mind means tip of tongue”.

“But as we saw in our fruits and vegetable study, a strong trigger can be much more effective than a catchy slogan. Even though they hated the slogan, college students ate more fruits and vegetables when cafeteria trays triggered reminders of the health benefits. Just being exposed to a clever slogan didn’t change behavior at all”.

“Products and ideas also have habitats or sets of triggers that cause people to think about them”.

“Triggers and cues lead people to talk, choose, and use. Social currency gets people talking, but Triggers keep them talking. Top of mind means tip of tongue”.

“Two reasons people might share things are that they are interesting and that they are useful”.

“It turns out that science articles frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries that evoke a particular emotion in readers. That emotion? Awe”.

“Awe is the sense of wonder and amazement that occurs when someone is inspired by great knowledge, beauty, sublimity, or might”.

“Articles that evoked anger or anxiety were more likely to make the Most E-Mailed list”.

“Rather than harping on features or facts, we need to focus on feelings; the underlying emotions that motivate people to action”.

“If situational factors end up making us physiologically aroused, we may end up sharing more than we planned”.

“Observability has a huge impact on whether products and ideas catch on”.

“Designing products that advertise themselves is a particularly powerful strategy for small companies or organizations that don’t have a lot of resources”.

“Behavioral residue is the physical traces or remnants that most actions or behaviors leave in their wake”.

“If something is built to show, it’s built to grow”.

“People like to pass along practical, useful information. News others can use”.

“Offering practical value helps make things contagious”.

“One of the biggest drivers of whether people share promotional offers is whether the offer seems like a good deal”.

“Not surprisingly, the size of the discount influences how good a deal seems.More people said they would purchase the grill in scenario A, even though they would have had to pay a higher price ($250 rather than $240) to get it”.

“The way people actually make decisions often violates standard economic assumptions about how they should make decisions”.

“Judgments and decisions are not always rational or optimal. Instead, they are based on psychological principles of how people perceive and process information”.

“One of the main tenets of prospect theory is that people don’t evaluate things in absolute terms. They evaluate them relative to a comparison standard, or ‘reference point’”.

“Diminishing sensitivity reflects the idea that the same change has a smaller impact the farther it is from the reference point”.

“If the product’s price is less than $100, the Rule of 100 says that percentage discounts will seem larger”.

“Stories, then, can act as vessels, carriers that help transmit information to others”.

“Information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter”.

“Virality is most valuable when the brand or product benefit is integral to the story. When it’s woven so deeply into the narrative that people can’t tell the story without mentioning it”.

“Certain characteristics make products and ideas more likely to be talked about and shared”.