Wharton School marketing professor and author of The Viral Effect Jonah Berger reveals the world of viral ideas.
accounting for 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions.
Word of mouth can achieve much list of georgia cell phone numbers more than traditional advertising – it is more persuasive (people trust their friends and family more than the spots they watch on TV) and targeted (people share stories with those who are actually interested in the topic – we recommend a good restaurant that has just opened in the city centre because someone is asking about it).
$100 Sandwich Success
The strongest point of Berger’s book is the large number of interesting examples. The first one tells the story of Howard Wein, who managed a steakhouse. He called it Barclay Prime. The mission? To offer customers the best steaks in town. Wein knew it wouldn’t be easy. When he started his business in Philadelphia in 2004, 25% of restaurants went bankrupt within a year of opening, and 60% within the first three years. One reason was the lack of money for advertising, and standing out from hundreds of places is a must.
Wein knew he had to generate interest. Philadelphia already boasted a number of expensive restaurants, so Barclay Prime had to stand out somehow. Wein had to get his brand out there and make customers aware of its uniqueness. But how could he get them to even talk about it? So he came up with an unusual idea: he would create the most expensive sandwich in the city. It was a cheesesteak, a fast food item consisting of a baguette cut lengthwise, filled with sliced steak and baked with cheese. The dish usually cost about $5. Wein priced his delicacy at $100. To gain publicity, you had to elevate an ordinary sandwich to an extraordinary delicacy, and the price had to reflect that.
Wein offered consumers a sandwich that consisted of a house-baked bun, handmade mustard, thinly sliced Kobe beef, caramelized onions, Italian Taleggio cheese, black truffles, and American lobster tail. The sandwich was served with chilled Veuve Clicquot champagne. Howard Wein didn’t just invent another version of the beef and cheese sandwich, he created a topic of conversation.
What is viral?
The $100 sandwich is an example of a social epidemic , which can be defined as a situation where products, ideas, or behaviors spread in a specific social group . It all starts with a small group of people or organizations, and then jumps from person to person – almost like a virus. Word of mouth and social media play a big role here. People love to tell each other interesting stories, share news, or knowledge about something.
Social influence is responsible for whether a product children’s day – remember 5 campaigns that are true classics! idea, or behavior becomes popular and widespread. A new customer’s opinion of a restaurant translates into a $200 increase in sales. A five-star rating on Amazon.com sells about twenty more books than a one-star rating. Although advertising still works, of course, word-of-mouth marketing is at least ten times more effective.
How to make a product go viral?
The author of the book explains that no matter how simple or uninteresting a product may seem, there are ways to make it a success. This consists of six ingredients, hidden under the acronym STEPPS:
- social currency
- associations (triggers)
- emotions
- public
- practical value
- stories
These are the six principles of contagion guinea lists products or ideas that constitute social currency, are triggered by association, are emotional in their own right, are public and have practical value, and can be woven into a story.
#1. Social Currency
It is through an Instagram post or a story told at a party that we create our social image, Berger claims. We share our experiences, ideas and topics with others to make ourselves more interesting and fascinating in their eyes. This, in the author’s opinion, is the so-called social currency. It turns out that what we talk about determines how others perceive us, which leads us to share with others things that make us seem more fun, clever or intelligent.
Communication (verbal or online) is the best tool for creating a positive image. It’s a kind of currency. A social currency. In the same way that people use money to buy goods or services, social currency is used to make a favorable impression on family, friends, colleagues at work, or followers on social media. Therefore, to encourage people to talk about certain topics, companies need to create their own social currency. They need to provide customers with the opportunity to make a good impression with the products or ideas they want to promote. There are three ways to do this: first, find a unique feature in the product itself, second, use a game mechanism, and third, make the customer feel like they’ve been let into the circle of insiders.
→ curious by nature
Create something unique, eccentric, surprising, innovative. Think about how to differentiate your product, breaking away from what is typical, from what people expect from the experience of this service. Berger gives the example of JetBlue (a low-cost airline), which offers all passengers such amenities as high-quality snacks on board, comfortable seats or screens for watching movies or Snapple drink, under the cap of which you can always find some interesting thing (like in our Tymbark drinks). One way to cause surprise is to break away from the patterns. Who would expect that a low-cost airline would have high standards or that there would be something written under the cap of juices?
→ use of gamification
Use game elements to create something fun, interesting, something that will attract the consumer. Good game technique makes people engaged, motivated, always wanting more. This applies to loyalty programs in hotels, for example. People catchy content will do a lot to achieve a higher status and stay in a better standard. In addition, who doesn’t like to mention that they are a member of a prestigious loyalty group? Many competitions are based on the game mechanism. The Burberry brand set up a website called Art of the Trench, which collects photos of people wearing Burberry coats. Some of the photos post on it were taken by world-famous photographers, but you can also se your own photos with the famous trench coat in the lea role. In this way, people shar the website with others, showing that their photo was includ in such a distinguish group.