Malcolm Gladwell’s best seller• Thomas Schelling (Nobel
Prize winner) first introduced the concept of “tipping points” in 1972
• Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept in his best seller
Downside of traditional marketing/advertising
• Cost:– TV and print ads are expensive
• Media clutter:– It is difficult for products to stand out
against the background of advertising• Cynicism:
– Consumers, especially Gen X and Gen Y consumers, are jaded and cynical about “obvious” marketing
• TIVO, DVRs:– Consumers can avoid TV commercials
altogether• Segmentation:
– Consumers aren’t heterogeneous, they are segmented into different markets
Viral Marketing
• Steve Jurvetson and Tim Draper coined the term “viral marketing” in 1997.
• a.k.a. below the radar marketing, buzz marketing, stealth advertising
• Relies on word-of-mouth (WOM) endorsements– like a virus, word about a product or
service spreads from one consumer to another
Examples, intentional and unintentional
• Live Strong bracelets (and the whole wrist band craze)
• Ipods, Iphones• accessory dogs• “Support Our Troops”
stickers• Juicy Couture handbags• Hip Hop (culture as a
commodity)
More examples of buzz gone wild
• JenniCam• Razor scooters• Harry Potter books• Wii Fit• YouTube• MySpace, Facebook• Blogs, blogging, the
blogosphere
Methods and techniques• Poseurs: “ordinary person at a
bar, in line at a concert, at a soccer field– Sony Ericcson hired 120 actors
and actresses to play tourists at popular attractions around the country.The “tourists” asked passersby to take their picture with a T68i cell phone that featured a digital camera
• Trendsetters and early adopters– Use of “cool hunters” and
“trend spotters”
• Imitation, social modeling– yellow magnetic ribbons
saying “Support the Troops”
• Email, chat rooms, and blogs• Manufactured controversies:
– Ambercrombie & Fitch sold thong underwear in children’s sizes, with the words “eye candy” printed on the front
Malcolm Gladwell’s notion of “Tipping Points”
• Tipping point:– the threshold or critical point at which an idea,
product, or message takes off or reaches critical mass.
• Viral theory of marketing:– ideas and messages can be contagious just like
diseases • The law of the few
– It doesn’t take large numbers of people to generate a trend
– A select few enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence over the spread of social trends
Tipping points--continued• The stickiness factor
– idea, message, or product has to be “sticky” or inherently attractive
– idea must be memorable, practical, personal, novel
– hard to manufacture this feature• Power of context
– must happen at the right time, place– for example, social networking (MySpace,
Facebook) wouldn’t be possible without widespread access to the Internet
– rule of 150: Groups grow too large and loose cohesion at 150
Key influencers• Connectors: know everybody, are networkers, have many
contacts– “Connectors are social glue: they spread it.” (Gladwell)– Have large social circles
• Mavens: possess information, expertise, and seek to share it– “Mavens are data banks. They provide the message”
(Gladwell)– Are “in the know”
• Salesman: are persuasive– Charismatic types– Often rely on “soft” influence
• Note: All three types are needed for a phenomenon to take-off
Other concerns
• Scalability: message must be able to go from very small to very large without “gearing up.”
– Wii couldn’t ramp up manufacturing and lost millions in sales.
• Effortless transfer: message must be passed on for free, or nearly free, or “coast” on existing networks.
The downside• Not that scientific
– evidence is largely anecdotal
– phenomenon isn’t that reliable, predictable
– A bit of a “finger in the wind” approach to marketing
• viral marketing” is something of an oxymoron.– The more viral marketing is
planned or contrived, the less likely it is to succeed;
• Momentum may not reach the tipping point– no guarantee the initial
“buzz” will become contagious.
– difficult to orchestrate word of mouth
• Trends come and go quickly– like a contagion, a trend can
die out quickly or be replaced by a new trend