Contagious: Why Things Catch On (4 page)

Principle 4: Public

Can people see when others are using our product or engaging in our desired behavior? The famous phrase “Monkey see, monkey
do” captures more than just the human tendency to imitate. It also tells us that it’s hard to copy something you can’t see. Making things more observable makes them easier to imitate, which makes them more likely to become popular. So we need to make our products and ideas more public. 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.

Principle 5: Practical Value

How can we craft content that seems useful? 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. But given how inundated people are with information, we need to make our message stand out. We need to understand what makes something seem like a particularly good deal. We need to highlight the incredible value of what we offer—monetarily and otherwise. And we need to package our knowledge and expertise so that people can easily pass it on.

Principle 6: Stories

What broader narrative can we wrap our idea in? People don’t just share information, they tell stories. But just like the epic tale of the Trojan Horse, stories are vessels that carry things such as morals and lessons. Information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter. So we need to build our own Trojan horses, embedding our products and ideas in stories that people want to tell. But we need to do more than just tell a great story. We need to make virality valuable. We need to make our message so integral to the narrative that people can’t tell the story without it.

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These are the six principles of contagiousness: products or ideas that contain
Social Currency
and are
Triggered, Emotional, Public, Practically Valuable
, and wrapped into
Stories.
Each chapter focuses on one of these principles. These chapters bring together research and examples to show the science behind each principle and how individuals, companies, and organizations have applied the principles to help their products, ideas, and behaviors catch on.

These principles can be compacted into an acronym. Taken together they spell STEPPS. Think of the principles as the six STEPPS to crafting contagious content. These ingredients lead ideas to get talked about and succeed. People talked about the hundred-dollar cheesesteak at Barclay Prime because it gave them
Social Currency
, was
Triggered
(high frequency of cheesesteaks in Philadelphia),
Emotional
(very surprising),
Practically Valuable
(useful information about high-quality steakhouse), and wrapped in a
Story.
Enhancing these components in messages, products, or ideas will make them more likely to spread and become popular. I hope that ordering the principles this way will make them easier to remember and use.
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The book is designed with two (overlapping) audiences in mind. You may have always wondered why people gossip, why online content goes viral, why rumors spread, or why everyone always seems to talk about certain topics around the water cooler. Talking and sharing are some of our most fundamental behaviors. These actions connect us, shape us, and make us human. This book sheds light on the underlying psychological and sociological processes behind the science of social transmission.

This book is also designed for people who want their products, ideas, and behaviors to spread. Across industries, companies big and small want their products to become popular. The neighborhood coffee shop wants more customers, lawyers want more clients, movie theaters want more patrons, and bloggers want more views and shares. Nonprofits, policy makers, scientists, politicians, and many other constituencies also have “products” or ideas that they want to catch on. Museums want more visitors, dog shelters want more adoptions, and conservationists want more people to rally against deforestation.

Whether you’re a manager at a big company, a small business owner trying to boost awareness, a politician running for office, or a health official trying to get the word out, this book will help you understand how to make your products and ideas more contagious. It provides a framework and a set of specific, actionable techniques for helping information spread—for engineering stories, messages, advertisements, and information so that people
will share them. Regardless of whether those people have ten friends or ten thousand. And regardless of whether they are talkative and persuasive or quiet and shy.

This book provides cutting-edge science about how word of mouth and social transmission work. And how you can leverage them to make your products and ideas succeed.

^*
When I use the word “viral” in this book, I mean something that is more likely to spread from one person to another. The analogy to diseases is a good one, but only up to a point. Diseases also spread from person to person, but one key difference is the expected length of the transmission chain. One person can easily be the initiator of a disease that spreads to a few people, and then from them to a few more people, and so on, until a large number of people have been infected, solely due to that initial individual. Such long chains, however, may be less common with products and ideas (Goel, Watts, and Goldstein 2012). People often share products and ideas with others, but the likelihood that one person generates an extremely long chain may be small. So when I say that doing X will make an idea more viral, for example, I mean that it will be more likely to spread from one person to another, regardless of whether it eventually generates a long chain or “infects” an entire population.

^**
Note, however, that the recipe analogy breaks down in one respect. The principles are unlike a recipe because not all six ingredients are required to make a product or idea contagious. Sure, the more the better, but it’s not as though a product that is Public will fail because it’s not wrapped in a Story. So think of these principles less like a recipe and more like tasty salad toppings. Cobb salads, for example, often come with chicken, tomato, bacon, egg, avocado, and cheese. But a salad with just cheese and bacon is still delicious. The principles are relatively independent, so you can pick and choose whichever ones you want to apply.

Some of the principles are easier to apply to certain types of ideas or initiatives. Nonprofits usually have a good sense of how to evoke Emotion, and it’s often easier to play up Public visibility for products or behaviors that have a physical component. That said, contagious content often comes from applying principles that originally might have seemed unlikely. Heavy-duty blenders already have Practical Value, but
Will It Blend?
went viral because it found a way to give a blender Social Currency. The video showed how a seemingly regular product was actually quite remarkable.

1.
Social Currency

Among the brownstones and vintage shops on St. Mark’s Place near Tompkins Square Park in New York City, you’ll notice a small eatery. It’s marked by a large red hot-dog-shaped sign with the words “eat me” written in what looks like mustard. Walk down a small flight of stairs and you’re in a genuine old hole-in-the-wall hot dog restaurant. The long tables are set with all your favorite condiments, you can play any number of arcade-style video games, and, of course, order off a menu to die for.

Seventeen varieties of hot dogs are offered. Every type of frankfurter you could imagine. The Good Morning is a bacon-wrapped hot dog smothered with melted cheese and topped with a fried egg. The Tsunami has teriyaki, pineapple, and green onions. And purists can order the New Yorker, a classic grilled all-beef frankfurter.

But look beyond the gingham tablecloths and hipsters enjoying their dogs. Notice that vintage wooden phone booth tucked into the corner? The one that looks like something Clark Kent might have dashed into to change into Superman? Go ahead, peek inside.

You’ll notice an old-school rotary dial phone hanging on the inside of the booth, the type that has a finger wheel with little holes for you to dial each number. Just for kicks, place your finger in the hole under the number 2 (ABC). Dial clockwise until you reach the finger stop, release the wheel, and hold the receiver to your ear.

To your astonishment, someone answers. “Do you have a reservation?” a voice asks. A reservation?

Yes, a reservation. Of course you don’t have one. What would you even need a reservation for? A phone booth in the corner of a hot dog restaurant?

But today is your lucky day, apparently: they can take you. Suddenly, the back of the booth swings open—it’s a secret door!—and you are let into a clandestine bar called, of all things, Please Don’t Tell.

—————

In 1999, Brian Shebairo and his childhood friend Chris Antista decided to get into the hot dog business. The pair had grown up in New Jersey eating at famous places like Rutt’s Hut and Johnny & Hanges and wanted to bring that same hot dog experience to New York City. After two years of R & D, riding their motorcycles up and down the East Coast tasting the best hot dogs, Brian and Chris were ready. On October 6, 2001, they opened Crif Dogs in the East Village. The name coming from the sound that poured out of Brian’s mouth one day when he tried to say Chris’s name while still munching on a hot dog.

Crif Dogs was a big hit and won the best hot dog award from a variety of publications. But as the years passed, Brian was looking for a new challenge. He wanted to open a bar. Crif Dogs had always had a liquor license but had never taken full advantage of
it. He and Chris had experimented with a frozen margarita machine, and kept a bottle of Jägermeister in the freezer every once in a while, but to do it right they really needed more space. Next door was a struggling bubble tea lounge. Brian’s lawyer said that if they could get the space, the liquor license would transfer. After three years of consistent prodding, the neighbor finally gave in.

But now came the tough part. New York City is flush with bars. In a four-block radius around Crif Dogs there are more than sixty places to grab a drink. A handful are even on the same block. Originally, Brian had a grungy rock-and-roll bar in mind. But that wouldn’t cut it. The concept needed be something more remarkable. Something that would get people talking and draw them in.

One day Brian ran into a friend who had an antique business. A big outdoor flea market selling everything from art deco dressers to glass eyes and stuffed cheetahs. The guy said he had found a neat old 1930s phone booth that he thought would work well in Brian’s bar.

Brian had an idea.

When Brian was a kid, his uncle worked as a carpenter. In addition to helping to build houses and the usual things that carpenters do, the uncle built a room in the basement that had secret doors. The doors weren’t even that concealed, just wood that meshed into other wood, but if you pushed in the right place, you could get access to a hidden storage space. No secret lair or loot concealed inside, but cool nonetheless.

Brian decided to turn the phone booth into the door to a secret bar.

—————

Everything about Please Don’t Tell suggests that you’ve been let into a very special secret. You won’t find a sign posted on the
street. You won’t find it advertised on billboards or in magazines. And the only entrance is through a semihidden phone booth inside a hot dog diner.

Of course, this makes no sense. Don’t marketers preach that blatant advertising and easy access are the cornerstones of a successful business?

Please Don’t Tell has never advertised. Yet since opening in 2007 it has been one of the most sought-after drink reservations in New York City. It takes bookings only the day of, and the reservation line opens at 3:00 p.m., sharp. Spots are first-come, first-served. Callers madly hit redial again and again in the hopes of cutting through the busy signals. By 3:30 all spots are booked.

Please Don’t Tell doesn’t push market. It doesn’t try to hustle you in the door or sell you with a flashy website. It’s a classic “discovery brand.” Jim Meehan, the wizard behind Please Don’t Tell’s cocktail menu, designed the customer experience with that goal in mind. “The most powerful marketing is personal recommendation,” he said. “Nothing is more viral or infectious than one of your friends going to a place and giving it his full recommendation.” And what could be more remarkable than watching two people disappear into the back of a phone booth?

—————

In case it’s not already clear, here’s a little secret about secrets: they tend not to stay secret very long.

Think about the last time someone shared a secret with you. Remember how earnestly she begged you not to tell a soul? And remember what you did next?

Well, if you’re like most people, you probably went and told someone else. (Don’t be embarrassed, your secret is safe with me.)
As it turns out, if something is supposed to be secret, people might well be
more
likely to talk about it. The reason? Social currency.

People share things that make them look good to others.

MINTING A NEW TYPE OF CURRENCY

Kids love art projects. Whether drawing with crayons, gluing elbow macaroni to sheets of construction paper, or building elaborate sculptures out of recyclables, they revel in the joy of making things. But whatever the type of project, media, or venue, kids all seem to do the same thing once they are finished.

They show someone else.

“Self-sharing” follows us throughout our lives. We tell friends about our new clothing purchases and show family members the op-ed piece we’re sending to the local newspaper. This desire to share our thoughts, opinions, and experiences is one reason social media and online social networks have become so popular. People blog about their preferences, post Facebook status updates about what they ate for lunch, and tweet about why they hate the current government. As many observers have commented, today’s social-network-addicted people can’t seem to stop sharing—what they think, like, and want—with everyone, all the time.