In fact, “word-of-mouth,” he explains, is effective because it is more persuasive (people trust what others tell them much more than they trust ads they see on T.V.) and more targeted (people share stories with those who are actually interested in the topic). Traditional marketing suggests that quality, price, and advertising are the critical factors to determine a product or idea’s ability to achieve success or popularity, but Berger argues that this misses the full view – social influence and word-of-mouth transmission are far more essential to drive “virality,” and ultimately account for 20-50% of all purchasing decisions. But what if we could use research in a way that helps us understand how things go viral?Ĭontagious – Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger (Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania) distills years of research into understanding why certain ads, products, YouTube videos, political movements, songs, and/or restaurants catch on, while others are ignored. CEO’s, marketers, politicians, sociologists, and entrepreneurs alike, expend excessive time and resources to explore new ways to fuel buzz around their latest products, service, advertisements, campaigns or causes – yet without clear structure, it’s easy to spend millions of marketing dollars on methods that miss the mark every time.

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