Jonah Berger - Contagious: Why Things Catch On

I love that exercise and as I'm sitting there watching him do it I had not seen it before I'm like ten minutes from now you're all gonna be looking at your phones running what is my colleague gonna say back to me when I sent them a note that says I love you so everyone in the room today has a very similar goal and that is how can we help something catch on we all have something that we want to become more popular it might be a product that we're trying to get to catch on among consumers it might be a service that we're hoping to catch on among customers it might be an idea that we're hoping to catch on within our organizations we're a non-profit we want to help grow and be more successful how do we do that and so today I'm going to talk about the power of word-of-mouth to get our products ideas and services to catch on we'll talk about how word-of-mouth is ten times more effective than traditional advertising there's only one question how do we get more of it how do we get people to talk about and share our stuff how do we get our stuff to catch on but before we get there I want to start in a very different place today it's gonna be an interactive session I want to get your minds working a little bit so we're gonna play a game and I promise it's a game you've never played before but you'll get the hang of it very quickly it's called which is tastier and so I'm gonna put up two things on the screen and I'm gonna ask you which of those things is tastier and you have only one job it's an easy job I want you to be honest not what you wish was tastier not what you think should be tastier but which of the two things is actually tastier I promise you'll get the hang of it quite quite quickly so our first contestant is a wonderful delicious head of broccoli and you're probably aware that broccoli has a lot of vitamins and nutrients you're probably aware that broccoli has a lot of fiber you may not have realized that broccoli has a lot of vitamin C but it does the next time you're sick and you think you need an orange try a nice stalk of broccoli instead that's our first contestant and our second contestant is a hot dog a sausage now this is not my version of a hot dog or sausage if I was gonna eat one I might put a little bit of bacon on top I might put some sauerkraut feel free to put whatever toppings you like on the hotdog or sausage and feel free to put whatever toppings to be fair you like on the broccoli as well okay we're gonna vote which is tastier how many would go with the hot dog sausage okay most of you how many of you would go with the broccoli okay a few here and there are you guys vegetarians no Liars okay I'll let your colleagues guess based on how well they know you the point here though is really simple we all know that we should eat more fruits and vegetables we all know that that's the right thing to do organizations spent decades of time and millions if not billions trying to convince us to eat more fruits and vegetables and yet when push comes to shove if we don't do it when it's late at night when our on the road and are tired right the tasty thing back in the sausage beckons and it's not random or luck how it works it fits better with the way our tongues and our stomachs are designed certain food very simply is just tastier than others McDonald's has spent millions of dollars engineering french fries so item Mpho crisp and salt and sugar to hit your tongue your tongue just lights up alright certain food is tastier than others now you're probably sitting there going okay great I agree with you certain food is tastier than others what does that have to do with me stuff to do with my business getting my product my idea to catch on well I want to take that idea of certain food being tastier than others and port it to a slightly different domain and that is how tasty is the way we communicate how tasty is the way we share our products ideas and services to others because just like certain food is tastier to people's tongues and their stomachs certain ideas certain messages certain ways of communicating information are gonna be more successful based on the way they fit with people's minds if we understand the science behind word-of-mouth and social transmission we understand why people talk and share we can engineer things to be more successful and so I'll talk about three things today I'll talk about how we can make our communications tastier by understanding that science of word-of-mouth and social transmission I'll talk about how we can grow our businesses and organization by bringing in new customers and consumers and how we can get our products services and ideas to catch on but before we get there one more thing from me here are three products or brands you're probably familiar at least a few of with with them first we have Walt Disney World self-described place where dreams come true everyone has probably heard of Walt Disney World second we have honey nut cheerios in the United States that's a popular brand of cereal food to eat at breakfast and the last is Scrubbing Bubbles Scrubbing Bubbles is a bathroom cleaner it doesn't actually have faces on the bubbles but they do a good job of cleaning the bathroom if you had to guess which one of these three things do you think get the most word-of-mouth is it Disney is it Cheerios or is it Scrubbing Bubbles and I've asked this question to thousands of people at this point probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of people and the answer that many people give is probably the same answer you're thinking about you're looking up they're saying man it's probably Walt Disney World for sure why would anyone talk about breakfast cereal or why would anyone talk about a bathroom cleaner and I think a few things two things in fact are interesting about this question first we don't spend a lot of time thinking about what people talk about and what people share by some measures we talk about dozens of products and services and ideas every day each of us does yet we don't often pay attention to what we talk about all right we don't often realize what we're talking about yet what we talk about has a big impact on what everyone else does right so we need to understand how word-of-mouth affects behavior and if we look at something else we say of course it's Disney World right how could it be anything else and this is sort of a cheap parlor trick right because one's gonna win you are gonna lose none of you probably work for any of these companies you might wonder what it has to do with you well the first thing is interesting and important looking at these three it's not actually Disney World and it's not actually Scrubbing Bubbles its Cheerios the breakfast cereal gets talked about more than any of the others and what I think that points out is there's a gap in our knowledge right there's a lot of hype out there around word-of-mouth around social media around viral marketing if we don't understand why people talk and why people share weird let us spend a lot of time and money and effort and energy in the wrong place we've got understand the behavioral drivers that drive word-of-mouth and how to use that to get our stuff to catch on and so that's a long-winded introduction to a title slide as was nicely mentioned I'm professor Jonah Berger I'm a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania what I'll do today in sort of the 40 minutes we have together as give you a brief tour my recent New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller contagious why things catch on we spent the last 15 years studying why people talk and why they share we've looked at tens of thousands of brands thousands of pieces of online content and millions of purchases around the United States and around the world and again and again we see the same factors driving behavior and so today I'll talk a little about those factors I'll give you some examples of the science and I'll talk about how you can apply them as well we'll have time at the end for questions so Bill feel free to think about how you might apply these ideas and bring up questions at the end and if you don't find me for questions feel free to reach out at jae-won Berger on Twitter happy to answer questions there as well so it goes without saying that word of mouth is quite important and in case you don't believe me none of the McKinsey pointed out that word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of traditional advertising and by traditional advertising you don't just mean television ads or radio spots or magazine ads any piece of information that comes from a company rather than a peer that can be your website that can be the phone calls that you send for a give prospective clients the emails you send the brochures anything comes from a brand or an organization rather than a peer and in fact if you look at the data a dollar spent on word-of-mouth goes ten times as far in terms of ROI as a dollar spent on traditional advertising any idea why they're kind of two key reasons why word-of-mouth is more effective any idea what one of them might be trust whoever said trust what do you mean by trust okay but you don't believe ads why not they're self-interested you know they're trying to convince you notice by the way we all realize that in our own lives yet many of us spend spend a lot of money advertising we think that when our ad comes on somehow the consumer or customer says ah it's your ad it must be true all the other stuff is not true but yours must be true right the challenge is just like your colleague pointed out people don't trust ads they know the ads are trying to convince them of something so they turn it off and they tune it out Shampoo ads are always like this every shampoo ad you've ever seen is basically the same there's a woman or a man with long or short flowy hair and then they use the shampoo and they get an attractive spouse you've never seen a shampoo ad where they use the shampoo and they get an ugly spouse never you've never seen that it always an attractive spouse restaurants you go there the kids always look happy in the ads right travel destinations everyone always has a fun time right ads always say we have the best products we have the best service we have the best people out there we care about you most innovative stuff no one no company says Oh service we're not so good at service actually recently a survey put us in the bottom 10% on service but there you can go see our customer our car competitors first they have better service and also if they're busy no come see us everyone says they're the best but because of that right we don't know whether to trust them but our friends our colleagues will tell it to a strain hey I worked at that company they were great or hey they weren't so good it's that first benefit is trust but the second one is a little more nuanced that's the targeting benefit of a word-of-mouth how do we find new customers new consumers new people who might be interested in what we have to offer and it's tough right we spend a lot of money on targeting online digital sometimes allows us to target better but it's still hard to find the right people what if we could use other people to do that work for us a couple years ago I got a free book in the mail academics often get free books from publishers they send them to us with the hopes that we'll sign them to our students and they'll sell more copies in the process but this time I didn't get one book I got two and it wasn't two different books it was two copies of the exact same book and I remember sitting there on my desk going two copies of the same book what why the second copy and there's a note back of the one that said hey professor Berger we think you'll like this book but we think you'll also know someone else who would like this book past the second copy on to them and that's the first very simple hack I'm gonna share with you this afternoon how by turning customers into advocates can we get them to do the work for us because I didn't write the company didn't have to go out and figure out who was I did the work for them I walked down the hall to give a book out to my colleague who I thought would find it most interesting almost relevant no wonder that referred businesspeople that come in from existing clients or customers has about 20% higher customer lifetime value because someone went through their social network almost like a searchlight to say this person would like what you have to offer this person wouldn't if we can get our customers to do work for us we can get them to do the targeting one more great example of this that I think is very fun this is uber from a couple holiday seasons ago they said hey having a holiday party request free rides for your guests here that's obviously very nice of uber to give free rides to your guests but notice it's not just nice they said hey existing user who and your social network might like this pass this on to them if we get our customers our clients whatever you want to call them our consumers to talk about and share our message they'll figure out who to share it to and help us get better targeting there's only one question how do we get people to talk and how do we get them to share and usually when we think about share and we think online we think about Facebook we think about Twitter we think about LinkedIn we think about blogs online reviews TripAdvisor if you had to guess from a hundred percent all of it all the way down to zero none of it what percent of word-of-mouth would you guess is online from all of it 100% all the way down is online what do you think what number someone want to guess what do you think nobody at all well I'll do a show of hands how many of you think 60% 70% 80% 90% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% you all aren't voting that's fine okay that's fine no problem it's about 7 to 10 percent 7 10% of word-of-mouth is online and that's a lot lower than I think many of us might think I would say oh but the kids they're always on their devices talking I must be very very high only about 7 to 10 percent of word-of-mouth is online and a lot of organizations I work with say wow that's really small why are we investing so much money in social media and I often say well that's a really good question because it's not that social media is not a channel through which word of mouth flows it certainly is but most word-of-mouth is offline face-to-face people talking one of the breakfast-table grabbing beers with their friends after work most word-of-mouth is face-to-face and more important than the technology is the psychology why are people talking and why are they sharing because you can have thousands of friends and followers and connections on social media but if they don't share your stuff it's not going to matter is cartoon I think illustrates it really nicely it's a little morose it's a funeral he asked about a wedding or a funeral this is a funeral and it said he had over 2,000 Facebook friends I was expecting a bigger turnout I think lots of organizations were expecting a bigger turnout there was no should we just collected friends and followers we'd be successful but if they don't share our stuff it's not going to matter I did a big project a couple summers ago with a major consumer electronics firm has about 10 million followers on Twitter most of their posts get 5 10 25 35 retweets very small numbers why because they're not driving people to talk and share so how can we get people to share whether online or off well good news it's not random it's not luck it's not chance there's a science behind why people talk and why do they share as I mentioned we've looked at thousands of pieces of online content tens of thousands of brands millions of purchases again and again we see the same six factors come up contagious I put them in a framework called the steps framework that stands for social currency triggers emotion public practical value and stories each of these is a psychological driver of why people talk and why they share it's not about b2b or b2c it's not about products versus services versus ideas it's about the psychology of why we talk and why we share before we came in here everyone was upstairs having fruit and milling around outside drinking champagne you were talking to one another notice what you talked about what you talk about has a big impact on what other people do right it's gonna have a big impact on what they buy what they use and what they try how can we get more people talking about our stuff and so what I'll do today is I'll talk about three of these I'll talk about social currency talk about triggers and I'll talk about stories in the interest of time I won't be able to touch on the other three but I'll let you check them out in the book or read about them online I'll give you some examples of the science behind each of them and some case studies of how you can apply it one more thing though before we get there that is this number 91% in a mixed audience like this I use mostly business-to-consumer examples why because they're easier for a large group to understand but I know some of you might work in a b2b industry a business-to-business industry you might say god consumers care about word of mouth but not business owners right I mean business owners are really serious serious people word of mouth doesn't matter 91 percent of new business leads in b2b markets comes from guess where existing business most word-of-mouth most of your new customers clients people coming in already already through word of mouth all we're trying to understand is how to get more of it and so it's not about b2c or b2b it's about B to P the underlying person underneath making that decision the underlying psychology that drives them to talk and drives them to share all right so let's spend a couple minutes jumping into the steps and to do this I want you all to imagine that you're visiting New York City so imagine it's a Saturday afternoon you're in the United States you're visiting New York City you've done all the touristy stuff you've gone up to the Empire State Building you've walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and now it's hungry your stomach stomach is rumbling a bit you're hungry you have to get a bite to eat when you notice a big hot dog shaped sign out in front of a restaurant sausage shaped sign out in front of a restaurant with the words eat me written on it a what look like mustard yeah I haven't a hotdog in a while check this place out so you walk down a flight of stairs into a restaurant called CRIF dogs now if you like sausage you like hot dogs you'll be in heaven CRIF dogs has every hot dog you can imagine over 30 on the menu from a good morning hot dog with bacon eggs and cheese and if you want to eat it for breakfast but interesting nonetheless hot dogs green onion and pineapple and a traditional New York style water dog would just ketchup and mustard so you finished eating your hot dog when you notice something unusual in the corner of the room corner of the screen almost looks like a phone booth now I haven't seen one of those in a while I'll check it out so you slide open the door and you walk inside it's pretty cramped inside it's a phone booth after all but on the wall you'll see something you probably haven't seen in 25 maybe 30 years do you remember rotary dial phones remember those phones you have to stick your finger in had to go around in a circle that your parents or maybe for some of you your grandparents house stick you everything you have to go around in a circle just for fun there's a rotary dial phone stick your finger the number three go around in a circle and hold the phone up to your ear well the phone will actually ring it'll go ring ring then someone will pick up the other line and they'll ask you whether you have a reservation now the first time I heard this story I said reservation I'm gonna phone booth instead of a hot dog restaurant what could I possibly have a reservation for but if you're lucky and they happen out of space or a friend of yours happen to make a reservation the back of that phone booth will open and you'll be let into a secret bar called please don't tell now please don't tell is violate a number of traditional laws of marketing traditional laws of communication no sign inside the restaurant no sign on the street they don't everything they can to make themselves difficult to find and yet every day they're full by 3 p.m. phone lines open up by 3:30 all the seats are gone people hit redial again and again and again trying to get through it took me two weeks to get into this place calling everyday I got on a Tuesday night at about 6:30 not the most popular time and it's not lack of competition just like you there's lots of competition you may not have been to New York recently but there's more than one bar in New York City it turns out there's actually a few bars on that side of the street in New York City a few more on the other side of the street dozens of bars in a couple block radius so how did they get so popular what did they do to cut through the clutter well they did something interesting they made themselves a secret and let me tell you a little secret about secrets think about the last time someone told you something and they told you not to tell anyone else what's the first thing you then did with that information you told somebody right because having access to information that not everyone else knows makes you look smart and makes you look in the know it gives you what I'll call social currency just like the car we drive and just like the clothes we wear the things we talk about and the things we share affect how other people see us so one way to get people to talk about us our message our product or service or idea is to make them look good too often as organizations we think a lot how do we look do I stand up straight when I'm speaking does my ad look pretty to people like my product my service my idea we think a lot less about how they're going to look when they talk about it and share it because the better they're going to look the more likely they'll be to pass it on so it's been a couple minutes on this idea I want to induce you to a friend of mine her name is Carla and this is a picture of her car and I want to see how much you can guess based on this one piece of information so if you had to guess for example how old might you guessed that Carla is might say she's between maybe 30 32 to 48 maybe 32 to 48 okay she have kids yes do they play sports yes what sockets port do they play you might say soccer or football all right we make these inferences because choices communicate information car we drive but also the clothes we wear I thought a lot about what to wear to come see you guys today sometimes they get up on a stage like this and I don't have a sport coat a jacket on and during the question and answer period someone will raise their hand and they will say are you 23 years old I know some of you were thinking it that's ok no problem so I wear a jacket to encourage you to think I'm at least 28 and have my own credit card and can buy my own clothes because if I came in here today wearing shorts and a t-shirt as I'd much prefer to be wearing this wonderfully warm afternoon you probably wouldn't take me seriously right what we drive what we wear is a signal of who we are well guess what same with what we talk about and what we share if you talk a lot about new restaurants people think you're a foodie you talk a lot about technology people assume you know a lot about that what we share is a signal of who we are if you ever look online most posts are positive look at me I'm on vacation look at me I met a celebrity look at me I'm in first class my feet have so much room nobody posts every everyone has a friend who posts the first class photo nobody posts Hey look at me I'm at the office working on Excel spreadsheet check out column C nobody shares that last time I checked most of us spend a lot more time at the office working on Excel spreadsheets than we do in first-class yet we'd share the first-class photo but not the Excel spreadsheet why because it wouldn't make us look very good we select among the things that happen to us what to talk about and share to selectively make ourselves look good to others that's true we all do it everyone doesn't how do we take advantage of that well one way is how can we make people feel like insiders how can we make them feel smart special in the know like they're not like everyone else by working with us they have access to information ideas and things that make them look good rather than not so good a few years ago I worked with LinkedIn on a consulting project and we sent emails out to many of their users saying hey you've one of the most influential profiles on LinkedIn most viewed profiles on the web site top 1% or top 5% of all profiles now people who got this email felt very good but they didn't just feel good guess what else they did Sheridan because status is only good if other people know that you have it if you're influential on LinkedIn but no one else knows it doesn't matter status is only good if other people know that you have it and so we share with others to get that status people love talking about their frequent flyer status I'm gold this or platinum mat or Ruby diamond whatever it is right the airport lounge in Rome Fiumicino no longer has the hummus that I love what does that person saying they're saying I'm busy I'm important I travel a lot but no one wants to be friends with someone that would actually say I'm busy I'm important I travel a lot so they have to have ways to under brag or humble brag ways to signal desired things without seeming like they're doing it this is a great way to do that right nobody cares about LinkedIn they don't care if you join LinkedIn but by sharing this with you it gives them that social currency lots of great examples of this a few years ago Beyonce came out with a new album no advertising all she did was put it on Instagram the image because she knew people would want to be the first person in their social networks to know about this new piece of information if you know about something that no one else knows it makes you look smart special and in the know it gives you that social currency if you ever look on YouTube you notice what the first comment on a YouTube video often says the first comment that's ever made on the video anyone know what it says often first dibs I got there before everyone else doesn't say I like the video I hate the video it says first i am there before you people love being early to have access to information knowledge and ideas if we can give them that social currency by being connected to us they'll talk and they'll share and they'll bring us along for the ride fun example this a guy named Dave McCready sent me a great example hey read contagious found it useful he sells a granola wild sin granola and it turns out granolas a very competitive market one granola tastes pretty similar to another granola so how could he cut through the clutter and so he was sending people free packets of his granola saying here try wildin he was sending it to athletes and famous celebrities and he wasn't really getting much much back from it so instead he started sending them granola rather than his name on it with their name on it so he sent him a packet of granola for example this is for Amy fuller she's an Olympian snowboarder from Canada and he sent her a packet Nolan said Amy by Wilde Singh and she took a picture of it why because it made her feel special very infrequently do we get to feel special do we get to feel smart special to know like we're not like everyone else brands organizations that make us feel special we talk about and share and we bring them along for the ride coke had a great campaign recently put people's names on the bottle great way to make people feel special make people feel different make them talk and make them share make customers consumers individual feel special like insiders they'll talk about us and bring us along for the ride so that's one way to get social currency in the book I talk about four I'll mention just one more here and that is to find what I'll call the inner remark ability and I think this is really important remark ability means worthy of remarkable something surprising something novel something interesting and some of you may be sitting there going okay great this is a lot of fun but there's no way I could use this idea right we have this notion that certain products certain services certain ideas get a lot of word-of-mouth others not so much I hidden bar Tesla cars new technology those get lots of word-of-mouth but be to be logistics for example don't get much word-of-mouth what's a product or service doesn't have to be yours that you think would be difficult to get people to talk about and and share what might be a product or service that would be difficult to get word-of-mouth about what do you think you could say socks you could say pens you could say dishwashers you could say blenders let me show you an oldie but goodie how an organization got over 200 million views one of the least exciting things we can think of and that is a blender question [Music] I love my new iPhone it does everything but will it blend that is the question let's find out I think I'm going to push the smoothie button [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I smoke don't breathe this [Music] now you fans on YouTube have asked me to blend an iPhone so I did it but I have another [Music] I'm gonna put this on eBay so I won't ask for a show of hands but I imagine many of you found this at least a little bit remarkable right this video has over 15 million views the set is over 200 million they do it for all sorts of products and things they do one for the iPhone they do one for golf balls they've done them for Samsung phones they recently did one for the Apple watch blender sales go up over 700% when these videos come out now any of us would be happy with a seven hundred percent sales increase that would be amazing that's not the most remarkable thing about this to me they did this this video for a $50 marketing budget $50 that's about I think 400 or so corner from that very cheap very cheap budget right you laughed at that poor guy he's actually the CEO of the company he's not an actor the new marketing hire walked into the office noticed a pile of sawdust on the floor he said what's with the sawdust his colleague goes the CEO is doing what he does every day which is try to break blenders so CEO would take 2x4 pieces of wood golf balls bic lighters pennies whatever he could find chuck them in the blender see if the blender was tough enough to cut it marketing guy thought this was genius filmed as CEO doing what he's already doing put it online the rest is history $50 marketing budgets 700 percent increase in sales huge our ROI it's still not the most remarkable thing about this to me the most remarkable thing about this to me is that they did this for one of the least exciting things we can think of if any of you were sitting there going great this is a fun idea but there's no way I could use this idea I want you to remember the blender nothing is less exciting than a blender whatever you were working on cannot be less exciting than a blender it might be tied they may be tied they may be low on the list and tied but it's not less exciting than a blender because it's not that certain things are naturally remarkable and the rest are doomed to fail we can make people share anything if we find that inner remark ability if we show them rather than tell them notice what they didn't do they didn't stand up there and say hey we make a really powerful blender they showed people how powerful the blender was right and I'll get back to the end showing rather than telling but if we show rather than tell much more likely to engage individuals just another fun example this that I'm sure many of you have seen how many of you have seen the jean-claude van damme Volvo a couple years ago okay great so jean-claude van damme driving backwards doing a split I cannot do a split so I'm not gonna demonstrate but doing a something like this but further between two Volvo Trucks extremely remarkable hundreds of millions of views for Volvo but what you notice is you realize they must have precise steering but didn't just do this because they're an entertainment company they do this to show people how precise the steering of the trucks is and how do you know the steering is precise well if it wasn't precise he'd be dead right that's how you know it's precise it shows rather than tells and I'll come I'll come back to that at the end okay so that's social currency next I want to talk about the T which is triggers and triggers is very different than social currency once you hear it it will make sense but I guarantee none of you have thought of it already and to talk about triggers I want to use an ad from an insurance company about hump day so insurance company Geico builds an ad about this thing called hump day in the United States maybe they have it here as well but Monday's the obviously the beginning of the work week Friday's the end Wednesday is called hump day because you have to get over the hump of Wednesday to get over to Friday so insurance company Geico builds a piece of content based on this there's an annoying camel walking through an office going what day is it what day is it what day is it everyone ignores him he's a very annoying camel finally he comes across this poor woman and she goes it's hump day and the camel goes oh and the ad goes how happy are people who save money with Geico that's the name of the insurance company happier than a camel on hump day get it camels humps hump day camels have humps yes thank you you're supposed to chuckle when I make a joke come on I appreciate it okay thank you it is funnier when you see it on television if you've never seen it you can watch it online it's funnier than I did it is but it's not that funny yet this is the second most shared ad of a couple years ago not a beer ad not a car ad not a lingerie ad and insurance ad it's not the most exciting product category insurance second most shared ad of a couple years ago so one question is why why did so many people share an insurance ad well I'm a data guy dug a little deeper this is what the share data looks like over time the spike in shares but it goes down then another spike then it goes down and another spike then it goes down if you look closer mics aren't random there's seven days apart and if you look even close you notice that they're every Wednesday whereas it's colloquially known Humpty all right this content is equally good or bad every day of the week it's good about a Monday go to bed on Tuesday good about a Wednesday but Wednesday rolls around providing all ready reminder what a psychology course um things top of mind it's much more like every tip of tongue again too often we think do people like us and we assume if people like us if they like our products and services and ideas they'll talk about them but if they're not thinking about our products or services ideas they're not going to talk about them right 70% of purchase is consideration a few years ago they did a great study in the grocery store they changed the music that played at the supermarket on different days so some days they played French music and some days they played German music and what did they find one days they played French music sales of French wine went up and on days they played German music you can probably guess sales of German wine and beer went up did the music change what wine people like no they still like whatever wine they like it just reminded them to think about it top a mine tip of tongue more likely to be purchased right there maybe a restaurant wherever you're from that you love you love eating at this restaurant but if you don't think about that restaurant when you're going out to eat you'll never go there because part of our decision-making is driven by are we thinking about it or not top a mind more likely to take action so that's been a couple minutes on this idea here's a little bit more data this is word of mouth about that breakfast cereal brand I was mentioning Cheerios by time of day so midnight 2:00 a.m. 4:00 a.m. 6:00 a.m. what do you notice about when people talk about that breakfast cereal when do they talk about it breakfast when they're eating it notice how its shifted to the right on the weekend any idea why people sleep in they wake up later this is not rocket science one reason people talk about things is they just use that thing if I just ate a breakfast cereal I'm much more likely to talk about if I just visited a restaurant I'm much more likely to talk about if I just interacted with my insurance company I'm much more likely to talk about it when we use a product or service it's top of mind and more likely be talked about but notice what happens the rest of the day people don't keep talking about it because things don't stay top-of-mind I hope you're enjoying this talk I hope you're liking it but notice it's top of mind right now it's not going to be in four hours when you're listening to someone else's talking their talk will be top of mind things don't stay top of mind and so the challenge is that people don't use us very frequently how do we make sure we come to mind more often well there are other ways as well so if I said peanut butter and most people would say well jelly at least in the United States for example or if I said rum and you might think of coke notice that peanut butter it's almost like a little advertisement for jelly it's almost like jelly should pay peanut butter like a kickback or like a referral fee every time peanut butter is around because if peanut butters around jelly doesn't have to remind you it exists peanut butter does all the work for jelly Michelob is in a beer you may be familiar with you sava slogan weekends are made for Michelob they wanted the people to think about the beer when the weekend rolls around Coronas done the same thing with the beach right I challenge you to go on a beach vacation and never think about Corona it's impossible right you're lying in the sand you got your sunscreen on people tend to think about Corona because it's associate of the beach and when they think about it they think about a lime because it often has a lime in the top is that random is that luck is that chance no the beach is Coronas trigger or said very simply the beach is Coronas peanut butter and so I'd ask you to think about is okay what's your peanut butter what's the thing in the environment that remind people of you even if you're not around because you can advertise you can email them and you can call them you can tell them again and again how great you are or you can link yourself to a trigger a peanut butter and every time they see that peanut butter they'll think of your jelly KitKat did this a few years ago the candy bar KitKat sales were down by about 30% people liked it but they weren't buying it they linked themselves to coffee having a coffee break have a kit kat thinking about coffee you think about Kit Kat coffee and Kit Kat Kit Kat and coffee best friends forever if you're KitKat why is coffee a really good trigger or really good peanut butter to link yourself to well if you think about it lots of people drink it very frequently right many of you are probably gonna go have a coffee during the break right if you link yourself to something frequent it'll be top of mind more often and more likely to be tip of tongue i top a mind more likely to be tip of tongue weekends are made for Michelob was originally holidays are made for Michelob but they moved it to the weekend because the weekend is more frequent but it's not just about frequency right frequency is good but it's not just frequency when we think about triggers there are four key questions the first question is who do we want to be trigger who's that target segment that we want to make sure thinks of us and then most importantly when do we want them to think about us when is the right time they need to think about us right is it a certain day if week is at a time of day when a certain problem comes up when do we want to be top of mind what is around at that time and how create a link to that thing those four questions the who the when the what and the how we'll make sure we're top of mind at the right time and more likely to be purchased or more likely for people to take action okay I'll skip this in the interest of time I won't talk about emotion the idea here is when we care we share turns out emotions are a big driver of what people share but it's not just a positive emotions increase sharing and negative decreased sharing it's actually more complex than that some negative emotions actually increase sharing so I'll let you read about that a different time I won't talk about public the idea here is when it's easy to see it's easy to imitate I'll give you one quick example of practical value and then I'll wrap up with stories imagine you sold something for twenty dollars an American or could be kroner and you want a discount at five off what would that be in percentage terms five off 20 I know you were promised there would be no math at this conference but here's a very little bit of math I'm sure you can handle it five off 20 is what percent off 25 percent good I knew you guys could do it and that you agree these are economically the same right in both cases you lose five the customer pays 15 they're economically the same correct yes are they the same to the customer no customers much more likely to take this deal and talk about if it's 25 percent off rather than five off in fact you could even make it 24 23 maybe even 20 and the deal would still sound better to them you might say well that's weird our percentage is off just more motivating won't hold on if instead it was 2,000 and there it was 500 off or 25% off again I'll let the math sink in those are economically the same hundred off as the same as 25% off fair 500 off is more motivating it's something I call the rule of a hundred numbers are not just numbers how we frame those numbers makes them seem a larger or smaller and changes whether or not people take action dick Thaler just recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics a couple years ago Danny calm and won it as well for work on loss aversion prospect theory how we frame numbers changes how people see those numbers and changes whether they're going to take action or not when we give out numbers they're not just numbers we need to give them out in the right way to motivate desired action okay let me wrap up by talking about stories and if you've noticed I've told a number of stories and by the end of this conference I hope you have a great time but next week notice what you remember this great slate of speakers notice what you remember from all of them not just whether you enjoyed whether they talked went out whatever they said whether you can remember anything they said and I guarantee you remember the stories stories have a way of sticking Burling themselves in our mind so we can't forget them but some stories are more effective than others and that's what I want to talk about here so imagine a party and someone walks up to you during the party and said did you know that the sunglass company Maui Jim has great customer service what would you do if someone walked up to you you didn't know what a party something like tonight someone who didn't know walked up to you and said did you know that the sunglass company has great customer service you'd probably say wow that's really interesting hey actually I left my drink just in the other room can you hang out here for just a moment and then that person would never see you again because no one wants to talk to someone that sounds like a walking advertisement as much as people like your brand your product or service your idea they did an excuse to talk about you stories provide that excuse a couple years ago I was talking to a friend of mine who bought a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses loved them but his dog got ahold of them and tore them to shreds 25 pieces of sunglasses strewn around the floor in his living room he couldn't even tell which ones they were which SKU number they were to order a new pair so he put them in the box with a little note that said here's my credit card number just charge me I'm happy to pay for them well two days later he got a box back in the mail and in that box were two things the first was a free pair of sunglasses and the second was a dog bone and what I love about that story is in 1015 seconds all that information I told you came along for the ride Maui Jim can say they have great customer service so they're blue in the face that story shows you what great customer service they have it's what I'll call a Trojan horse story stories aren't just stories they're vessels or carriers of information they bring information along for the ride yes there's an engaging outside but inside you learn something called a kernel about app ran the product a service right you watch that will it blend video where they blend an iPhone you learn that they make a really tough blender you watch that volvo video you learn that they have really precise steering you learn that from the information let me give you one last example of this it's called panda cheese not cheese made from panda milk that would be very remarkable not sure that's possible it is a Gyptian company called panda that makes cheese and i want you to watch just a couple of their ads and they're funny so you can laugh but you don't have to but I encourage you to if you if you find enjoyable and I will narrate because it won't be in English or Norwegian [Music] [Music] shake you up [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] that's so much ready [Music] [Music] and last but not least just one more dad why don't I get some Panda [Music] all right so did just to wrap up today we talked about the six key steps to boosting word-of-mouth we talked about social currency how can we make people feel smart feel special feel in the know like they're not like everybody else triggers top of mind tip of tongue what's our peanut butter what's the thing in the environment that remind people of us even if we're not around we didn't talk about the next three but I wrap it up with stories right how can we build a Trojan horse story when people put their kids to bed at night nobody tells bedtime facts doesn't happen people tell bedtime stories stories of the way we communicate but certain stories are more effective than others I hope you enjoyed pan of cheese I hope you found it funny but that's actually not why I showed it to you I showed it to you because I challenged you to tell someone who wasn't here about it and not mention a particular word and that word is Panda which is exactly the brand they wanted you to remember they didn't just do something funny they built a story that carried their message along for the ride you don't have to be funny funny name not be your in your DNA and I'm a fit with who your brand is your identity is but you need to figure out a story that carries your message whether it's funny whether it's inspirational whether it's exciting whatever that emotion is what's the Trojan horse story that'll carry your message and so one last slide for me it's great conference lots of amazing speakers I often come back from events like this going what to do next so just two things for me first what is your kernel what is the thing or things that you want people to talk about and share I often work with organizations that say we want more word-of-mouth great what are you hoping people will talk about and what will they share what will they say about your organization or your idea and then second once you have that kernel apply the steps around it right how can we find our social currency how can we figure out our peanut butter how can we build a Trojan horse story and in case it's helpful there's a workbook on my website and application guide just my first name last night comm slash resources and you can download it and work on it with your teams because again it's not random it's not luck and it's not chance there's a science behind why people talk and why they share if we understand that science we can craft contagious content where you build more effective messages and ideas and we get our stuff to catch on thank you guys very much excellent excellent we've people are sending in questions one of the questions came in you've actually answered the question that was sent it was sending quite early but they're asking basically what kind of advice you would give for more to encourage more Facebook traffic on b2b basically this applies to all channels that's what you're saying right I am and I actually would start before that question to ask a different question why do you think Facebook is the right thing to use for b2b right we have this tendency to say oh well people are on it so I should be on it but the question is is it moving your business forward too often right we count things like friends and followers and we assume that matters but those aren't the metrics that actually gonna help us at the end of the day we have lots of connections but if no one's sharing our stuff it's not going to be helpful and so if you found for your business that Facebook is really useful that's where b2b clients go to find information I'd be surprised if that's true but if that works for you fine but don't assume that that's the right place to be because other people are there right think about where does your business come from and how can we get those existing people to talk and get them to share right the simplest idea if you fell asleep for the last 40 minutes and you woke up and you wondered what I talked about how can we turn our customers into advocates whether they're online they're on Facebook whether they're offline wherever they may be how can we get them to talk and share online is a channel but offline is equally if not more important and do you think I mean one thing I don't read anymore I don't read these TripAdvisor yes I've stopped reading them because they've lost their social currency I guess everybody nobody believes the money yeah and we certainly online is useful for certain things and we use that to sift through information right so last night I was looking for a restaurant I go on Yelp which places have the highest ratings you're not reading the reviews but we want to make sure it's it's pretty good but if we if I knew someone here if I knew more people for example I'd ask my friend rather than going on on Yelp and so it's not that online isn't useful it's an offline is just as if not often more important and we need to think about both technologies certainly important but the psychology the behavioral science is equally but okay do you think we can still believe the stories that people tell I mean yeah are we at that point now where we just trust is so fragile you know I think that's an interesting comment and a lot of times when I work with organizations they say we need to find the influencers the influential people right there's a notion that small percentage of people are highly influential and we can just get them to talk or share will be successful but the challenge that people don't trust people they don't know we tend to trust our friends and our colleagues much more than we trust people we don't know and so sure online individuals people that are famous they have a wide reach but they don't have high trust our friends our colleagues our best friend we trust them a lot they don't have as high reach but they have higher trust and so we need a little bit of both if we want to raise awareness about us certainly online influencers or advertising can be useful all that influencers are basically like advertising but they're not very persuasive all right Kim Kardashian has millions of followers on social media I bet none of you have bought something because Kim Kardashian talked about it right right we tend to trust our friends and our colleges they have you gone is it any good and so that's really where the persuasion comes in it's really reassuring to hear actually and by the way during my preparation I read your two books they're excellent I think read them they're really good and I use the numbers one the percentage its percentage for small numbers numbers yes yes matter I use that yesterday yeah in an offer to a client yes and I got the job so it's brilliant congratulations thank you so much for Jamie's you're appreciated hey guys very much [Applause]

Channel: InnoTown Conference

Views: 15,635

Rating: 4.8835979 out of 5

Keywords: #innotown, #jonahberger, #ålesund, #norway, #viral, #marketing

Id: rLcEc0Igz9A

Length: 50min 32sec (3032 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 15 2018