275
From a single user sharing
images or opinions with friends,
and those friends passing the data
to their friends, with modern
technology ideas can spread
rapidly and ultimately reach
millions of users.
See also: Understanding the market 234–41 ■ Creating a brand 258–63 ■
Why advertise? 272–73 ■ Benchmarking 330–31
SUCCESSFUL SELLING
pictures and videos online, so
information is easily spread.
Tactics to manipulate this trend
include guerrilla marketing, which
uses low-cost unconventional
methods with a surprise element
to provoke comment, and viral
marketing, which typically employs
social media to spread a brand-
sponsored video, or encourages
influential bloggers and others to
recommend products.
In The Tipping Point (2000),
British social commentator Malcolm
Gladwell outlines the power of
social epidemics and how the
smallest impetus can trigger a
mass phenomenon. According to
Gladwell, the title of his book refers
to a “magic moment when an idea,
trend, or social behavior crosses
a threshold, tips, and spreads like
wildfire.” This describes modern
“word-of-mouth” marketing,
though it originates in broader
ideas about how ideas replicate
in human culture. As Gladwell
explains, “ideas and products ...
messages and behaviors spread
just like viruses do.”
Kick-starting the process
Marketers can mimic this process
by encouraging customers or
influential members of online
communities to kick-start the
imitation process and become
“brand champions,” sometimes by
offering incentives in return for
reviews and recommendations.
Industries in which trends are
paramount for success are at the
forefront of WOMM online. Fashion
e-tailer ASOS utilizes Twitter and
Facebook to propagate customer
recommendations and provide
entertainment. In its 2011 “Urban
Tour” campaign, ASOS marketers
created videos showcasing the
world’s best street dancers and
in-line skaters. The videos enabled
click-through shopping and were
platform-neutral to ease their
spread on social-media channels.
Sneaker brand Nike has been at
the forefront of the trend, producing
videos with enough “wow” factor to
send them viral. The two-minute
“Touch of Gold” video (2008) featured
soccer player Ronaldinho showing
off his skills wearing Nike cleats. ■Memes and imitation
In 1976 evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins put forward
the theory that, just as genes
are responsible for replicating
physical characteristics,
cultural information such as
ideas, behavior, or style, can
also be transferred from
person to person. Dawkins
referred to this cultural data
as “memes.” These memes,
like genes, can spread, mutate,
or die out in society. As
Dawkins describes it, “Just as
genes propagate themselves
in the gene pool by leaping
from body to body via sperm
or eggs, so memes propagate
themselves in the meme
pool by leaping from brain
to brain via a process which,
in the broad sense, can be
called imitation.”
Marketers have applied the
theory to online behavior. An
Internet meme can be a photo,
image, video, website, word, or
symbol, which originates from
a single user or group of users
and builds momentum when it
is imitated by other Internet
users. By piggybacking on
existing memes, brands can
gain massive exposure for
relatively little cost.Today, the potential to
persuade is in the hands
of millions...
B. J. Fogg
US behavioral scientist@
@