Contagious by Berger, 2013
Even though the rise of the Internet has forced companies to rely heavily on online communication to reach customers, the notion of social pandemics has been in existence for a long time. Social pandemics entails to the virality of ideas, behaviors, and products. Jonah Berger dedicates his resources to explaining the social pandemics in his book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.” According to Berger, various factors assist in elaborating why things go viral including Social currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories. Understanding why various things go viral has to do with its impact and the eagerness of people to talk about the issue. However, getting an idea or product to become viral is not …show more content…
Therefore, triggers refer to stimuli that remind people of related things. The author provides an example of how the term “dog” reminds people of cat” similar to the manner that peanut butter reminds an individual of jelly. Humans tend to talk about anything that comes to mind, and so the more often that individuals talk about an idea or commodity the higher the probability that these products will stick in the minds of consumers (Berger 23). Ideas, behaviors, and products that are intrinsically related to triggers that individuals encounter on a routine basis have a higher probability of being brought to mind that other unrelated things. Therefore, increasing the chances of triggering a certain behavior is imperative. The book also demonstrates that clever and efficient advertisement campaigns can establish associations in unrelated items or products even though natural associations are efficient (Berger …show more content…
The notion that an item, which can evoke a variety of arousing emotions both negative and positive such as excitement, awe, anxiety, anger is more likely to be talked about and shared. A phenomenon that arouses less emotion like contentment and sadness will not be shared. This was evident with the viral nature of Susan Boyle’s performance, which aroused the emotions of many. The fourth principle is the public, which refers to the prevalence and visibility of something to the public eye (Berger 95). The more a phenomenon is visible to the public, the likely it is for people to talk about in comparison to things, which are considered private. Companies have various means of bringing private trends into the public sphere, such as by bringing charitable donations to the eyes of the public. Berger argues that it is often difficult to talk about something, which is unseen and thus making things more visible to the public makes it easier to imitate, and subsequently, making them popular. Therefore, companies should formulate strategies that make ideas, behavior, and items more public by designing initiatives and products that advertise themselves and at the same time create behaviors that sticks around even after the idea has been espoused (Berger
Even though the rise of the Internet has forced companies to rely heavily on online communication to reach customers, the notion of social pandemics has been in existence for a long time. Social pandemics entails to the virality of ideas, behaviors, and products. Jonah Berger dedicates his resources to explaining the social pandemics in his book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.” According to Berger, various factors assist in elaborating why things go viral including Social currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories. Understanding why various things go viral has to do with its impact and the eagerness of people to talk about the issue. However, getting an idea or product to become viral is not …show more content…
Therefore, triggers refer to stimuli that remind people of related things. The author provides an example of how the term “dog” reminds people of cat” similar to the manner that peanut butter reminds an individual of jelly. Humans tend to talk about anything that comes to mind, and so the more often that individuals talk about an idea or commodity the higher the probability that these products will stick in the minds of consumers (Berger 23). Ideas, behaviors, and products that are intrinsically related to triggers that individuals encounter on a routine basis have a higher probability of being brought to mind that other unrelated things. Therefore, increasing the chances of triggering a certain behavior is imperative. The book also demonstrates that clever and efficient advertisement campaigns can establish associations in unrelated items or products even though natural associations are efficient (Berger …show more content…
The notion that an item, which can evoke a variety of arousing emotions both negative and positive such as excitement, awe, anxiety, anger is more likely to be talked about and shared. A phenomenon that arouses less emotion like contentment and sadness will not be shared. This was evident with the viral nature of Susan Boyle’s performance, which aroused the emotions of many. The fourth principle is the public, which refers to the prevalence and visibility of something to the public eye (Berger 95). The more a phenomenon is visible to the public, the likely it is for people to talk about in comparison to things, which are considered private. Companies have various means of bringing private trends into the public sphere, such as by bringing charitable donations to the eyes of the public. Berger argues that it is often difficult to talk about something, which is unseen and thus making things more visible to the public makes it easier to imitate, and subsequently, making them popular. Therefore, companies should formulate strategies that make ideas, behavior, and items more public by designing initiatives and products that advertise themselves and at the same time create behaviors that sticks around even after the idea has been espoused (Berger