PDF Summary:Contagious, by Jonah Berger

Why is it that some new products and ideas gain widespread popularity while others fail to “catch on”? According to marketing expert Jonah Berger, the driving force behind products and ideas catching on and becoming “contagious” is word of mouth: Things catch on when people talk about them. You might think you have to spend large amounts on advertising to trigger this effect—but Berger explains that generating word of mouth only requires a compelling product or compelling marketing.

In our guide, we’ll explain Berger’s strategies for generating word of mouth, why they work, and how you can implement them. Through our commentary, we’ll also bring in psychological research and alternative perspectives that add nuance and contrast to Berger’s strategies. In addition, we’ll provide real-world examples of Berger’s principles and practical advice on how to adapt them to your product or idea.

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Step #2: Engage Your Audience

Berger explains that attracting an audience for your product isn’t enough—you then have to keep them interested in it. Someone who sees your product but quickly forgets about it won’t generate word of mouth, while someone who’s interested will think and talk about it much more.

(Shortform note: Some experts argue that engaging an existing audience is more important than finding a new one. Studies show that gaining new customers can cost more than five times as much as keeping customers you already have—and that increasing customer retention (how many customers you consistently keep) by 5% can increase profits by anywhere from 25% to 95%. From this perspective, engaging an existing audience is a cheaper and more profitable way to generate word of mouth than attracting new customers.)

In this section of our guide, we’ll explain Berger’s two methods for keeping an audience engaged: inspiring an emotional response and telling a story.

Method #1: Inspire an Emotional Response

When people get emotional, they like to talk about how they’re feeling and what made them feel that way. Therefore, when your product inspires an emotional response, it’ll also generate word of mouth. Berger suggests using marketing that focuses less on delivering lots of information and more on inspiring an emotional response.

(Shortform note: Experts suggest that emotional marketing doesn’t just get people talking about your product—it can also make them feel an emotional connection to your company or brand. If your marketing makes an audience feel proud to buy your products or somehow “close” to your company, then they’ll want to be loyal customers that talk about and buy your products long-term. For example: Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke'' campaign put common names on Coke products that customers could share with friends and family. This campaign associated Coke with emotional relationships, and it made customers feel involved or personally attached to the company.)

However, not every emotion has this effect. Berger says to aim for emotions that generate “physiological arousal”: a state of physical readiness for action. People respond to physiological arousal in various ways: running around, jumping for joy, or—most importantly—telling others about what caused their emotional response. The five main high-arousal emotions are anger, anxiety, awe, amusement, and excitement. Meanwhile, low-arousal emotions include sadness and contentment. Inspire high-arousal emotions with your marketing—for example, you could amuse people by adding humor, or awe them with breathtaking nature photos.

Is Focusing on High-Arousal Emotions Enough to Generate Virality?

Further research on the link between emotions and popular, “viral” content suggests that physiological arousal alone can’t explain audience engagement. Instead, studies show that emotional “virality” depends on three different standards:

• Physiological arousal

• Valence: positivity or negativity

• Dominance: how much people feel in control (for example, inspiration is a high dominance emotion while fear is low dominance)

Psychologists argue that different combinations of emotions can create different kinds of “virality”: Divisive and controversial viral stories inspire a mix of high arousal and low dominance emotions, while uplifting “feel-good” viral stories inspire a mix of positive valence and high dominance emotions. Therefore, following Berger’s advice and solely focusing on high-arousal emotions may not be sufficient to emotionally engage your audience—instead, consider how you can use all three factors above to your benefit.

Method #2: Tell a Story

To engage your audience, Berger recommends telling a gripping narrative with your marketing and making your product crucial to this narrative. People love to share interesting stories. When your product is crucial to the story, they’ll have to mention it—generating word of mouth.

For example: In 2019, PepsiCo created a Superbowl commercial that told a story about people proud of drinking Pepsi. They based their story on the phrase: “Is Pepsi okay?” This phrase is essential to the story, and it centrally features the product—so people can’t explain the narrative without talking about Pepsi.

Add Context to Your Stories

Some experts recommend that to engage an audience, you shouldn’t just tell a story that features your product—you should also tell a story about when and why people use it. This way, you engage the audience by showing them why they might need your product or what benefits it might provide.

For example: An ad for a smartphone tells the story of kids pranking their dad by hiding his phone charger. This ad tells a story about the product, but it doesn’t show an audience why they should want it. Consider how the same ad with context shows the benefits of the product: Kids prank their dad by hiding his phone charger. But their dad’s new smartphone has such good battery life that a week goes by without him looking for the charger—so the kids get bored and give up on their prank.

Step #3: Benefit Your Audience

Once you’ve attracted and engaged an audience, Berger says to focus on the third method of generating word of mouth: making sure your audience gets something out of talking about your product. If they get something out of it, then your audience will want to generate word of mouth.

(Shortform note: While Berger offers benefits as one of many ways to create word of mouth, some experts claim that you should build your marketing entirely around these benefits. People focus on their own personal lives and problems—so if your marketing doesn’t provide a personal benefit, people will ignore it. But if you focus entirely on benefitting your customer and providing them with a positive experience, then you’ll get people interested and talking about your product.)

In this section of the guide, we’ll explore the two benefits Berger says to offer your customers: social currency and practical value.

Benefit #1: Social Currency

Berger says your product should provide “social currency” to your customers—in other words, talking about it should give them social influence and make them look interesting. If talking about your product makes someone look good in this way, then they’ll generate much more word of mouth. On the other hand, if talking about your product makes someone seem dull, they’re probably not going to choose it as a topic of conversation.

(Shortform note: For a further explanation of what “looking good” means in a social context, researchers studied why people share viral videos and found three main reasons that relate to social currency: 1) They want to be the first to show their friends something interesting, 2) they want to demonstrate their knowledge of something, and 3) they want to show that they’re up to date on current trends.)

To make your product or idea a source of social currency, Berger suggests:

• Making your product or idea remarkable
• Applying game mechanics
• Using scarcity and exclusivity

Making Your Product or Idea Remarkable

Berger notes that people love talking about remarkable things because doing so makes them seem remarkable, thus increasing their social currency. Make your product or service seem remarkable by identifying and emphasizing the thing that makes it interesting. If your product does something previously thought to be impossible, or if it improves upon a traditional formula, make sure to mention this in your marketing. For example: In 2006, Gillette launched the world’s first five-blade razor. This “world first” made the product remarkable and featured prominently in its marketing.

(Shortform note: For advice on how to make your product remarkable, Seth Godin (Purple Cow) argues that you must take risks—playing things safe and going for broad appeal means you won’t stand out. To take risks, Godin suggests consistently trying new ideas and taking on large and ambitious projects—even if you fail spectacularly, you’ll still get people talking about you and your product.)

Applying Game Mechanics

Berger suggests adding “game mechanics”—the components of a game that measure accomplishment—to your product. Game mechanics might include systems like reward points or bonuses for frequent customers. When people interact with these mechanics and “win” the game, they’ll feel a sense of achievement—and they’ll brag about this achievement to gain social currency and impress others. When they brag, they also generate word of mouth about the product or service that gave them a sense of achievement.

(Shortform note: Game mechanics don’t just generate social currency—they can also psychologically motivate people to buy or use your product. Research suggests that game mechanics can increase motivation and make tasks feel more meaningful. This means customers might engage with your product’s game mechanics just to enjoy them for their own sake. And if they enjoy them enough, they might recommend the game to others, which generates word of mouth about your product. For example, the US Army created and ran their own video game for over two decades—a multiplayer game that people could play with (and recommend to) their friends.)

Using Scarcity and Exclusivity

According to Berger, making a product or service scarce gives social currency to the people who do manage to get hold of it. These customers seem “special” because they’ve accessed something that’s out of reach to a lot of people. When bragging about their “special” status, these customers will spread word of mouth about the scarce thing they’ve bought. To add the perception of scarcity to your product, give the impression that it’ll be difficult to get hold of. For example, tell customers that you expect the product to sell out quickly.

(Shortform note: In addition to providing social currency, scarcity can also generate word of mouth through stories of how hard it is to obtain your product—and how far people go to get it. This was a crucial part of toy company Ty’s billions made from their plush toys, Beanie Babies. Ty tightly controlled limited runs of certain Beanie Babies, creating scarcity. This scarcity led people to incredible lengths to get certain Beanie Babies, even reselling the toys for thousands of dollars. Stories of these devoted customers generated word of mouth not just about the products, but about the Beanie Baby “craze” as a whole.)

Berger argues that exclusivity works on a similar principle—if customers feel like they’re part of a group that not just anyone can join, they’ll brag about it to gain social currency. And if your product made them feel that way, then they’ll mention it and generate word of mouth. To add the perception of exclusivity to your product, create the impression that only a select few people can access it. First-class seats on an airplane are a great example: Airlines separate first class passengers into their own section and provide them extra benefits so they feel like they’re part of a special group. These customers then brag about these benefits or how comfortable their trip was—generating word of mouth.

(Shortform note: While Berger suggests exclusivity as one possible method of generating word of mouth, some marketing relies entirely on exclusivity. These strategies are often known as “anti-marketing”: Marketing strategies that actively avoid advertising or intentionally defy normal marketing principles to create an image of exclusivity. For example: In 2011, Patagonia ran a Black Friday ad that said, “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” Anti-marketing campaigns give the impression that your product or company doesn’t need to attract new customers—which makes it look exclusive. However, anti-marketing is risky. Customers might never notice a product or take its ironic approach at face value, like with Coca-Cola’s failed “OK Soda” product.)

Benefit #2: Provide Practical Value

The easiest way to benefit your audience is to make your product or service a source of “practical value”: useful things that make life easier. Examples of practical value include money-saving or advice on “life hacks.” Practical value generates word of mouth because people want to share it to benefit their friends and family—and in the process, they’ll talk about your product.

(Shortform note: You might wonder why Berger emphasizes practical value when earlier on he noted that things like price and quality can’t make something popular on their own. To clear up this confusion, think of it this way: What matters isn’t how much value you provide to your customers, but rather how much they talk about the value you provide.)

Berger suggests two sources of practical value that get people talking:

Discounts

The first way to add practical value to your product or service is to give it a significant discount. Berger notes that if your product or service is a real money-saver, people will want to tell other people about it.

(Shortform note: While Berger recommends discounts—a type of temporary value-adding promotion—Ryan Holiday (Perennial Seller) suggests always making your customers feel like they’re saving money with payment models that require little to no upfront cost. This could include free trials, offering portions of your product for free, or even monetizing your product entirely through ads and sponsorships. Requiring little to no cash upfront means your product will provide more value to potential customers that want to try it. As a result, more people will try your product—and then more people will talk about it.)

Useful Information

The second way to add practical value to your product or service is to provide useful information to your customers, sending them advice or practical tips to make life easier. When your customers receive this information, they’ll create word of mouth by passing it on to friends or family members they think would benefit from it. In the process, they’ll also inform others about your company as the source of that information. Berger suggests you limit information to three or four simple and engaging points at a time: If it’s short, people will be more likely to actually read it. If it’s interesting, they’ll be more likely to tell others about it.

Share Useful Information About Problems Your Product Solves

Berger mostly talks about useful information as small tips for solutions to everyday challenges. While Chet Holmes (The Ultimate Sales Machine) also suggests providing useful information, he argues that it should instead educate your audience on the problem your product solves. The more your audience understands this problem, the more they’ll understand the benefits of your product—and the more they’ll share this information.

An example of problem-focused information marketing is Listerine’s popularization of “halitosis.” In the 1920s, halitosis wasn’t a medical term—it was just Latin for “bad breath.” But Listerine’s marketing reframed bad breath as a serious medical problem with a formal-sounding name. The marketing created buzz (and fear) around halitosis, and their products, which they positioned as the solution to this problem, became massively successful because of it.