"Contagious: Why Things Catch On" By: Jonah Berger - Week 5

"Social proof." This idea is pretty self-explanatory. People look to other people when making decisions. These decisions can be as small as which cup of coffee to buy. They can also be big life-changing decisions like giving up smoking. The point isn't what the decision is, it is the fact that there is a general trend of people relying on others. This is why stores may fill tip jars with a couple extra ones at the start of the day. Customers coming by may see this and decide to contribute a tip themselves. When looking for a restaurant in a foreign city, people tend to look for restaurants full of people. Marketing can benefit from this idea of "Social proof." In order for a company to create a  product that will "catch on," the product marketing needs to have some element of social proof. In order to do this, a marketer needs to understand when social proof is at its strongest.

Humans can only observe what people are doing, not what they are thinking. This means that in order for a product or service to become popular, it needs to be used in public. Berger states that, “Most products, ideas, and behaviors are consumed privately”(178). This means that spreading awareness of a product through social proof can be quite tricky. It involves making the product that was once used in private to be used in public. Advertising is centered on this idea of making private, public.

Hotmail was the first email company that allowed people to access the website from any computer. This meant that the product was advertising itself. People no longer had to check their email in private at work or at home. Email could be checked at the local library, or coffee shop. This meant that the brand spread through word of mouth very quickly. Hotmail also did this thing where at the bottom of every sent email, it said, "'Get Your Private, Free E-mail from Hotmail at www.hotmail.com"(179). Social proof came right into action as every recipient of a hotmail email saw this little piece of advertising. The recipient realized that others were relying on hotmail as an email service, and might have decided to do the same. This is social proof at its finest.

Week in Review (1/11/15-1/18/15)

We had a strong week wrapping up both projects. Early in the week, we were lucky enough to get valuable feedback on our presentation for the storefront project. We also continued to diligently sell stickers through the deadline. In the end, we made around $250 profit! We are really excited with the outcome of our $200 project. It taught us valuable lessons about time management, and starting up a business.

The sticker project has proven to be very successful. Almost everyday, I had students coming up to me asking to buy a sticker. In the beginning, I was very nervous about how successful the stickers were going to be. We were unable to sell the stickers at the Powderpuff game, and we weren't sure if this was going to break us. It didn't. We found many other alternatives for selling stickers to students, faculty, and parents. We were even lucky enough to sell some to Ms. Holman! All of us really benefited from the hands on experience of starting up a business and all of the hard work that comes with it.

For the storefront, we started off the week creating a presentation to share all of the hard work we have been doing on the storefront project. It encompassed every meaning of a "rough draft," but we spent the rest of the week working hard to finalize it. We were fortunate enough to spend one class period scoping out 4A Coffee and the surrounding competitors of the new retail space. Alua's parents were extremely kind and welcoming. They encouraged us to take pictures of the Coolidge Corner location. They explained a little bit of how the coffee shop is run, and showed us all of the coffee beans before they were roasted. It was extremely fun and exciting to see the coffee shop in action! Here is a picture of the four of us laughing at a joke Alua's mom told us.

"Contagious: Why Things Catch On" By: Jonah Berger - Week 4

What makes articles go viral? Is it the content? The title? This is an interesting question that I hadn't thought about before reading this chapter. Berger goes in-depth with the studies he conducted as a grad student at Stanford. He and a couple of colleagues created an online database that was able to record both the Journal's weekly top emailed list, and the articles published in The New York Times. What they were able to find from this data is quite interesting. Berger states that, "Two reasons people might share things are that they are interesting and that they are useful." This appears to be an extremely obvious observation. Actually studying the articles published in The New York Times for these criteria proved to confirm these observations. Berger's research concluded that articles that are interesting are 25 percent more likely to be shared, while articles that are interesting are 30 percent more likely to be shared.

That all makes sense, but what about those articles that are just odd and not useful? The weird science articles that go viral without much relevance to daily life. Berger concludes that those articles pickup a lot of attention due to the awe factor associated with them. Berger says that, “According to psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt, awe is the sense of wonder and amazement that occurs when someone is inspired by great knowledge, beauty, sublimity, or might. It’s the experience of confronting something greater than yourself.” A science article that addresses the spreading of a virus through photographs grasps this concept of awe. Everyone knows that this is how viruses spread, but actually seeing it through a photograph draws out a certain amount of awe. Berger and his colleagues tested this theory of awe. They concluded that science articles that have a certain amount of awe associated with them are 30 percent more likely to be shared.

I enjoyed reading this chapter this week because it addressed the question of the awe factor. I have to admit, I love reading articles online that address theories or notions that straight-up surprise me. Humans enjoy learning and understanding this that are "greater than yourself." Things go viral to address this phenomenon.

Week in Review (1/4/15-1/11/15)

We had an extremely hectic week coming off of Winter Break. We hit the ground running by organizing two events to sell stickers at this week. We also had time to reflect on our storefront project, and make the necessary adjustments to the store plan before sending it to David Gladstone. Overall, we are all working diligently to make both projects succeed.

We have been very successful in our sticker project. All of us are having people coming up to us, asking to by one of the #warriors stickers. This week we progressed from selling stickers one-on-one to selling them at two prime school-organized events. On Thursday night, all of us stayed after school and waited for the PTO organized event on stress for Junior parents. We setup a table in-front of the MLK Room and advertised our stickers to parents passing by. We even got Ms. Holman to buy three! Junior parents were both impressed and interested in the work that we are doing in C4E. Many wanted to support our small business and bought the stickers. By the end of the night we sold around fifteen stickers.

On Friday night, Alua and Lindsey attended the basketball game being hosted in the gym. We have consistently stated that our true target market for the stickers are the Superfans. Alua and Lindsey went around the bleachers and worked hard to sell stickers to fans at the game. I had to attend an event for China Exchange, and brought a few stickers along. Unfortunately, few people had money on them and so I was unable to sell any stickers. Many parents were very interested in the class and the work that we were accomplishing. Overall, we are very happy with the selling that we were able to do in the past week.

On the storefront project, we made progress in compiling all the parts into one document. The vacation gave us all a bit of time to reflect on the goals we had for this project, and so when we returned from break we tweaked the different parts to get a solid, cohesive plan for the storefront. Lindsey and I worked hard Thursday morning to create a cover letter, and all of us were able to compile all the documents into one document with a table of contents. We hope that Mr. Gladstone will be able to give us useful tips and advise for the project heading into the future.

We are looking forward to continuing the work that we have started in the class. As the sticker project is coming to an end, all of us will be reflecting on the work that we did, and using the skills we learned to continue our studies in the class.