"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.

"Contagious: Why Things Catch On" By: Jonah Berger - Week 3

Triggers. Its hard to tell what will trigger people to think a certain thing. People associate certain images, ideas, or things with other images, ideas, or things. Trying to cultivate these triggers and use them in a productive ways is one of the tricks and challenges of marketing.

I've always wondered why some tv and magazine advertising often has crazy and unrelated themes and ideas intertwined into the advertisement. If it isn't related to the product or service, why would it ever be helpful for selling the product or service? It is starting to make sense to me. Seeing such an odd advertisement will be tucked away into my brain. It will act as a trigger so that the next time I see something remotely close to the odd advertisement, I might recall the advertisement and feel the need to share it. Understanding these "triggers" that set people off is one of the most crucial and difficult parts of marketing and advertising a product.

Placement is also a key part of understanding triggers. Does voting in a church vs. a school effect the way that people vote? Research shows that yes, the location of a voting booth may effect the outcomes of the votes. But why? Why would a location of a political voting precinct determine the way someone is going to vote? Shouldn't the people already know how they are going to vote before they enter the poll? This is a question that I am still pondering even after reading the chapter.

Now, taking all of this information, and putting into a cohesive idea is key. The most important part of marketing according to Berger is making people talk. Triggered products get people talking more both in the short-term, and the long-term. How to triggers make people talk? Creating a strong slogan or theme around a product will get people to naturally bring it up in conversation. Companies that are able to relate their products to important themes in pop culture, are the one's that succeed in having "triggered product." Mars Chocolate's sales of the Mars bar shot up dramatically during the NASA's Pathfinder Mission in 1997. They didn't change anything about the advertising campaign of the chocolate bar, they were just fortunate enough to have a name brand that coincided with an on-going theme in pop culture.

I am really enjoying reading this book. It is bringing up important lessons about marketing and the spreading of the awareness of products that I had never even thought about. After reading this book, I am starting to appreciate all the hard work that goes into creating what may appear to be the simplest marketing campaigns.

Week in Review (12/14/14-12/21/14)

Our group had a very eventful week. We worked hard this week to both add revisions to our Storefront projects, and to advance our progress in selling stickers. We are very proud of the work we have done on both projects, and hope to leave the projects on a good note before heading into Winter Break.

We were fortunate enough to get the data needed to understand the finch aspects of starting up another chain of 4A Coffee from Alua's parents. After compiling that information, we have had a little bit of time this week to go over the numbers and finalize them to fit what we think would be an adequate financial statement for starting up a 4A Coffee in the retail space on Route 9. We have been working diligently to finalize any errors on our parts 1-3 of the Storefront project. Hopefully before we leave for break, we will be in good shape for digging into the next parts of the project. 

We worked extremely hard this week to get our sticker project on its feet. On Monday, Alua, Shriya, and I talked to the student who is in-charge of the Portraits of BHS page on Facebook. He was kind enough to take a picture of us with the stickers and post it online Monday night. This received a lot of good feedback, and brought a lot of awareness of the sticker project to the student body. On Wednesday, we were able to collaborate with Kyle Williams, the assistant athletic director, to post an Instagram picture of our stickers on the brookline athletics' Instagram page. Many students and Superfans follow the page. We think that posting the picture raised even more awareness of our project. All of this promoting led up to our major event during the Thursday lunches. We were able to confirm with the main office a table in-front of the cafeteria to sell the stickers during both lunches. This turned out to be a big success and we ended selling close to 30 stickers! We have also been trying to sell stickers in the school store. Mr. Marcus told us this week that after our promotions online, a few stickers sold in the store. We were very excited to hear this. 

Overall, it looks as if both our projects are in good shape. We look forward to continuing the projects after Winter Break and in the new year!

"Contagious: Why Things Catch On" By: Jonah Berger - Week 2

Exclusivity. Everyone wants to achieve the status of saying that they participated in some sort of exclusive occasion.  It could be getting a reservation at the hottest new restaurant, or it could be becoming a frequent flyer with flyer miles. This sets up the perfect situation for companies to advertise products. As I mentioned last week, Berger thinks that the most important form of communication around a product or service is through word of mouth. People are willing to casually bring up a new or interesting product they tried through day to day conversations. According to Berger, people are even more inclined to brag about achieving some form of exclusiveness. Companies that are able to cater to this exclusive title are some of the major successful brands. No wonder so many credit card companies have platinum, silver, gold, and sapphire cards. It makes people feel special and achieving a goal that they want to share with those around them. Of course I had thought about the human tendencies to brag and achieve a goal. It is natural. But Berger is opening up my eyes to how these important parts of human nature are used in the world of marketing.

Another important way of spreading knowledge about a company is by making the brand different and unique. Snapple started putting weird and obscure facts on the inside of the bottle caps. The facts were so strange that people felt an inclination to share them with friends. They would say things like "Hey I just read the weirdest fact on my Snaffle bottle!" This spreads awareness of the brand, Snapple, just by that one person sharing their weird fact. I found this part of the chapter to be very intriguing. I had never really thought about why Snapple would put weird facts on the inside of their bottle caps. Now I know. It makes them different and it spreads knowledge of the brand through basic daily conversations.

Week in Review (12/7/14-12/14/14)

This week our group worked hard at simultaneously managing the store-front project, and the $200 project. We set-up a time slot for next Thursday to sell stickers in the Atrium during E-block. The main office approved our plans, and we hope that this will be a big event that will increase our overall profit. We have also started to consider other options for re-investing our profit from the stickers, into new projects. Last week, we broke-even, and so we want to potentially use the money we are making (and maybe some of the original $200) to invest in a new project. We think that selling multiple products could open up a wider market. Hopefully in the long-run we would profit from this.

Shriya has been working hard on creating a poster campaign for our sticker project. She has reached out to many of the well-known athletes around the school to have them take a picture with our stickers. Our target market includes the Super Fans and athletes at BHS, so reaching out to well-known athletes will hopefully draw this market in. Shriya is compiling all of these pictures into a collage that we hope to spread through the Brookline Athletic department's Instagram account, and potentially through other forms of social media.

After getting feedback on parts 1-3 of the store-front project, we worked diligently to fix the errors, and re-submit it. All of us learned from the feedback given, and were able to fix our individual parts to better the project and its goals as a whole. We also began to work on parts 4-6 on the storefront project. Alua's parents were kind enough to give us access to the lists of their expenses and revenue from the first year of starting up 4A Coffee. We were able to use this data to create our own excel sheets that explain the potential finances for a new branch of 4A Coffee.

All of us are really excited to be working together on these projects. We are learning so much from the hands on experience. I think that it is safe to say that all of us are beginning to acknowledge all of the hard work that is involved in starting up a new business.

"Contagious: Why Things Catch On" By Jonah Berger- Introduction (Post #1)

I have always been interested by the principles of marketing. How do companies persuade consumers to buy certain things? And, why do the consumers listen? Going through the list of potential books to read, this title stuck out to me. I read a small synopsis on it, and figured that I would find the book very interesting. The introduction to the book and how it is structured is about 50 pages. This week I read the introduction, and so far I am very excited about reading the book. In the indtroduction, Berger explains what seems to be a very simple topic: why does information spread? Of course, I thought about this and came to the conclusion that in the 21st century, information most commonly spreads through social media. In our $200 project, our group has been trying to cultivate different ways of advertising though social media. Berger disproves the common assumption that information about products mostly spreads through social media. He reports a study made by the Keller Fay Group that states that only 7% of the "word of mouth" advertising about a certain product happens online. Most of what gets people talking about a certain product happens through one-on-one conversations. I was shocked when I read this. I had assumed that at least 70% of product awareness through word of mouth happened on social media and online. Reading this pulled me in and made me want to understand why one-on-one conversations are still the biggest transmitter of word of mouth advertising. Berger goes on to use examples of restaurants and youtube stars that spread by people talking about them. He claims that through an immense amount of research, he has come up with the six "STEPPS" to a product "catching on." Each chapter will go in-depth into explaining the significance of the principles of social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories. I am excited to read these chapters not only because I am interested in the subject, but I also know that what he is explaining may be able to help me with spreading awareness of my projects, like the $200 dollar sticker project.