The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Posted on May 10th, 2004
Given the right circumstances, little things have the potential to become very big things. Sometimes the big thing is obvious, and when it's traced back to its initial form the evolution is easy to follow. Gladwell uses Hush Puppies as an example, tracing the tidal-wave rise in popularity that brought them from way way "out" to very much "in." Other times the thing isn't as evident at all, like a crime epidemic or an outbreak of disease. Gladwell walks you through these with the same sort of ease. It's a conversational sort of book about why things happen the way they do.
From reading books like Six Degrees and Linked I already knew about some of the basic qualities of networks (social, technological, or otherwise). Gladwell adds two ideas. The first is what he calls the Three Rules of Epidemics:
"There is more than one way to tip an epidemic, in other words. Epidemics are a function of the people who transmit infectious agents, the infectious agent itself, and the environment in which the infectious agent is operating. And when an epidemic tips, when it is jolted out of equilibrium, it tips because something has happened, some change has occurred in one (or two or three of those areas. These three agents of change I call the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context."
Take advertising: A personal recommendation from someone you know and trust is bound to have more impact on you than an ad or commercial that can only address you anonymously. The ad or commercial will achieve a certain amount of success, but probably not enough to reach epidemic proportions where popularity is sky-high and everyone is talking about the ad and buying the product. If that's the advertiser's goal, they'll need a way to influence their word-of-mouth reputation. They'll need something memorable that allows them to reach deep enough into someone's day-to-day activities to influence them toward the product or service being sold without necessarily being detectable, at least not in a negative way. To make that possible the advertiser needs to find or create the right context; better to reach you when you're in the mood than when buying or doing whatever the advertiser wants is the last thing on your mind. The ad or commercial becomes part of something much larger.
Most people never think things through to that level-- why should they? In the case of marketing it's usually enough to make a judgment call when the marketing event occurs, decide whether you care or don't care, and continue on your way. Gladwell deals with much more important subjects, though, like the way Sesame Street spreads the "Educational Virus" or how social values can encourage smoking or suicide.
Still, reading about the more significant contexts of Gladwell's three laws gives the innocuous ones a little more bite. Even more so when you add in the second idea: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. If you're an advertiser aiming for full acceptance of your message, you'll probably set your sites on Mavens, the ones who are experts on the subject at hand and therefore most likely to influence the opinions of others. Or you might focus on Connectors, on the grounds that they have access to the greatest number of people. But if a Connector isn't a Maven, are they still as valuable? Is a Maven any less valuable if he has to rely on a Connector to get his message out?
Let's say an ad on a website performs the role of Salesman. Not just any ad, either. I'm talking about the kind that take over your entire browser with an animation of some sort. Typically they're found at high traffic portals like Yahoo!. The popularity of a site like Yahoo! makes it into a Connector, so from the advertiser's perspective it's a good choice-- you'll reach the most number of viewers by advertising at high traffic sites with what is hopefully a memorable sales pitch. Yet for the Maven in this scenario we've got... nothing.
I bet this two-out-of-three is probably the case for a lot of advertising. Celebrity endorsements are so coveted because they address that Maven situation. But in that case the Maven is also the Salesman, which taints the whole picture.
Here are two other interesting quotes from the book:
"As a network grows in size, however, it is also the case that the time and nuisance costs borne by each member of the network grow as well. That's why people don't talk to telemarketers anymore, and why most of us have answering machines and caller I.D. that lets us screen calls. The phone network is so large and unwieldy that we are increasingly only interested in using it selectively. We are getting immune to the telephone."
and:
"When people are overwhelmed with information and develop immunity to traditional forms of communication, they turn instead for advice and information to the people in their lives whom they respect, admire, and trust. The cure for immunity is finding Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen."
Definitely worth reading.