cool – Justkul

Thoughts on Reading Contagious

Posted on June 10, 2013November 30, 2015 by jfhannon

Now that advertising is increasingly moving into the domain of social media, a key goal in marketing strategy has been to develop a framework for making things go viral. Campaigns such as Dos Equis’ The Most Interesting Man in the World campaign, or Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Can Smell Like campaign have significantly enhanced the reputation and visibility of these brands. Then there is the world of viral memes, where websites like I Can Has Cheezburger? can net a comparable traffic volume to The New York Times. The problem is that many of the ideas that go viral are ill-fitted to traditional marketing strategies (evidence: cats are rarely mentioned in marketing strategy books). Can classical marketing theory explain why the video of Susan Boyle or why PSY’s Gangnam Style were such great hits and why other similar videos are not? In marketing, viral media is clearly a space that is getting a lot of attention, and any book that attempts to explain something significant about this space is certainly worth reading.

One such book is Jonah Berger’s Contagious: Why Things Catch On. The book is distinguished from other explorations of what makes things cool and viral on its base in over ten years of empirical research the author has conducted at the Wharton Business School. The basic theory the book espouses is that there are six factors that contribute to something going viral. The six factors can be conveniently incorporated into the acronym STEPPS. Each of the chapters of the book deals with one of the factors. My short summary of each:

Social Currency: People share what makes them look good and “in the know” to others.
Triggers: People share things that they frequently encounter, and marketers need to ensure that ideas are triggered at the moment when they’ll actually have impact on decisions.
Emotion: People find emotions compelling, and Berger brings up the case of Susan Boyle’s famous performance: when something is emotionally engaging it has a tendency to stick around.
Public: Things need to be generally accessible to go viral. Berger brings up the example of the Apple laptop logo, which was deliberately designed to be seen properly by other people rather than the user.
Practical Value: People like sharing things that their friends find useful.
Stories: People like stories and will be more likely to share things that have an engaging narrative structure.

None of these six factors should be particularly surprising, and in fact one can find far more advanced and seminal works on each of these topics elsewhere (The New York Times review mentions the work of Malcolm Gladwell and the work of Chip and Dan Heath). However, Jonah’s book adds an interesting and entertaining perspective. The book is particularly engaging when he refers to empirical evidence that debunks a commonly held assumption (although he rarely provides enough detail to evaluate that evidence), or when he shows examples of a lack of alignment between a viral strategy and a marketing goal, as in the case of goldenpalace.com‘s 2004 Olympic stunt. There are very few places you can go to get such an interesting and entertaining discussion of examples.

Another highlight of the discussion was Jonah’s classification of emotions into high and low arousal varieties, as in this four-by-four matrix:

	High Arousal	Low Arousal
Positive	Awe, Excitement, Amusement (Humor)	Contentment
Negative	Anger, Anxiety	Sadness

The thought behind this matrix is that if you want an idea to catch on emotionally, it is better to focus on the high arousal emotions, whether they be positive or negative, rather than the low arousal emotions. Berger notes that although we tend to want to produce the positive high arousal emotions in viewers, the negative ones can be at least as potent.

What makes something go viral? At the end of the read Contagious won’t give you a detailed strategic blueprint, or provide in-depth philosophical, psychological or anthropological discussions, but it does provide a rich discussion of examples, and shows a broad range of issues people should take into account when attempting to make an idea go viral.

By @jfhannon, CEO at Justkul Inc., a research firm focused on the needs of strategy and private equity.

What is Cool?

Posted on December 10, 2012November 30, 2015 by John Hannon

What is cool? Coolness is a preference objectified. It is usually asserted in relation to a group to which one attributes an authority in the realm of taste.

The objectification of the preference is important. To objectify something is in part to grant ownership to another. In the realm of the cool, this is to open an object’s status to debate among one’s peers. This is the reason that one can both prefer something, and agree that it isn’t particularly cool. For instance, you might really like a particular kind of sneaker, and agree that it isn’t a particularly cool sneaker. Or, alternatively, one can assert that something is cool, but not like it at all. In the latter case, you are probably saying that the item is preferred by a group that you do not identify with. For instance, an English professor might agree that Harry Potter is cool, but really not like of the writing or films.

Because of the connection to objectification, unlike a regular preference, one can challenge and debate the coolness of something. This rhetorical structure also means that your group of friends might be able to convince you that what you initially thought was cool, really isn’t.

Coolness is often said in relation to an age group or generation. What teenagers think is cool is often very different from what 30-somethings think is cool. For instance, Twilight tends to appeal to younger generations, whereas it doesn’t appeal to older generations. Conversely, a nightclub might seem cool to a 30-something, but not even be on a younger generation’s radar. However, most people would probably agree that younger generations seem to have more authority over what is cool. Teenagers seem to have unusual authority in this realm. This is perhaps because it is an age of rebellion, and what is cool is often the result of overthrowing preferences that were held before.

Yet, coolness can also be age-independent. When Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone, people in many different generations found it to be cool. It was a product that was just so superior to any of the previous offerings in the mobile phone category. Similarly, when someone is really passionate about something interesting, she or he can be imbued with coolness. Even a bunch of rebellious teenagers may think a particular oldtimer who has a unique perspective on life is cool.
Coolness also has temporal and geographic aspects. A judgment that something is cool is asserted at a particular time and place, and it may quickly cease to be cool. Friendster was cool once, but it rapidly fell out of disfavor when Facebook came along, which combined a Friendster-style framework with a sense of exclusivity. There will likely be a time when Facebook ceases to be cool too. (Some may think it became uncool when it lost its exclusivity, or when their families or bosses joined.) Place also matters, because something that is cool in Chicago may not be cool in Tokyo.

But coolness isn’t merely an abstract concept: coolness sells. That is why companies are interested in what is cool. It is a powerful force for consumerism. Someone may no longer want to wear a perfectly adequate article of clothing because the color or fit is no longer cool. Because of the tight tie between consumerism and coolness, this fact can often make coolness into a negative for some groups of people. An environmental activist might find the idea that you need to buy something because it is “cool” as a serious moral deficiency.

Coolness tends to be related closely with consumerism, but it need not be. Activities such as donating to a particularly worthy cause, or voting in an election may become cool in certain contexts. And in fact, making a cause cool is a good way to ensure its success. Even anti-consumerism, or being anti-cool can paradoxically become cool to some groups.

Coolness can be easy to define in the abstract, but very difficult to pin down in the concrete. This is because coolness is a rebellious category. It promotes the kind of disruptive innovation that causes us to revise existing categories and preferences. It is also constantly moving and changing. But one thing is for sure: coolness has real world consequences.

By @jfhannon, CEO at Justkul Inc., a research firm focused on the needs of strategy and private equity.