Will You Catch What's Contagious?

Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Author: Jonah Berger

Book Length: 244 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Price: $26.00 (NEW HARD COVER)

Will You Catch What's Contagious?

By: Christina Wood

           After reading Jonah Berger’s illustration of a “Contagious” world, I never thought I would “catch on” to his insightful message and be able to apply it to my professional life.  Through the numerous examples of pop culture such as Rebecca Black’s “Friday” one hit wonder explanation of how it spread like wild fire, I truly believe that through the understanding of this book, the world of public relations can truly benefit from Berger’s findings.

            Jonah Berger is the James G. Campbell Associate Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  According to Jonah Berger’s official website, “He has published dozens of articles in top-tier academic journals, and popular accounts of his work have appeared in places like The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Science, Harvard Business Review, Wired, BusinessWeek, and Fast Company.”  His research has also been featured in The New York Times Magazine’s annual “Year in Ideas” issue. Berger has been recognized with awards for both scholarship and teaching, including being named Wharton’s “Iron Prof.” 

Berger is especially known for studying social epidemics, or how products, ideas, and behaviors catch on and become popular. He examines how individual decision-making and social dynamics (e.g., social influence) between people generate collective outcomes such as social contagion and trends. Most recently, Professor Berger has examined why certain products get more word-of-mouth than others and why certain online content goes viral.

Berger’s perspective based on the the studies mentioned above, really gave me a visual understanding of why things do catch on in new media.  His insight explains why certain things become popular and why certain brands trend over other brands. He gives examples from pop culture that are specific and easy to understand.  I believe that all practitioners studying public relations should read this book considering new media is rapidly growing every day, and Berger does a phenomenal job of explaining why.

For more information regarding Contagious check out these articles below:

Mapping Out the Path to Viral Fame

Jonah Berger | "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" YouTube

Goodreads.com

Buy Contagious Here

Contagious: How Things Go Viral

Contagious: How Things Go Viral

It May Be Stupid, But It's Viral

By Katie Smith

Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger is a good read if you don’t understand how things become popular. The six principles he bases his book on are social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value and stories. Each principle is described in great detail. They are commonly reduced to the acronym STEPPS.

Social currency – this refers to something you get when you look cool or interesting by discussing something cool or interesting.

Triggers – this refers to something you see, smell or hear that reminds you of a certain product.

Emotion – this refers to the emotion a product or brand evokes.

Public – this refers to how many people know about it.

Practical value – this refers to how easily shared it is.

Stories – this refers to a product or cause that can have a story spun around it.

There is enough information in the book to be a good read, but at times the information felt like common sense. There are some fantastic examples of viral campaigns and each is analyzed. His example about Rebecca Black’s song “Friday” and how a spike in views on YouTube was predictable. You could relate that example to a newer video that went viral in hours. Miley Cyrus’s video for “Wrecking Ball” has racked up an impressive 391,406,147 views and it only came out in September of this year. In fact, it is reportedly the most popular music video of 2013. Not to mention, it is one of the most spoofed videos and covered songs on YouTube.

If you’re planning on working in social media, the book could be informative and beneficial. As I said before though, most of the information seems like it should be common sense.

Contagious: Why things catch on

Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Author: Jonah Berger

Book Length: 244 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Price: $26.00 (NEW HARD COVER)

*COUGH,COUGH* It’s Contagious

By: Donavon Kelly

Jonah Berger’s “Contagious” is a book explaining the reasoning behind why things go “viral” or catch on. Berger gives us six STEPPS – social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value and stories. Berger teaches us how content becomes contagious through these principles.

Berger uses a lot of research to back up is explanations for each principle. Social currency refers to how good something makes us look. Berger explains how people usually talk about things that make them look good. He uses the product Blendtec as an example. This company focused on highlighting the product’s ability to blend almost anything, including a cell phone. Focusing on this remarkable feature helped generate millions for the company. Having such a powerful blender made customers look good when they talk about this product.

We often base our purchases on the testimonials we hear from other consumers. I refused to get the iPhone for many years because I didn’t want to hop on the bandwagon. My older brother, however, was #teamiPhone all the way. Talking about the iPhone made him look good. He would constantly rub the emoji feature in my face and show off the phone’s sleek appearance. This content was contagious and I now own an iPhone. I often find myself teasing people, mainly my mom, who don’t have iPhones.

This book was very informative, but in all honesty it was way too long. Berger could have accomplished his task with fewer pages. Once I understood the purpose of the book, I didn’t see a need for so much research to be included. Perhaps he was trying to satisfy a personal craving. 

What makes things go viral?

Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Jonah Berger

244 pgs

Simon and Shuster

$26.00

Review by: Spenser Hicks

Contagious is a book I found hard to put down. It contains so much insightful and actually shocking information on why certain products and trends become so popular. Jonah Berger, an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote the book and it seems like he knows what he is talking about all the way throughout. He studies social influence and social epidemics in depth and was honored in the New York Times “Year in Ideas” Issue. A theme that is spread throughout the whole book and one that I found extremely interesting was when social transmission is discussed. Berger describes word of mouth as being the best manner for social transmission of new products or ideas and it makes sense. I would suggest knowing a little bit about social transmission in general before diving into the book. One of the best metaphors he gives in the book and definitely the most memorable is when he compares a contagious product to a forest fire and says, “They can’t happen without hundreds, if not thousands of regular Joes and Janes passing the product or message along. He proposes 6 principles that will make a message more contagious: social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories. He then gets into talking about certain products over the years that have demonstrated these such as Cheerios, Hotmail, and even Vietnamese nail salons. Overall the book is a good read that is easy to understand. I could personally connect to this book, which made it even more interesting for me. I though of Razor scooters when I was a kid and how popular they became and how everyone wanted one just cause all their friends had them. It has many great comparisons but at some points lacks in depth. I would have liked to read a specific case study or two on some of the products he talked about. At times it also tries to do too much and gets a little to general, not recognizing all the intricacies that go into some of the ideas or products. Other than that it was very enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone. 

I Have Definitely Caught The Bug

Book Title: Contagious Why Things Catch On
Author: Jonah Berger
Length: 256 pages
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Price: $18.89

I Have Definitely Caught The Bug
by: Claire White

I share certain secrets so I can look like an insider, I go to exclusive restaurants to look like I am higher up in society and I even make sure my clothes give off the vibe that I am a special person. Everyone does this, and now I understand why. We are a walking example of what Berger calls "social currency." This is an essential reason of why things catch on. Berger explains that word of mouth, just like sharing a secret to make yourself look like an insider, is crucial for things to start catching on. 

Jonah Berger is the Associate Marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and even teaches a class called Contagious: How Products, Behavious and Ideas Catch On which is centered around his book. Berger has also been published in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek and more. (http://bit.ly/1cpiPmT)

In this book, Berger plainly states why things "catch on" and start trending. How something so horrible like the "Gangnam Style" song or even a distasteful ad never leaves our minds.

Now in my daily life as a student studying public relations, or just someone listening to music in my car, I completely understand why things go viral after reading this interesting novel. This book has definitely given me more insight to what I will experience when I graduate.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning why certain things start trending, especially people in the marketing, advertising or public relations field. The "recipe" Berger explains will help me in my career and I am sure it will help many more as well.

photo credit: causeweremen.com
photo credit: business insider.com

An Infectious Epidemic

Book Title: Contagious: Why Things Catch on

Photo produced by microexplosion.com 

Author: Jonah Berger

Length: 256 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Price: $18.89

An Infectious Epidemic by Allie Bauman

 Remember making art projects as a little kid? What was the first thing you wanted to do after it was done? You wanted to show someone, right? As human beings, we desire to express our opinions, thoughts, and ideas with those around us.  Furthermore, we are constantly aware of how we appear to others, and what we talk about tends to influence that perception. The concepts of self- sharing and public visibility are just two of the contributing factors to word of mouth contagion discussed in Jonah Berger’s book, Contagious.

Photo Produced by blog.clarity.fm

           

Jonah Berger, an Associate Professor of Marketing at Wharton, has devoted his research to the study of social epidemics and teaches a course called “Contagious” at the University of Pennsylvania. His research has appeared in popular newspapers such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal as well as some of the top academic journals.

To read his article, Hurricanes and Hot Baby Names, click here. 

            

The six principles of contagiousness contained in this book are relevant to almost any field of study. It is important to know how get your “ideas to catch on” whether you are a pharmacist for the latest medical discovery or the creative director for an advertising agency.

Overall, I found this book to be interesting and very informative. Berger broke down each principle by using current examples that are pertinent in our society today. These insightful examples helped emphasize the key points in his research. 

I recommend this book to anyone interested in advertising, marketing, or public relations.