GOING FROM THE BASE TO THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN
The Tipping Point As A Marketing Theory
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown and Company NY, 2000. Paperback, Back Bay Books, NY, 2002.
With all the books and articles about how to market, there’s remarkably little on how people buy. And if you don’t know that, can you really know how to market?
That’s what’s so special about The Tipping Point and its concept. Malcolm Gladwell’s best seller – published in 2000 and now number one on the New York Times paperback best seller list – about the epidemic effect that tips books like The Tipping Point into a best seller five years after it was first published. And as of this writing, it’s been on the list for 49 weeks. It’s clearly one of the most important books on marketing written in recent years. The Tipping Point’s tipping point to the best seller list came about when a number of marketing and sociology experts (mavens) spread the word to their influential acquaintances, who then spread the word to their influential acquaintances, who then spread the word to an even wider network. This process is what the book is about.
Gladwell, a New Yorker Magazine writer known for his insights and meticulous research, looks at the phenomenon that turns a product or an idea into an epidemic, not unlike a medical epidemic that begins with just a few people and rages throughout a community. He looks at crime and how it grows and then subsides. How a simple product like the shoe Hush Puppies goes from the mundane to a fad. How some marketing messages resonate to a target audience when others don’t. Why Paul Revere succeeded in warning that the British were coming, while another rider – Dawes, who rode at the same time with the same information -- did not succeed in rousing the villagers. How word of mouth really works. Gladwell can really write, really think, and his subject is well researched and documented. His examples are more than merely anecdotal; they are meticulously detailed and annotated.
Three general principles generally prevail, says Gladwell, in creating a tipping point – that moment when something small, or even obscure, changes into something big. It’s the moment when something obscure tips over into something big and significant. These principles, he says, are the law of the few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context. They guide the dynamic that cause changes that have big effects – when the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. These principles, properly understood and applied, can substantially affect marketing strategy.
The law of the few says that success of any kind of social epidemic is “…heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.” These people are mavens – experts in a particular field, and connecters, known to and trusted by others, and who have wider connections to influential groups. Paul Revere had a wide acquaintance in the colony, and was personally popular. Dawes didn’t have that kind of circle of friends. Fewer people knew Dawes, and so fewer people paid attention to his warnings, nor spread the word. Paul Revere, on the other hand was widely known and liked, and so was taken seriously. It made it possible for Revere’s warning to marshal the American forces and stop the British.
Hush Puppies were so outré that a few hippie types wore them as a kind of counter-culture statement. That incited others who wanted to appear cool, and they, in turn, attracted yet more people who wanted to be fashionable. Thus grew the phenomenon that catapulted Hush Puppies into a sensation. “One critical factor in the Law of the Few,” says Gladwell, “is the nature of the messenger.” Is the messenger a reliable source of information, or an authority? Is the messenger connected to a circle of people that expands through each of their acquaintances and connections, and can inform or influence others? Such a person may, for example, find a new restaurant about which he or she is enthusiastic. If the messenger is someone whose opinion others trust, and has a wide acquaintanceship, the reputation of that restaurant tips over into widespread popularity.
The second principle, the stickiness factor – is the message that makes an impact. “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should,” for example. Stickiness, says Gladwell, is more important than the medium. It can be an advertising devise that forces people to read or listen to the ad’s message, and to actually absorb that message. It’s best done with a message that resonates with the reader, particularly in a way that offers a personal benefit. )r it could be a simple action or devise that’s particularly user friendly. Gladwell’s example is an experiment at Yale to see if students could be made to understand the importance of keeping tetanus shots up to date. It ran a campaign demonstrating the dangers and consequences of not getting the shot, and listed places on the large campus where the shot was being given. The campaign was a failure and the message didn’t stick, until they added a map of the campus showing the locations of the inoculation centers. That simple devise changed failure into success. A contemporary example in the accounting profession may be seen in two competing ad campaigns by competing accounting firms. One, a Big Four firm, advertises that, “Accounting is our Passion,” a slogan that assumes that passion is shared, and perhaps that competitive firms don’t have that passion. There is no benefit to the reader that compels remembering the firm, or that enhances reputation. The other, a campaign by the firm Jefferson Wells, features individual staff members, each of whom is described in terms of a knowledgeable, experienced and effective person, particularly in the important and complex Sarbanes-Oxley law. The impact of each ad in the Jefferson Wells campaign is breathtaking.
The third principle is context, the environment and circumstances that breed and foster an idea’s epidemic effect. An example is the effect of broken windows and boarded up buildings in a neighborhood. This is a context that gives licensee to more of the same negative behavior. During a period of a graffiti epidemic in New York subways, subway crime continue to rise. When the administration cleaned up the subways, and removed graffiti after every trip, graffiti disappeared and subway crime diminished substantially. The changed context tipped the system away from crime. Another example is the case of Kitty Genovese, who, in 1964, was chased by he assailant and attacked three times, while thirty-eight of her names looked on, none of whom called the police. It is believed that in a context in which many people observe a crime, they all, as a group, detach themselves from it. But if there were only one observe, that person would either interfere of call the police. Other experiments at Columbia University and New York University bear that out.
This, of course, is an oversimplification of a profound and complex theory that can explain a great deal about how people buy, and how buying fads begin. It’s application to professional services marketing is a vast subject for another article, which will be forthcoming.
Suffice it to say that this is one of the few books that makes a major contribution to marketing theory, and that should be on every marketer’s bookshelf.