Contagious Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Audio available

Brief Summary

"Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age" by Jonah Berger explores why certain ideas, products, and behaviors go viral. The book identifies six key principles—social currency, triggers, emotion, public visibility, practical value, and stories—that drive people to share and promote content. Through engaging examples and research, Berger provides insights into how marketers and entrepreneurs can leverage these principles to create contagious content and enhance word-of-mouth marketing.

About the Author

Jonah Berger is a professor of one of the highest-rated courses at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has published several articles in academic journals. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. He has acted as consultation for companies like Apple, advised at numerous early-stage startups, and spoke at several major conferences. He has spent over 15 years studying how social influence works and how it drives products and ideas to catch on. He graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor’s in Human Judgement and Decision Making in 2002 and a Ph.D. in marketing from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2007.

Topics

Marketing & Sales

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Key Insights

Have you ever wondered what makes a product successful?

There are some products and services that seem to spread like wildfire?

But, how can you make that happen for your business?

“If something is built to show, it’s built to grow.”- Jonah Berger

In “Contagious” by Jonah Berger, you will gain the insight you need to get your product to really catch on. He introduces the STEPPS formula that will help you to reach your sales goals and create a must-have product.

After reading this, your product will go viral! You’ll be fighting to keep us as consumers demand more and more.

What Makes A Product Shareable?

What is it that makes a product go viral? Is it the quality of the product itself or is it great marketing?

Of course, it’s a little bit of each. There are some products that just have that must-have quality to them and automatically attract the consumer. But, there must be smart-planning behind it.

An example of this is the Barclay Prime Steakhouse in Philidelphia, PA. The restaurant owner Howard Wein introduced a $100 cheesecake to the menu which created a huge buzz, as you can imagine! There were celebrities visiting, news media covering it, and it overall made the restaurant more profitable and popular than ever before!

Word-Of-Mouth

Word-of-mouth is a great way for you to get your product or service to become contagious. It’s actually a greater influence than professional advertising and marketing.

Advertising and marketing is a good tool and can create a buzz, but it will not make a product become contagious, which is the goal.

Businesses must make people aware of the product for it to spread word-of-mouth.

In our modern-day world, we share things all the time on social media. It’s the new-age form of word-of-mouth. A lot of the things we share are products and brand-related items. We may not think we have the power of influencing others with our posts, but we’re wrong! Studies show that up to ¼ of all the purchases we make are influenced by word-of-mouth.

Though professional ads can reach more people, word-of-mouth is still stronger in the marketing game because we tend to trust people we know more. If a co-worker likes a certain brand of laundry detergent, maybe you will too!

Another reason why word-of-mouth is so successful is that it is more precise. If you are a quilter and so is your friend, you may shop at the same fabric place as her because she recommended it. Word-of-mouth spreads through communities of people.

Social media is only 7% of the word-of-mouth advertisement though. There has to be more advertisement to make a product contagious.

Sharing

We all like to impress other people. And, an easy way to do this is to share some “insider” knowledge of different subjects and new products.

Impressing people is pleasurable for humans. It actually activates the same part of the brain as food and money do. And, of course, sharing and helping others also makes us look good!

“When we care, we share.”- Jonah Berger

Sharing is a solid form of social currency. People...