I’ve been a fan of Duncan Watts work since I read his Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. Last night on Twitter, thanks to Michale B. Moore and Steve Jennings, I discovered an article from Fast Company published last year. The article examines Watts’s take on debunking the Influentials theory.
The Influentials theory, made popular to current generations by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, and Jon Berry and Ed Keller in The Influentials, has become the darling of many in the marketing world. The idea is simple: to create a viral spread marketers should target a magical, rare group of individuals who exert a disproportionate amount of influence on a large group of people.
I’ve never been a fan of this theory, or more appropriately hypothesis. Those touting the validity of the idea of Influentials offer little insight into how the spread works and, more importantly, how you can find and target them in the first place. Their suggestions are more flowery and inspiring than practical and useful.
Duncan Watts is of the same opinion. In a 2001 experiment, reproducing the famous 1967 Six Degrees of Separation study by Stanley Milgram on a larger scale, Watts found that only 5% of the message passed through the highly connected individuals to reach the final target.
Perhaps the most important conclusion from the original Milgram paper (and I never see this mentioned) is that information, even if you know an exact target, has a tendency to get trapped: in Milgram’s study only 29% of the packages made it to the target.
This begs the question: if it’s hard to make sure a known, specific target gets reached, how is it possible to ensure that members of an ill-defined group of “Influentials” get your message?
Using computer simulations to model social behavior, Watts notes: “If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one—and if it isn’t, then almost no one can.”
In other words, the most important factor in creating a viral movement isn’t reaching highly connected people, it’s the willingness of a group in a society to accept the trend.
This is why it’s important to make sure your advertising targets a mindset rather than an individual. If the mindset you’re targeting results in a strong emotional hook, people will naturally be drawn to support it and champion its benefits.
Watts’s final conclusion is that the best way to create a viral spread of information is by way of mass marketing: the more people you reach, the more likely it is that the message will spread.
I’d modify Watts’s last point: target as many media channels as possible that are likely to contain members who have a mindset receptive to your message. And, this is closer to Watts’s main point: the likelihood of a message being passed on has the most to do with how receptive people are to it.
To sum up, :
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Information is likely to get trapped. Targeting an ill-defined group of Influentials won’t work.
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The most important factor in whether or not something gets spread is how receptive people are to the message.
- Focus broadcasting the message in channels likely to have individuals with a similar mindset.
Tags: Branding · Business · Duncan Watts · Influentials · Malcolm Gladwell · Marketing · viral marketing1 Comment
Very thoughtful post! I agree that it is something of a “black box” in understanding how trends take off and even, more fundamentally, in how branding and marketing “work”. That said, because we cannot articulate the specifics of the process does not necessarily mean that we should ignore its existence or impact. (I can’t tell you how love works either, but I can confidently and personally attest to its existence!)
Human beings live in families within communities. We are born looking to others to help guide our thinking and behavior. This doesn’t stop when we consider consumer products. I don’t think marketers should be surprised that people look to other people to help them make their consumer decisions.
Moreover, we know that there are “early adopters”. By definition, they are the first consumers to try something. We also know that if they don’t like whatever product they are trying, the likelihood of the mass market liking it – or even getting to see it – is much much less. I think about the Apple Newton – perhaps the first PDA that – unfortunately for Apple – was ahead of its time. The EA’s couldn’t figure it out – so the rest of us never got the chance to . . . until Palm came along later.
I agree with the emphasis on psychographics, but it seems the over-all approach above is more media driven than anything. In today’s market where companies are striving to get each marketing dollar to work even harder, I’m not sure how much the notion of throwing more media dollars at something will resonate.
Also, can we really argue that there are people who are “influential” in society? They were the “cool” kids in their particular circles in school and continue to be the ones who trailblaze products. Just because we are incapable of explicitly replicating the process of how trends take root ad infinitum doesn’t mean that we should ignore the process itself. Who knows, maybe the new product’s positioning is off, maybe the strategy is weak, maybe the advertising didn’t put the product’s best foot forward. There can be plenty of reasons why a consumer product fails.
Perhaps the ultimate answer is an amalgam of approaches. Perhaps as Watts says, society does need to be “ready” for a trend. But perhaps also – finding the influentials first is the most efficient and effective way to get the ball rolling!