CONTAGIOUS: WHY THINGS CATCH ON

Jonah Berger (2016), Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-1451686586.

Introduction: Why Things Catch On

1. What are some challenges that exist for new restaurants? What did Howard Wein spread the word about the Barclay Prime Steakhouse?

2. What does the author suggest about the relative popularity of the names Olivia and Rosalie? How do the dynamics of choosing a childs name differ from those of making product choice decisions? In thinking about this question, you may want to consider the brief discussion of triggers on p. 23.

3. What does the author say about the assertion that social epidemics are driven by the efforts of a handful of exceptional people?

4. What percentage of word of mouth communication has been found to take place online? What are some reasons for this result?

5. How did Blendtec get publicity for its product?

Chapter 1: Social Currency

1. What is the strategy behind the Please Dont Tell Bar?

2. What was found in the brain scanning study on sharing information about oneself?

3. What were the results of the Carla game?

4. What was found by Snapple regarding bottle cap content?

5. What was found in the University of Illinois cooking study?

6. On p. 41, what is the author getting at in saying that Often were not even trying to exaggerate; we just cant recall all details of the story. Our memories arent perfect records?

7. Why, does the author suggest, are frequent flier programs effective?

8. What did the Harvard study on choosing between two different jobs with different income levels find?

9. What did Rue La La and Please Dont Tell have in common? How do Disney and McDonalds use this idea?

Chapter 2: Triggers

1. What is likely to get more word of mouthCheerios or Disney World? Why? (Note that the discussion of this issue is spread among different parts of the chapter).

2. In the BzzAgent study, what was found about the extent of word of mouth that more interesting products received relative to more boring ones?

3. What appears to have been the reason for the rise in sales of Mars bars in 1997?

4. What did the study on retail store music and alcoholic beverage sales find?

5. What did the study on healthy eating slogans find?

6. What did the study on voting poll locations find? 7. What was the apparent quality of the Friday song? How did it do? Why?

8. What does the author suggest about the GEICO cave man ads? 9. What did the study on the effects of positive and negative book reviews find?

10. What did the Budweiser drinking buddies ad involve? 11. How was the Kit Kat campaign intended to work?

12. What was the strategy behind the new Boston Market ads?

13. What does the author suggest concerning the anti-smoking ad spoofing the Marlboro Man?

14. How did the New York City Department of Healths anti-soda campaign work?

Chapter 3: Emotion

1. What is the rationale given for why science articles tend to be among the most shared newspaper articles?

2. Why did the video with the seemingly incompetent woman on Britains Got Talent take off virally?

3. What did the study on the effect of emotional negativity, anger, and anxiety on article sharing find?

4. What did Dave Carroll experience with his United Airlines video?

5. What did Anthony Cafaro see as a problem at Google, and what did he do to address it?

6. What was the strategy behind the BMWs The Hire program?

7. What resulted from Motrins Babywearing campaign?

8. What did the study on jogging and information sharing find? What explanation does the author offer?

Chapter 4: Public

1. What did Apple decide to do with respect to the logo on its PowerBook laptop?

2. What does social proof involve?

3. What was observed concerning the New York City Halal Chicken and Gyros?

4. What appears to be the reason why so many donated kidneys are rejected by patients to whom they are offered?

5. What did the study of MBA students and their life plans find?

6. What was the experience at the University of Arizona on campaigns to reduce binge drinking among students? How does this idea apply to anti-drug advertising?

7. How does the campaign involving growing moustaches work?

8. What is the rationale given for the rapid growth of the Hotmail e-mail service?

9. What is the unique design feature of Christian Louboutin shoes? What is the impact of this?

Chapter 5: Practical Value

1. What does Prospect Theory predict? What are some practical applications of this?

2. What was found in the catalog sales study?

3. What are some methods used in infomercials to make the offer look more attractive? How do these work?

4. What does diminishing sensitivity involve?

5. What does the author suggest about quantity limits on deals?

6. What does the Rule of 100 involve?

7. Why is it that information with a broader potential audience is not necessarily more likely to be shared?

Chapter 6: Stories

1. What does the story of the Trojan Horse illustrate?

2. What is the idea behind the notion of stories as vessels?

3. Why does the author suggest that People are less likely to argue against stories than against advertising claims?

4. What does the Lands End story illustrate?

5. What does the author suggest about the Evolution film sponsored by Dove?

6. How did the story of Jareds Subway diet have going for it, helping it spread?

7. Why was the Golden Palace Olympic stunt not effective?

8. What was found in the case of Evians Roller Babies video? Why?

9. What is the reason suggested for the effectiveness of the Panda Cheese ads?

10. What did the Allport and Postman study on rumors find?

Epilogue

1. Why are a high proportion of nail salons owned by Vietnamese Americans?

2. What have been some similar experiences by other ethnic and immigrant groups?

3. What is the STEPPS framework?

4. What are some issues that should be considered in evaluating a product or idea based on the STEPPS framework?