Contagious Why Things Catch On

Snow White
and 
Pinocchio
off the market and puts them in the “Disney Vault” until it
decides to reissue them. This limited availability makes us feel like we 
have
to act now. If we don’t
we might miss the opportunity even if we might not have otherwise wanted the opportunity in the first
place.
*
Scarcity and exclusivity boost word of mouth by making people feel like insiders. If people get
something not everyone else has, it makes them feel special, unique, high status. And because of that
they’ll not only like a product or service more, but tell others about it. Why? Because telling others
makes them look good. Having insider knowledge is social currency. When people who waited hours
in line finally get that new tech gadget, one of the first things they do is show others. Look at 
me
and
what 
I
was able to get!
And lest you think that only exclusive categories like bars and clothes can benefit from making
people feel like insiders, let me tell you about how McDonald’s created social currency around a mix
that includes tripe, heart, and stomach meat.
—————
In 1979, McDonald’s introduced Chicken McNuggets. They were a huge hit and every franchise
across the country wanted them. But at the time McDonald’s didn’t have an adequate system to meet
the demand. So Executive Chef Rene Arend was tasked with devising another new product to give to
the unlucky franchises that couldn’t get enough chicken. Something that would keep them happy
despite the shortages.
Arend came up with a pork sandwich called the McRib. He had just come back from a trip to
Charleston, South Carolina, and was inspired by Southern barbecue. He loved the rich, smoky flavor
and thought it would be a perfect addition to the McDonald’s menu.
But contrary to what the name suggests, there is actually very little rib meat on the McRib. Instead,
imagine a pork patty shaped into something that looks like a rack of ribs. Subtract the bones (and most
of the higher-quality meat), add barbecue sauce, top it off with onions and pickles, toss it in a bun,
and you pretty much have the McRib.
Lack of rib meat aside, the product test-marketed quite well. McDonald’s was excited and soon

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added the product to the nationwide menu. McRibs were everywhere from Florida to Seattle.
But then the sales numbers came in. Unfortunately, they were much lower than expected.
McDonald’s tried promotions and features, but not much worked. So after a few years it dropped the
McRib, citing Americans’ lack of interest in pork.
A decade later, however, McDonald’s figured out a clever way to increase demand for the McRib.
It didn’t spend more money on advertising. It didn’t change the price. It didn’t even change the
ingredients.
It just made the product scarce.
Sometimes it would bring the product back nationally for a limited time; in other cases it would
offer it at certain locations but not others. One month it would be offered only at franchises in Kansas
City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Two months later it would be offered only in Chicago, Dallas, and
Tampa.
And its strategy worked. Consumers got excited about the sandwich. Facebook groups started
popping up asking the company to “bring back the McRib!” Supporters used Twitter to proclaim their
love for the snack (“Lucky me, the McRib is back”) and to learn where they could find one (“I only
really use Twitter to find out when the McRib is available”). Someone even created an online McRib
locator so fans could share locations that offered the sandwich with others. All for what is mostly a
mix of tripe, heart, and stomach meat.
Making people feel like insiders can benefit all types of products and ideas. Regardless of whether
the product is hip and cool, or a mix of leftover pig parts. The mere fact that something isn’t readily
available can make people value it more and tell others to capitalize on the social currency of
knowing about it or having it.
A BRIEF NOTE ON MOTIVATION
A few years ago I went through a fundamental male rite of passage. I joined a fantasy football league.
Fantasy football has become one of America’s most popular unofficial pastimes. For those
unfamiliar with the game, it’s essentially like being the general manager of an imaginary team.
Millions of people spend countless hours scouting players, tweaking their rosters, and watching their
performance each week.
It always seemed funny to me that people spent so much time on what is essentially a spectator
sport. But when a group of friends needed one more person and asked me if I’d play, I said why not.
And sure enough, I got sucked in. I spent hours every week scanning through cheat sheets, reading
up on players I’d never heard of, and trying to find sleepers other people hadn’t drafted. Once the
season started I found myself watching football, something I had never done before. And it wasn’t to
see whether my local team won. I was watching teams I knew nothing about, checking out which of
my players were doing better, and tweaking my roster each week.
But the most interesting part?
I did this all for free.
No one paid me for the hours I spent, and my friends and I didn’t even have a bet riding on the
outcome. We were just playing for fun. And, of course, bragging rights. But since doing better than
others is social currency, everyone was motivated to do well. Even without a monetary incentive.
The moral? People don’t need to be paid to be motivated. Managers often default to monetary
incentives when trying to motivate employees. Some gift or other perk to get people to take action.
But that’s the wrong way to think about it. Lots of people will refer a friend if you pay them a hundred

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dollars to do so. Offer people the chance to win a gold Lamborghini and they’ll do almost anything.
But as with many monetary incentives, handing out gold Lamborghinis is costly.
Furthermore, as soon as you pay people for doing something, you crowd out their intrinsic
motivation. People are happy to talk about companies and products they like, and millions of people
do it for free every day, without prompting. But as soon as you offer to pay people to refer other
customers, any interest they had in doing it for free will disappear. Customers’ decisions to share or
not will no longer be based on how much they like a product or service. Instead, the quality and
quantity of buzz will be proportional to the money they receive.
Social incentives, like social currency, are more effective in the long term. Foursquare doesn’t pay
users to check in to bars, and airlines don’t give discounts to frequent flier members. But by
harnessing people’s desire to look good to others, their customers did these things anyway—and
spread word of mouth for free.
PLEASE DON’T TELL? WELL, OKAY. MAYBE JUST ONE PERSON . . .
How do we get people talking and make our products and ideas catch on? One way is to mint social
currency. People like to make a good impression, so we need to make our products a way to achieve
that. Like Blendtec’s