Contagious Why Things Catch On

Seven a.m., waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Then she hustles down to the bus stop, sees her friends drive by, and ponders whether to sit in the
front seat or the back. Finally, after all those tough decisions, she hits the chorus, an ode to her
excitement about the impending two days of freedom:
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend.
All in all, the piece sounds more like a monologue of the random thoughts going through an
especially vacant teenager’s head than a real song.
Yet this song was one of the most viral videos of 2011. It was viewed more than 300 million times
on YouTube, and many millions more listened to it over other channels.
Why? The song was terrible, but lots of songs are terrible. So what made this one a success?
Take a look at the number of daily searches for “Rebecca Black” on YouTube in March 2011, soon
after the song was first released. See if you notice a pattern.
Searches for “Rebecca Black” on YouTube March 2011
Notice the spike once every week? Look closer and you’ll see that the spike happens on the same
day every week. There was one on March 18, seven days later on March 25, and seven days later, on
April 1.
The particular day of the week? You guessed it. Friday—just like the name of Rebecca Black’s
song.
So while the song was equally bad every day of the week, each Friday it received a strong trigger

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that contributed to its success.
TRIGGERED TO TALK
As discussed in the Social Currency chapter, some word of mouth is motivated by peoples’ desire to
look good to others. Mentioning clever or entertaining things makes people seem clever and
entertaining. But that isn’t the only factor that drives us to share.
Most conversations can be described as small talk. We chat with parents at our kids’ soccer games
or schmooze with coworkers in the break room. These conversations are less about finding interesting
things to say to make us look good than they are about filling conversational space. We don’t want to
sit there silently, so we talk about something. Anything. Our goal isn’t necessarily to prove that we
are interesting, funny, or intelligent. We just want to say something to keep the conversation going.
Anything to prove that we’re not terrible conversationalists.
So what do we talk about? Whatever is top of mind is a good place to start. If something is
accessible, it’s usually relevant to the situation at hand. Did you read about the new bridge
construction? What did you think about the game last night?
We talk about these topics because they are going on in the surrounding environment. We saw the
bulldozers on our drive in, so construction is on our mind. We bump into a friend who likes sports, so
we think about the big game. Triggers boost word of mouth.
Returning to the BzzAgent data, triggers helped us answer why some products get talked about
more. More frequently triggered products got 15 percent more word of mouth. Even mundane
products like Ziploc bags and moisturizer received lots of buzz because people were triggered to
think about them so frequently. People who use moisturizer often apply it at least once a day. People
often use Ziploc bags after meals to wrap up leftovers. These everyday activities make those products
more top of mind and, as a result, lead them to be talked about more.
Furthermore, not only did triggered products get more immediate word of mouth, they also got
more word of mouth on an ongoing basis.
In this way, Ziploc bags are the antithesis of me going to teach dressed like a pirate. The pirate
story is interesting, but it’s here today, gone tomorrow. Ziploc bags may be boring, but they get
mentioned week in and week out because they are frequently triggered. By acting as reminders,
triggers not only get people talking, they keep them talking. Top of mind means tip of tongue.
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So rather than just going for a catchy message, consider the context. Think about whether the
message will be triggered by the everyday environments of the target audience. Going for interesting
is our default tendency. Whether running for class president or selling soda, we think that catchy or
clever slogans will get us where we need to go.
But as we saw in our fruits and vegetables study, a strong trigger can be much more effective than a
catchy slogan. Even though they hated the slogan, college students ate more fruits and vegetables
when cafeteria trays triggered reminders of the health benefits. Just being exposed to a clever slogan
didn’t change behavior at all.
A few years ago, auto insurance company GEICO ran ads that said switching to GEICO was so
simple that even a caveman could do it. On the cleverness dimension the ads were great. They were
funny and made the point that switching to GEICO was easy.
But judged on triggers, the ads fail. We don’t see many cavemen in our daily lives, so the ad is

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unlikely to come to mind often, making it less likely to be talked about.
Contrast that with the Budweiser beer “Wassup?” campaign. Two guys are talking on the phone
while drinking Budweiser and watching a basketball game on television. A third friend arrives. He
yells, “Wassup?” One of the first two guys yells “Wassup?” back. This kicks off an endless cycle of
wassups between a growing number of Budweiser-drinking buddies.
No, it wasn’t the cleverest of commercials. But it became a global phenomenon. And at least part
of its success was due to triggers. Budweiser considered the context. “Wassup” was a popular
greeting among young men at the time. Just greeting friends triggered thoughts of Budweiser in
Budweiser’s prime demographic.
The more the desired behavior happens after a delay, the more important being triggered becomes.
Market research often focuses on consumers’ immediate reaction to an advertising message or
campaign. That might be valuable in situations where the consumer is immediately offered a chance to
buy the product. But in most cases, people hear an ad one day and then go to the store days or weeks
later. If they’re not triggered to think about it, how will they remember that ad when they’re at the
store?
Public health campaigns would also benefit from considering the context. Take messages that
encourage college students to drink responsibly. While the messages might be really clever and
convincing, they’re posted at the campus health center, far away from the frat houses or other places
where students actually drink. So while students may agree with the message when they read it, unless
they are triggered to think about it when they are actually drinking, the message is unlikely to change
behavior.
Triggers even shed light on when negative word of mouth has positive effects. Economist Alan
Sorensen, Scott Rasmussen, and I analyzed hundreds of