Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus
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 www.ideavirus.com
Sneezers
As described earlier, there are two kinds of sneezers: Powerful and Promiscuous. While all
eight elements of the formula are critical, this is the area where many brand marketers have
the most control, and thus the most influence.
Choose your sneezers—don’t let them choose you. By focusing obsessively on 
who
you’re
choosing to sneeze on your behalf, you build the foundation for your virus.
Powerful sneezers are certainly the most seductive, in that the right word from the right
sneezer can make all the difference to your virus. If David Letterman visits your diner on
television, or the 
New Yorker
writes a twenty-page rave about your website, or if you win a
MacArthur Fellowship Grant, well, you’ve really made it.
Oprah Winfrey is quite possibly the most successful sneezer of our generation. She has
single-handledly turned more than a dozen books into national bestsellers. She has launched
a magazine that already has more than half a million subscribers. She can influence millions
of the most powerful consumers in America, just by uttering a few sentences.
It’s interesting to see how effectively Oprah and her brandmate Martha Stewart have
successfully monetized their position as powerful sneezers. If they trip and get perceived as
promiscuous sneezers, as sneezers for hire, their effectiveness is quite reduced. But if they can
maintain their position at the same time they sell books and magazines or sheets and towels,
they’ve effectively leveraged their fame.
But few of us are that lucky. Most times, you’re going to have to focus on powerful but less
influential sneezers—individuals or organizations that have something to gain by endorsing
your idea but aren’t so out there that they’re tagged as promiscous sneezers.
Some powerful sneezers are very prominent and thus very hard to reach. The challenge for
most marketers is to find the second tier of sneezer—the approachable, interested sneezer
who can do almost as much for you as Oprah or Martha, but with whom you have a far
greater chance of making an impact.

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