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JONAH BERGER: A way to[br]make this video viral?

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We could make it more[br]emotionally arousing.

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Or we could play really[br]loud or exciting music.

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SPEAKER: Let's remix it.

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[CLUB MUSIC]

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JONAH BERGER: I could[br]say something really

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provocative or controversial.

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Everything Gladwell[br]said is wrong.

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People want to hear the rest[br]of the video to figure out why.

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Because controversy[br]encourages discussion, right?

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It gets people to share things.

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I'm Jonah Berger.

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I'm a professor of marketing[br]at the Wharton School

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and author of Contagious,[br]Why Things Catch On.

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The book is Contagious,[br]Why Things Catch On,

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and it's all about how[br]companies, individuals,

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and organizations[br]can get word of mouth

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to help their products[br]and ideas become popular.

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I see life as a laboratory.

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You can look around and[br]see people doing something

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and wonder, well,[br]why does that happen?

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And my job as a psychologist[br]or as a consumer psychologist

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is to understand[br]those questions.

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There's a guy who follows[br]me on Twitter who's-- he has

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a reasonably large following.

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And [INAUDIBLE] he was like,[br]oh, can I get that deal?

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Because I mentioned on Twitter.

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Like some people are really,[br]really excited about this.

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And so I think this[br]definitely has social currency

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for some people.

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I think other people are[br]going to feel like this.

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LAINIE HUSTON: Going viral[br]has been a concept that's

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happened since ancient times.

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It isn't something[br]that is new just

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because Twitter and Facebook[br]are now tools that we can use.

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ALEX CHAHIN: It's a science.

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It boils down to several[br]distinct discrete variables

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that you can pull and toy with[br]in order to make something

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have a greater success[br]of being viral.

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JONAH BERGER: I was in college,[br]and as grandmothers often do,

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my grandmother would send[br]me newspaper articles.

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And one summer, she[br]sent me an article

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about a book called[br]The Tipping Point.

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It brought together psychology,[br]and sociology, and marketing

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in a way that had never really[br]been brought together before.

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But it wasn't necessarily[br]backed up with hard data.

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It was a good amount of opinion[br]and correlational evidence.

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But as we all know,[br]correlation doesn't necessarily

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equal causation.

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Why do people talk[br]about and share things?

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Why are certain things[br]shared more than others?

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That's not even in[br]The Tipping Point.

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There's no section[br]on what makes things

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more viral or more talkable.

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And so I really started[br]to wonder, well,

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why do we share some[br]things rather than others?

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So Rebecca Black's[br]song has been called

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the worst song of all time.

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[REBECCA BLACK, "FRIDAY]

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REBECCA BLACK: (SINGING)[br]It's Friday Friday

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Gotta get down on Friday

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JONAH BERGER: Yet even[br]though it's so bad,

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it's gotten over[br]300 million views.

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And so lots of[br]people wonder, well,

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why is this song that[br]everybody hates doing so well?

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And so if you look at[br]the data, you actually

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see something sort[br]of interesting.

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You see a spike every week[br]on a certain day of the week.

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And when you look at it closely,[br]you notice that it's Friday.

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REBECCA BLACK:[br](SINGING) Thursday

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Today it is Friday

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JONAH BERGER: So this[br]song is equally bad

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every day of the week.

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It's equally bad Monday,[br]Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

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But Friday is a ready[br]reminder, a trigger

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to make us think[br]about that song.

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REBECCA BLACK: (SINGING)[br]through the weekend

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JONAH BERGER: So in[br]a contagious world,

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I think we'll see fewer[br]advertisements and more

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interpersonal communication,[br]less money spent on how can we

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interrupt consumers[br]from their television

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show or their[br]favorite radio program

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and shove an ad in their face,[br]so they'll pay attention to us.

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And more, well, how can[br]we get their friends

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to tell them about this product?

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I think if you're[br]a small company,

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this book is great news.

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You might have thought that you[br]need a celebrity to talk about,

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or you need some big blogger[br]to tweet about your restaurant

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or it's not going[br]to become popular.

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What this book[br]shows is how anyone

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can apply these principles[br]to help their idea catch on.

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If you're a big company, I think[br]you need to change direction

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a little bit.

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You need to stop focusing[br]on finding special people

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and think more about how to[br]create content that's going

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to be more likely to be shared.

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