As reporter and acclaimed author Malcolm Gladwell describes in his book by the same name, “The Tipping Point” is that magical moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.
“The Tipping Point” describes how and why phenomena become viral, from Hush Puppies shoes to the flu to teen smoking in the U.S. Gladwell outlines three characteristics that greatly impact whether something has the potential to overcome the threshold of the tipping point and become an epidemic, or what we consider today as ‘viral’: the law of the few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context.
He also argues that for something to become viral, an agent of change is required. In today’s social media dominated society, we would classify these individuals as ‘influencers.’ Whether they’re subject matter experts, have a large following on social platforms, or sponsors for specific brands or products, they have a large impact upon the consumption decisions of others.
When we think about what public relations is at its core, it tries to influence specific groups of people to become aware, change their attitude or act upon a certain call to action. There you have it – an intentional implementation of the concept of the ‘tipping point.’
A few other factors will influence the virality of a given campaign, product, or issue: its stickiness and context. Marketers have talked about ‘stickiness’ for years, creating a slogan, catchphrase, imagery or branding to inspire action or change. The second element for virality is the context – an external factor which is harder to change. Our behavior as humans is subconsciously affected by our environment, and making small changes can drastically affect the uptake of desired behavior, opinions, and trends. Most of the techniques used to affect stickiness and context involve some combination of psychology and economics – but let’s save that for another blog.
When you have this perfect storm of influencers, stickiness, and the right context virality is likely occur. However, the reason why virality is desired should be considered, as well as the impact it will have on the issue, product, or service at hand.
As an astute social media director noted on Twitter, there is a point in time when a viral post reaches beyond the targeted audience and messaging. This could result in a negative response due to lack of awareness or knowledge and result in a different direction of change than desired. This also tends to result in quantity being favored over quality and does not engender true brand or issue champions with long-term viability.
Take for example Pepsi’s 2017 ad with Kendall Jenner.
It had all the components of a viral campaign; it featured a celebrity as its influencer, it was timely being related to racial injustice, and it was sticky. But it was sticky for all the wrong reasons – the ad borrowed imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement and despite trying to portray unity and peace, the execution trivialized the widespread protests against the killings of black people by the police. Pepsi favored the virality of their ad over the harmful effects of its message.
This was virality done wrong.
Xenophon has many years of experience crafting effective, targeted, and sticky messaging for a variety of campaigns and clients. Visit our website to learn how Xenophon can help you determine the right messaging and strategy for your initiatives https://xenophonstrategies.com/services/strategic-messaging/.
P.S. if you haven’t already, we highly recommend reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.”