Tipping Point concept for Marketing

Tipping Point, book by Gladwell, explains the three simple principles that underpin the rapid spread of ideas, products and behaviours through a population and can unlock the viral potential of a new product or service to create an epidemic of demand.

By applying these principles, the book outlines how marketers can help produce a ‘tipping point’ for a new product or service, the moment when a domino effect is triggered and an epidemic of demand sweeps through a population like a highly contagious mind virus.

The Law of the Few

First, do not waste time marketing your idea to the masses: focus your energies on the trendsetters, the socially promiscuous and those with the power to influence. Place your idea or product with these people and, by the force of word of mouth added to an innate human tendency to keep up with the Joneses, your epidemic will snowball through society.Focus on the consumers that count, the mass will follow’ is the Tipping Point marketing mantra.

Screening profile for infectious connectors:

o Ahead in adoption
o Connected
o Travellers
o Information Hungry
o Vocal
o Exposed to Media


The Stickiness Factor

Tweaking your idea or product to make it more infectious or "sticky" (Gladwell's preference) is the second step. This does not mean major surgery to transform a mediocre idea into a brilliant idea-a cosmetic makeover will work wonders, so just "tweak and test" with a view to involving your target audience, telling a story, somehow making it relevant to them.

The Stickiness Factor – What makes an Innovation Infectious?

• Excellence: perceived as best of breed
• Uniqueness: clear one-of-a-kind differentiation
• Aesthetics: perceived aesthetic appeal
• Association: generates positive associations
• Engagement: fosters emotional involvement
• Expressive value: visible sign of user values
• Functional value: addresses functional needs
• Nostalgic value: evokes sentimental linkages
• Personification: has character, personality
• Cost: perceived value for money

The Power of Context

Finally, get the context right. The human mind is wired to be receptive to ideas only in certain situations, so make sure your idea fits the context in which it will be adopted, and make sure it fits the context of a mind still primarily adapted to a distant hunter-gatherer past. By testing and tweaking your product to fit the social, physical and mental context of use, the science of social epidemics states that the impact on future sales will be exponential