Jonah Berger — The man of influence
When I chose 2018 as “my year of books”, I wasn’t really serious. Like who in their right minds will want to read 100 books a year? Not to be mistaken, it is definitely worth the effort. But hundred books? May be 50 is possible, I thought to myself.
As someone who wants to read a lot of books will admit, I wanted to catch up with all that reading I haven’t done in years. For some time now, I missed reading those ‘Tipping point’ and ‘Blink’ and ‘Phantoms in the brain’ type of books — books that helped me think deeper about myself and the society at large.
I first came across this author when I was reading a Nir Eyal’s blog regarding Word of Mouth.
Now, if you have worked in Marketing, you will know that Word of Mouth can change the game for your product. A good buzz about your product, when it happens, requires not much spending but can do wonders to your “growth” numbers.
As I was trying to figure out how to generate more buzz for a product that I was working on, I got hooked on the subject of “spreading the word” and how “people can influence each other”.
Enters Jonah Berger.
If you have read books of Nir Eyal, Dan Ariely, Chip&Dan Heath, then you would like the style in Jonah Berger’s books. He takes a social concept that has a lot of practical business implications and tries to explain them based on social psychology.
Jonah Berger, is one of those “Ivy league” professors who writes deeply about business problems from the aspect of psychology. The way he dishes out “interesting” lab experiments, personal anecdotes and real world examples to explain his concepts is amazing. It makes for a smooth as well as a very fulfilling read.
And being a Marketing professor, he keeps going back to the point of how all this can be used in the real world of business. And that what makes his books real interesting, at least to me.
His books are like the “Freakanomics for social influence and virality” — trying to explain why and how people are influenced to adopt a behavior.
Invisible Influence talks about how much we as individuals are influenced by others. It raises questions like why people imitate each other? When do people want to differentiate themselves? And how this understanding can be used by brand and products.
Contagious talks about what kind of messages or product actually spread. It asks questions like is there a DNA for viral products or messages? Is being remarkable the only way to get the word spread about your ideas?
In both the books, the author talks about how answers to such questions can be applied in product marketing.
I am a slow, very slow reader. Sometimes I spend an entire day on a page. For me its essential that a book helps me think better on the subject, helps me come with more ideas and better, come up with questions that are interesting to pursue.
But reading Contagious and Invisible Influence, back to back, over a weekend, was a new experience to me. Not that, the books did not make me think. Just that the books made it difficult to put them away even for a little bit.
For those who want to know a little bit more — below are few interesting stories I came across in the books.
- The 100$ Cheese steak
- A&F will pay Jersey Shore cast to stop wearing its clothes
- The 300,000$ watch that doesn’t tell time
- How 50K$ salary is more desirable than a 100K$ salary
- How hurricanes influence baby names
If you are a kind of person who gets a high chasing such questions, you should try Contagious and The Invisible Influence.
Oh yes, on “the 100 books a year project”, am at book number 13 now, currently reading Silence by Thich Nhat Hanh. More on the project and the book, in a later post.
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Harish Ven is a story teller with amazingly positive hopes for the world. Is obsessed with human behavior, technology, and the inter-lying areas. Dons different hats — Writer, Product Builder, Marketeer, Speaker, Researcher.You can reach out to him on twitter.
