March 3, 2008
Is the Tipping Point toast?
The rigours of the book tour mean that I am very late to this piece in Fast Company, but perhaps it is still news to some of you. The writer, Clive Thompson, reminds us of Malcom Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” and the role of influential opinion-formers in spreading news:
These tastemakers, Gladwell concluded, are the spark behind any successful trend. “What we are really saying,” he writes, “is that in a given process or system, some people matter more than others.” In modern marketing, this idea–that a tiny cadre of connected people triggers trends–is enormously seductive. It is the very premise of viral and word-of-mouth campaigns: Reach those rare, all-powerful folks, and you’ll reach everyone else through them, basically for free. Loosely, this is referred to as the Influentials theory, and while it has been a marketing touchstone for 50 years, it has recently reentered the mainstream imagination via thousands of marketing studies and a host of best-selling books. In addition to The Tipping Point, there was The Influentials, by marketing gurus Ed Keller and Jon Berry, as well as the gospel according to PR firms such as Burson-Marsteller, which claims “E-Fluentials” can “make or break a brand.” According to MarketingVOX, an online marketing news journal, more than $1 billon is spent a year on word-of-mouth campaigns targeting Influentials, an amount growing at 36% a year, faster than any other part of marketing and advertising. That’s on top of billions more in PR and ads leveled at the cognoscenti.
Yet, if you believe [Duncan] Watts, all that money and effort is being wasted. Because according to him, Influentials have no such effect. Indeed, they have no special role in trends at all.
I would not be quite so quick to write off “The Tipping Point” - in any case its main merit has always been that it’s a cracking read. But Duncan Watts is a fascinating researcher and the Fast Company article is excellent too. You can also read a piece Watts wrote for the New York Times last year. And inspired by these pieces, I’ve just read Watts’s book, “Six Degrees” and heartily recommend it. (Confusion alert: there is another book out there with the same title.)
I just heard Witold Henisz of Wharton talking about the massive investments firms such as BP are making in influence mapping software. (He’s got a working paper with Bennet Zellner in the pipe.) These firms know who went to school with whom, who reads which columnists, who has the ear of specific legislators and bureaucrats. They know how to mine network data for the most effective paths of influence.
Seems like these firms didn’t get the memo about the tipping point.
Posted by: Alison Kemper | March 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm | Report this commentI’ve forgotten just how many years I used this model in helping organisations (via change management) and in teaching my university students. Those you cite as “influentials” are key to ensuring that change will be accepted by the majority. It worked for the organisations I helped: so maybe it has genuinely stood the test of time?
Posted by: derek tunnicliffe | March 3rd, 2008 at 6:41 pm | Report this comment