Unleashing the Ideavirus
The book that sparked a marketing revolution.

"This is a subversive book. It says that the marketer is not—and ought not to be—at the center of successful marketing. The customer should be. Are you ready for that?" —From the Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.

Counter to traditional marketing wisdom, which tries to count, measure, and manipulate the spread of information, Seth Godin argues that the information can spread most effectively from customer to customer, rather than from business to customer. Godin calls this powerful customer-to-customer dialogue the ideavirus, and cheerfully eggs marketers on to create an environment where their ideas can replicate and spread.

In lively detail, Godin looks at the ways companies such as PayPal, Hotmail, GeoCities, even Volkswagen have successfully launched ideaviruses. He offers a "recipe" for creating your own ideavirus, identifies the key factors in the successful spread of an ideavirus (powerful sneezers, hives, a clear vector, a smooth, friction-free transmission), and shows how any business, large or small, can use ideavirus marketing to succeed in a world that just doesn't want to hear it anymore from the traditional marketers.
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Unleashing the Ideavirus
The book that sparked a marketing revolution.

"This is a subversive book. It says that the marketer is not—and ought not to be—at the center of successful marketing. The customer should be. Are you ready for that?" —From the Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.

Counter to traditional marketing wisdom, which tries to count, measure, and manipulate the spread of information, Seth Godin argues that the information can spread most effectively from customer to customer, rather than from business to customer. Godin calls this powerful customer-to-customer dialogue the ideavirus, and cheerfully eggs marketers on to create an environment where their ideas can replicate and spread.

In lively detail, Godin looks at the ways companies such as PayPal, Hotmail, GeoCities, even Volkswagen have successfully launched ideaviruses. He offers a "recipe" for creating your own ideavirus, identifies the key factors in the successful spread of an ideavirus (powerful sneezers, hives, a clear vector, a smooth, friction-free transmission), and shows how any business, large or small, can use ideavirus marketing to succeed in a world that just doesn't want to hear it anymore from the traditional marketers.
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Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus

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Overview

The book that sparked a marketing revolution.

"This is a subversive book. It says that the marketer is not—and ought not to be—at the center of successful marketing. The customer should be. Are you ready for that?" —From the Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.

Counter to traditional marketing wisdom, which tries to count, measure, and manipulate the spread of information, Seth Godin argues that the information can spread most effectively from customer to customer, rather than from business to customer. Godin calls this powerful customer-to-customer dialogue the ideavirus, and cheerfully eggs marketers on to create an environment where their ideas can replicate and spread.

In lively detail, Godin looks at the ways companies such as PayPal, Hotmail, GeoCities, even Volkswagen have successfully launched ideaviruses. He offers a "recipe" for creating your own ideavirus, identifies the key factors in the successful spread of an ideavirus (powerful sneezers, hives, a clear vector, a smooth, friction-free transmission), and shows how any business, large or small, can use ideavirus marketing to succeed in a world that just doesn't want to hear it anymore from the traditional marketers.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780786887170
Publisher: Hachette Books
Publication date: 10/10/2001
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 234
Product dimensions: 5.25(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.62(d)
Age Range: 13 - 18 Years

About the Author

SETH GODIN is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. His book Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year, a Fortune Best Business Book and it spent four months on the Business Week bestseller list. It also appeared on The New York Times business book bestseller list. He lives in Westchester County, New York.

Read an Excerpt

Section 1: Why Ideas Matter

Farms, Factories And Idea Merchants

magine for a second that you're at your business school reunion, trading lies and bragging about how successful you are and/or are about to become. Frank the jock talks about the dot-com company he just started. Suzie the ex-banker is now focusing her energy on rebuilding Eastern Europe. And then the group looks at you. With a wry look of amusement, you answer:

"Well, the futurethe really big money-is in owning a farm. A small one, maybe 100 acres. I intend to invest in a tractor of course, and expect that in just a few years my husband and I can cash out and buy ourselves a nice little brownstone in the city."

Ludicrous, no? While owning a farm may bring tremendous lifestyle benefits, it hasn't been a ticket to wealth for, say, 200 years.

What about owning a factory then? Perhaps the road to riches in the new economy would be to buy yourself a hotstamping press and start turning out steel widgets. Get the UAW to organize your small, dedicated staff of craftsmen and you're on your way to robber-baron status.

Most of us can agree that the big money went out of owning a factory about thirty years ago. When you've got high fixed costs and you're competing against other folks who also know how to produce both quantity and quality, unseemly profits fly right out the window.

Fact is, the first 100 years of our country's history were about who could build the biggest, most efficient farm. And the second century focused on the race to build factories. Welcome to the third century, folks. The third century is about ideas.

Alas, nobody has a clue how to build a farm forideas, or even a factory for ideas. We recognize that ideas are driving the economy, ideas are making people rich and most important, ideas are changing the world. Even though we're clueless about how to best organize the production of ideas, one thing is clear: if you can get people to accept and embrace and adore and cherish your ideas, you win. You win financially, you gain power and you change the world in which we live. So how do you win? What do you need to do to change the status quo of whatever industry you're in, or, if you're lucky, to change the world?

If you're a farmer, you want nothing more than a high price for your soybeans. If you're a manufacturer of consumer goods, you want a display at the cash register at Wal-Mart. But what if you're an idea merchant..

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction

Section 1: Why Ideas Matter
Farms, Factories And Idea Merchants
Why Are Ideaviruses so Important?
Five Things Ideaviruses Have In Common
Seven Ways An Ideavirus Can Help You
The Sad Decline of Interruption Marketing
We Live In A WinnerTakeAlmostAll World
The Traffic Imperative: Why Sites Fail
We Used To Make Food. We Used To Make Stuff. Now We Make Ideas.
People Are More Connected Than They Ever Were Before. We Have Dramatically More
Friends Of
Friends And We Can Connect With Them Faster And More Frequently Than Ever.
There's A Tremendous Hunger To Understand The New And To Remain On The Cutting Edge.
While Early Adopters (The Nerds Who Always Want to Know About The Cool New Thing
In Their Field) Have Always Existed, Now We've Got More Nerds Than Ever Before.
If You're Reading This, You're ANerd!
Ideas Are More Than Just Essays And Books.
Everything From New Technology To New Ways Of Creating, To New Products Are Winning Because of Intelligent Ideavirus Management By Their Creators.
The End Of The Zero Sum Game

Section 2: How To Unleash An Ideavirus
While It May Appear Accidental, It's Possible To Dramatically Increase The
Chances Your Ideavirus Will Catch On And Spread.
The Heart Of The Ideavirus: Sneezers
Sneezers Are So Important, We Need To Subdivide Them.
The Art Of The Promiscuous
It's More Than Just Word Of Mouth
An Ideavirus Adores A Vacuum
Once It Does Spread, An Ideavirus Follows A Lifecycle.
Ignore The Lifecycle And The Ideavirus Dies Out.
Feed It Properly And You Can Ride It For A Long Time.
Viral Marketing Is An Ideavirus, But Not All Ideaviruses Are Viral Marketing.
What Does It Take to Build And Spread An Ideavirus?
There Are Three Key Levers That Determine How Your Ideavirus Will Spread.
Thirteen Questions Ideavirus Marketers Want Answered
Five Ways to Unleash An Ideavirus

Section 3: The Idea Virus Formula
Managaing DigitallyAugmented Word Of Mouth
Tweak The Formula And Make It Work
Advanced Riffs On The Eight Variables You Can Tweak In Building Your Virus
Sneezers
Hive
Velocity
Vector
Medium
Smoothness
Persistence
Amplifier

Section 4: Case Studies and Rifts
The Vindigo Case Study
Saving The World With An Ideavirus?
Is Unleashing the Ideavirus An Ideavirus?
Moving Private To Public
You're In The Fashion Business!
The Money Paradox
Think Like A Music Executive (Sometimes)
Is That Your Final Answer?
A Dozen Ideaviruses Worth Thinking About
Why I Love Bestseller Lists
How A Parody Of Star Wars Outsold Star Wars
Wassup?
Judging A Book By Its Cover
Being The Most
In Defensive Of World Domination
If You're A Member Of The Academy, You Go To Movies For Free.
How An Ideavirus Can Drive The Stock Market
Bumper Sticker Marketing
No, You Go First!
Digital Media Wants to Be Free
Van Gogh Lost His Ear To Prove A Point
But How Would We Make Money?
Crossing The Chasm With An Ideavirus
The Myth Of The Tipping Point
The Compounding Effect
Bill Gates' Biggest Nightmare
Hey, Skinny!
Get Big Fast? The Mistake So Many Companies Make.
The Heart Of Viral Marketing
The Great Advertising Paradox

Permission: The Missing Ingredient
How A Virus And Permission Team Up To Find Aliens
The Art of Creating an Ideavirus
Is He Really More Evil Than Satan Himself?
Case Study: Why Digimarc Is Going To Fail
Why Are These Cows Laughing?
Never Drink Alone
The Power of Parody
Bee Stings And The Measles
But Isn't It Obvious?
Your Company's Worst Enemy
Step By Step, Ideavirus Tactics
The Future Of The Ideavirus: What Happens When Everyone Does It?

Acknowledgments
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jay Levinson

Jay Levinson, author of Guerrilla Marketing:

Take Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and Mark Twain. Combine their brains and shave their heads. What's left? Seth Godin.

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