Unleashing the Ideavirus 1 www.ideavirus.com Unleashing the Ideavirus By Seth Godin Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell ©2000 by Do You Zoom, Inc. You have permission to post this, email this, print this and pass it along for free to anyone you like, as long as you make no changes or edits to its contents or digital format. In fact, I’d love it if you’d make lots and lots of copies. The right to bind this and sell it as a book, however, is strictly reserved. While we’re at it, I’d like to keep the movie rights too. Unless you can get Paul Newman to play me. Ideavirus™ is a trademark of Do You Zoom, Inc. So is ideavirus.com™. Designed by Red Maxwell You can find this entire manifesto, along with slides and notes and other good stuff, at www.ideavirus.com . This version of the manifesto is current until August 17, 2000. After that date, please go to www.ideavirus.com and get an updated version. You can buy this in book form on September 1, 2000. This book is dedicated to Alan Webber and Jerry Colonna. Of course. Unleashing the Ideavirus 2 www.ideavirus.com STEAL THIS IDEA! Here’s what you can do to spread the word about Unleashing the Ideavirus: 1. Send this file to a friend (it’s sort of big, so ask first). 2. Send them a link to www.ideavirus.com so they can download it themselves. 3. Visit www.fastcompany.com/ideavirus to read the Fast Company article. 4. Buy a copy of the hardcover book at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970309902/permissionmarket . 5. Print out as many copies as you like. Unleashing the Ideavirus 3 www.ideavirus.com Look for the acknowledgments at the end. This is, after all, a new digital format, and you want to get right to it! The #1 question people ask me after reading Permission Marketing: “So, how do we get attention to ask for permission in the first place?” This manifesto is the answer to that question. Unleashing the Ideavirus 4 www.ideavirus.com Foreword The notion that an idea can become contagious, in precisely the same way that a virus does, is at once common-sensical and deeply counter-intuitive. It is common-sensical because all of us have seen it happen: all of us have had a hit song lodged in our heads, or run out to buy a book, or become infected with a particular idea without really knowing why. It is counter- intuitive, though, because it doesn’t fit with the marketer’s traditional vision of the world. Advertisers spent the better part of the 20th century trying to control and measure and manipulate the spread of information—to count the number of eyes and ears that they could reach with a single message. But this notion says that the most successful ideas are those that spread and grow because of the customer’s relationship to other customers—not the marketer’s to the customer. For years, this contradiction lay unresolved at the heart of American marketing. No longer. Seth Godin has set out to apply our intuitive understanding of the contagious power of information—of what he so aptly calls the ideavirus—to the art of successful communication. “Unleashing the Ideavirus” is a book of powerful and practical advice for businesses. But more than that, it 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? Malcolm Gladwell Author The Tipping Point www.gladwell.com Unleashing the Ideavirus 5 www.ideavirus.com Introduction If you don’t have time to read the whole book, here’s what it says: Marketing by interrupting people isn’t cost-effective anymore. You can’t afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing messages, in large groups, and hope that some will send you money. Instead, the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk. If you’re looking for mindblowing new ideas, you won’t find them in this, or any other marketing book. Guerrilla marketing, 1:1 marketing, permission marketing—these ideas are not really new, but they are thoughtful constructs that let you figure out how to do marketing better. The fact is, if we built factories as badly as we create advertising campaigns, the country would be in a shambles. This book will help you better understand the time- honored marketing tradition of the ideavirus, and help you launch your own. Questions the book answers: 1. Why is it foolish to launch a new business with millions of dollars in TV ads? 2. Are the market leaders in every industry more vulnerable to sudden successes by the competition than ever before? 3. Should book publishers issue the paperback edition of a book before the hardcover? 4. What’s the single most important asset a company can create—and what is the simple thing that can kill it? 5. Every ad needs to do one of two things to succeed…yet most ads do neither. What’s the right strategy? 6. Does the Net create a dynamic that fundamentally changes the way everything is marketed? 7. How can every business…big and small…use ideavirus marketing to succeed? Unleashing the Ideavirus 6 www.ideavirus.com Foreword........................................................................................................................................5 Introduction....................................................................................................................................6 SECTION 1: Why Ideas Matter................................................................................................ 11 Farms, Factories And Idea Merchants ..............................................................................................12 Why Are Ideaviruses So Important? .................................................................................................21 And Five Things Ideaviruses Have In Common..................................................................................22 Seven Ways An Ideavirus Can Help You: .......................................................................................... 23 The Sad Decline of Interruption Marketing ......................................................................................24 We Live In A Winner-Take-Almost-All World......................................................................................25 The Traffic Imperative: Why Sites Fail ............................................................................................28 We Used To Make Food. We Used To Make Stuff. Now We Make Ideas.................................................30 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..............................................31 There’s A Tremendous Hunger To Understand The New And To Remain On The Cutting Edge............... 34 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 A Nerd!............................................................................................................................................ 35 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........... 36 The End Of The Zero Sum Game ...................................................................................................... 37 SECTION 2: How To Unleash An Ideavirus.............................................................................39 While It May Appear Accidental, It’s Possible To Dramatically Increase The Chances Your Ideavirus Will Catch On And Spread. ....................................................................................................................40 The Heart Of The Ideavirus: Sneezers ..............................................................................................41 Sneezers Are So Important, We Need To Subdivide Them..................................................................42 The Art Of The Promiscuous ........................................................................................................... 47 It’s More Than Just Word Of Mouth ..................................................................................................51 An Ideavirus Adores A Vacuum .......................................................................................................52 Unleashing the Ideavirus 7 www.ideavirus.com 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......................................................................54 Viral Marketing Is An Ideavirus, But Not All Ideaviruses Are Viral Marketing ......................................55 What Does It Take To Build And Spread An Ideavirus? ...................................................................... 57 There Are Three Key Levers That Determine How Your Ideavirus Will Spread:....................................60 Ten Questions Ideavirus Marketers Want Answered ......................................................................... 64 Five Ways To Unleash An Ideavirus ................................................................................................. 65 SECTION THREE: The Ideavirus Formula ...............................................................................78