Book Review

Presented By:Group – 1

Krishnashis Mondal - 154Harpreet Singh Bamra -

121Ashwin Vachaspathi – 134

Mohit Lala – 180Sahil Chandra – 168Kunal Shukla - 110

Malcolm Gladwell• He was born in

England and graduated from the University of Toronto, Trinity College, with a degree in history.

• Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine since 1996.

• in 2005 he was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.

The 80/20 Principle

A Few Instances

• Afro – American Infusion & Whites Migrating

• Cellular Phone• Kitty Genovese – stabbed in 1964

Midst of 38 neighbors watchingIn open daylight in a street of New York City

What’s The Reason?

• The anonymity and alienation of big-city life makes people hard and unfeeling.

• Latane and Darley’s experiment

Three Key Characteristics

• Contagiousness• Little causes can have big effects• Change happens not gradually but

all at one dramatic moment

The law of the few

• Connectors• Mavens• Salesmen

Connectors

• People specialists• Connect people from different parts of

society• Have extraordinary knack of making

friends and acquaintances• Are curious about meeting new people• Manage to occupy many different worlds,

subcultures & niches

Mavens

• Information specialists• Accumulate knowledge• Also known as ‘Market Mavens’• Motivated to help people by sharing

information• Its not how much they know, but how they

pass it along, that sets them apart

Salesmen

• Exceptional persuaders• Have some kind of persuasive &

contagious trait which goes beyond words• Mesmerize with their enthusiasm &

charm• Use subtle non verbal cues to capture

mind of the prospect• Can employ small factors to help them

accomplish mammoth tasks

The Stickiness Factor

SESAME STREET, BLUE’S CLUES AND THE

EDUCATIONAL VIRUS

SESAME STREET

• Joan Gantz Cooney• 3, 4 & 5 year olds• Literacy through television• Gerald Lesser - Psychologist• Good teaching is interactive• Lloyd Morrisett, Markle Foundation• Television commercials ,live animation of

Saturday morning cartoons, celebrities• Increased reading and learning skills of

viewers

EPIDEMICS

• Nature of messenger• Quality of stickiness• Conventional advertisers• Direct Marketers• Lester Wunderman & McCann Erickson

– Columbia Record Club• TV Guide & Parade magazine• “Secret of the Gold Box”• Howard Levanthal – fear experiments

The Power of Context

Broken Window theory

Broken window in a building

Anarchy spreads in the street

Crime rate goes up in the city

New York City in the 1980s• 2000 murders, 60000 serious felonies every year• The condition of the subway system was chaotic• Dimly lit platforms, surrounded on all sides by

dark, damp graffiti covered walls• Filthy and unclean coaches; no infrastructure to

clean them• Cases of fire somewhere in the system daily;

derailment every week• Fare-beating was commonplace, causing an

annual loss of 150 million for the transit authority

• 15000 felonies on the system every year; harassment of passengers by petty criminals

Successful application of Broken Windows Theory

Name: David Gunn Name: William Braton

Job: Revamping the subway system

Job: Transit Police Chief

Proponent of: Broken Windows Theory

Proponent of: Broken Windows Theory

Tipping Point: Graffiti on the walls and coaches of the system

Tipping Point: Ticketless travelling

Methodology: Brought new trains, ensured daily cleanliness of the walls and new coaches from graffiti,

Methodology: Put 10 policemen on every entry gate, arrested all ticketless travelers, ensured offenders stayed in jail for a day

Result: Safe and clean subway system, increased efficiency of trains, increase in passengers meant increase in revenue

Result: Crime rate came down by 70%, ticketless travel came down by 90%, helped in tracking of criminals

Zero tolerance efforts to combat minor crimes such as fare-beating and vandalism on the New York subway led to a decline in more violent crimes city-wide

Case study: Rumors and Sneakers

• In this case study-oriented chapter, Gladwell discusses the rise and decline of Airwalk shoes• The brand was originally geared towards the skateboarding subculture of Southern California, but sought to transcend this niche market and attain national name recognition• They succeeded in this endeavor with the help of an advertising agency with a unique understanding of the factors and variables that influence the public’s perception of "coolness."

Airwalk’s campaign

• The marketing campaign ruthlessly honed in on and exploited several timely avatars of coolness, such as Tibetan Buddhism, pachuco gang culture, and hipsters’ ironic embrace of preppy culture, rendering Airwalk shoes cool by association in the process

• The company’s unique strategy of offering unique products to boutique stores and a more mainstream shoe selection to department stores had long kept both cutting-edge hipsters and their more mainstream, impressionable counterparts content

• The marketing campaign revolved around what the innovators think and taking cue from them how and when this would hit mainstream.

What went wrong?

• Production problems

• Unfulfilled orders- hence loss of loyal customers

• the trendsetting model was followed for marketing

but the product did not support it.

• The product which was earlier the cooles thing

started to be a mainstream homogenised product.

• The product lost its momentum.

Case study : Suicide & Cigarette Smoking

• Studies suggest that suicide & smoking can be contagious.

1. Suicides lead to more suicides2. Suicides stories are a kind of natural

advertisement for a particular response to your problems.

3. The death of people in highly publicized suicides give others “permission “ to die – serves as tipping point in suicide epidemics.

Case study : Suicide & Cigarette Smoking

4. Smoking epidemics begin in precisely the same way that the suicide epidemic in began :

5. In this epidemic , as in all others a select few are responsible for driving the smoking epidemic forward by contagious.

6. The smoking experience is so memorable and powerful for some people that they cannot stop smoking . The habit sticks (The Stickiness Factor)

7. The problem is that many of those teenagers end up continuing their cigratte experiment until they get hooked

Conclusion

• Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources in a few key areas(Connectors Mavens and Salesmen)

• The theory of Tipping Point requires that we reframe the way we think about the world i.e. the world, much as we want to, does not accord with our intuitions and those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is right.

Conclusion (Contd…)

• What we must underlie successful epidemics is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behaviors and beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus.

• We are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings and we are acutely sensitive to even the smallest details about our life.

Thank you!