Let's play a quick game for a moment. You've never played this game before, but you'll get the hang of it really quickly. It's called, which is tastier. I'm gonna put up two things on the screen, and I'm gonna ask you which of those things is tastier. And I want you to be honest. Not which of the two you think is tastier, not which of the two you wish is tastier, but which of the two is actually tastier. Okay? Our first contestant is a wonderful, delicious head of broccoli. Now, you probably know that broccoli has lots of vitamins and nutrients. It has lots of fiber, and in fact it actually has a lot of vitamin C. So our first contestant, again, is wonderful, delicious broccoli. And our second contestant is, well, a cheeseburger. Now, this example of a cheeseburger isn't my version of a cheeseburger. If I was gonna eat a cheeseburger, it would have bacon on top. It would probably have grilled onions. It would have bleu cheese. Feel free to put whatever toppings you want on the cheeseburger. And to keep things even, feel free to put whatever toppings you like on the broccoli as well. Now I ask you again. Which is tastier? Be honest. Cheeseburger? Or the broccoli? Now, I've played this game with thousands of people, and the answer most people give is always the same. Most people say the cheeseburger. 95% of people say the cheeseburger. When I look at the other 5%, most of them are either vegetarians, or maybe they're liars. One or the other. And I'll let you guess based on how well you know them. The point here is really simple. We all know that we should eat more broccoli. We all know that broccoli is better for us, and the government has spent millions of dollars and decades trying to convince people to eat more fruits and vegetables. And yet, when it's late at night, when we're on the road, when we're tired, the cheeseburger beckons. Pizza beckons. Fast food in general beckons. And it's not random or luck how that works. Right? The cheeseburger just fits better with the way we are designed. McDonald's, for example, has spent millions of dollars engineering french fries so they have the right amount of crisp, and salt, and sugar. So when you bite into them, your tongue lights up. Certain food is just tastier than others. Now, I would love to spend the next bit we have together talking about food. I love eating food, but I am not really an expert on it. But I would like to use that idea of certain things being tastier and port them to a slightly different domain. What makes certain messages or ideas more tasty than others? Why do some get spread, get shared, while others don't? And so, in this next section, we'll answer three key questions. First, how we can make our messages tastier. Second, how we can craft contagious content or build word-of-mouth and buzz. And third, how we can use word-of-mouth to get our own products, ideas and services to catch on. But one more question from me before we start. Here are three products, or brands, that you're probably quite familiar with. First, we have Walt Disney World, the self-described place where dreams come true. Wonderful place to take the kids. Second is Honey Nut Cheerios. In case you're not familiar with it, it's a breakfast cereal in the United States. Quite popular breakfast cereal. And third is Scrubbing Bubbles. Scrubbing Bubbles is basically a bathroom cleaner that you might spray on the walls while you clean the shower or something along those lines. If you had to guess, which of these three products do you think gets the most word-of-mouth? Is it Disney, is it Cheerios, or is it Scrubbing Bubbles? Now, if you're like most people, this was probably a little bit more difficult than the cheeseburger and the broccoli. That one you had an answer right away. Of course the cheeseburger. But here you're probably a little bit more uncertain. I don't know which of these three gets more word-of-mouth. And indeed, you might say this answer doesn't have a lot to do with me. Because unless you work for Disney World, or you work for Cheerios, or you work for Scrubbing Bubbles, you don't really care which one really gets more word-of-mouth. But the why is really important. Because if we don't understand why one of these gets more word-of-mouth, it's gonna be really hard to get people to talk about and share our ideas. To get our products to catch on, whether externally, outside an organization, or internally, within an organization. And that brings me to my second point. So if you had to guess, which of the three do you think it is? Well, most people when I ask this question would say Disney World. Which is about 85% of people guess Disney World. And it's a great guess, but unfortunately, it's wrong. Usually, another set of people, maybe about 10, 12, maybe even 15% guess Scrubbing Bubbles. That also makes a lot of sense. And unfortunately, that's also wrong. The answer is Cheerios. The one that almost nobody guesses. And the point here is really simple. We might all think we understand word-of-mouth. We see viral content on the web and we assume, I get it. I know what makes things viral. But if we don't understand the science behind social transmission, we're not gonna be able to get messages to catch on. We have to understand how to craft contagious content.
