The Tipping Point - Book Summary

Contents
Sameer Mathur, Ph.D.
Overview
Why Read This Summary?
The Tipping Point
Lesson 1: The Three Rules of Epidemics
Lesson 2: The Law of the Few
Connectors, Mavens, Salesmen
Lesson 3: The Stickiness Factor
Lesson 4: The Power of Context (Part 1)
Lesson 5: The Power of Context (Part 2)
Case Studies
Conclusion

Sameer Mathur
Marketing Professor 2009 – 2013
Ph.D. and M.S. (Marketing) 2003 – 2009
Marketing Professor 2013 –
Indian Institute of Management,
Lucknow
Book Summary prepared by:

Overview
Prof. Sameer Mathur, Ph.D.
The central premise of The Tipping Point is that
the smallest things can trigger an epidemic of
change. Ideas and products and messages and
behaviors spread just like viruses do. Little
changes can have big effects when small
numbers of people start behaving differently.
That behavior can ripple outward until a critical
mass or ”Tipping Point" is reached, changing
the world. Certain types of people (referred to
as Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen), and
certain circumstances (referred as the Law of
the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of
Context), can potentially help turn fashion,
books, television shows into epidemics.

The original book is brilliant and deeply
insightful. But it is ~200 pages in length.
This summary presents the essential ideas
and insights in a few slides.
It is easy to read.
It saves you time.
Why Read This Summary ?
Sameer Mathur, Ph.D.

The Tipping Point
 The best way to understand
the emergence of trends is to
view them as Epidemics.
 Ideas, products, messages,
spread just like Viruses do.
 They spread like outbreaks
of disease. These are Social
Epidemics.

How Would You Explain:
 How could a company like
Hush Puppies in a span of two
years after its rebirth in 1994
increase its sales from 30 000
pairs of shoes to over 1 million
pairs?
 Why did Crime in New York drop suddenly in
the mid 1990s?
 How does an unknown novelist end up being a
bestselling author?

How Would You Answer These?
 Why do some TV shoes, books, and other
products become so popular while others do
not?
These unexpected phenomena can be
explained by the Tipping Point Theory.

The Tipping Point
The Tipping Point is One Dramatic Moment in
an epidemic, when everything can change all
at once.
The Three Characteristics of an epidemic are:
1. Contagiousness,
1. Little causes having big effects,
2. Change happening not gradually but at
one dramatic moment.

The Tipping Point
All epidemics have tipping points!
The world of a tipping point is a place where
the unexpected becomes expected.
It is contrary to all our expectations.

Lesso n 1: The Three Rules of
Epidemics
Epidemics are a function of:
1. The people who transmit infectious agents,
2. The infectious agent itself,
3. The environment in which the
infectious agent is operating.

Rule #1: The Law of the Few
 The nature of the messenger is important. A
message itself can be highly contagious and tip
simply if it is associated with a particular kind
of person.
 This law suggests that our preferences and
emotions are influenced by seemingly
inconsequential personal influences.

Rule #2: The Stickiness factor
 A message is successful if it has a high
stickiness quality (it “sticks”) and is
memorable.

Rule #3: The Power of Context
 People are a lot more sensitive to their
environment than they may seem.

This law says that there exist a few exceptional
people with a particular/rare set of social gifts,
who are capable of starting social epidemics.

Connectors Mavens
Salesmen
Three Kinds of People who Control Word-of-
Mouth Epidemics:

Connectors
 They are the social glue; they spread the
message.
 They have a special gift for bringing the world
together.
 They create word-of-mouth epidemics.

What Makes Someone a Connector?
 They know many people.
 Their importance is a function of the kind of
people they know.
 They are at the center of events.
 They are people anyone can reach because
they occupy different social worlds. This is due
to the nature of their personality, confidence,
sociability and energy.

Lesson 2: The Law of the Few0
Connectors:
 Have instinct that helps them relate to others.
 See the possibility of being acquainted to
everyone.
 Are people we rely on to give us access to
worlds we don’t belong to.
 Have a gift for making connections
 They find interaction fascinating and “collect”
people like one would collect stamps.

Connectors:
 Having a foot in so many different worlds can
have the effect of bringing them all together.

The Maven
 The Maven is someone who accumulates
knowledge and is happy to pass it around.

Mavens:
 They are people with information about a lot of
different products or prices or places.
 They connect people to the marketplace and
have the inside scoop.
 They are socially motivated and are willing to
share information about good deals.

Salesmen
 They are charismatic
people that can infect
others with their emotions,
often without saying much
and with the briefest of
exposures.

What makes the Salesmen in our lives so
effective?
 Little things can make as much difference as
big things.
 Nonverbal cues can be more important than
words.
 How we say things matters more than what we
actually say.

What Makes someone so Persuasive?
 It’s about the subtle, the hidden, the unspoken.

Super-Reflex
 A fundamental physiological ability.
 One must have the ability to draw others into
his/her rhythms and conduct conversation on
his/her terms.

Super-Reflex
 Salesmen know when crowds are with them.
 Their essence cannot be resisted.
 They have the ability to build a level of trust
and rapport in little time.

Super-Reflex
 People good at expressing emotions are more
contagious.
 Mimicry is one way to infect others with our
emotions. If you see someone smile, you will
smile back.

The Information Age has created a “Stickiness”
problem. We don’t remember what we were told
or what we read or watched.

Sesame Street, Blue’s Clues and the
Educational virus
 Sesame street and Blue’s Clues
were successful because they
discovered how to make
television sticky.

What makes these shows “Sticky”?
 First Idea: Kids are engaged when
watching something intellectually
and physically stimulating.
 Second Idea: Kids learn through
repetition; what they are watching
has to be complex enough to allow
for repeated exposure but not so
complex that they get turned off.

Lesson 4: The Power of Context (Pt. 1)
 The Power of Context says we are
more sensitive to changes in
context.
 The kinds of contextual changes
that are capable of tipping an
epidemic are different than what
we may ordinarily suspect.

 The Broken Window Theory: If a window is
broken and left unrepaired, people walking by
will conclude that no one cares.
 Graffiti, Public Disorder and Aggressive
Panhandling are like broken windows and invite
more serious crime.
Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New
York City Crime

 The Epidemic Theory of Crime: Crime is
contagious. It can start with a broken window
and spread throughout the community.
 Seemingly insignificant crimes like graffiti can
be the tipping points for violent crime.

 Broken Window theory = Power of Context.
 They both indicate that an epidemic can be
reversed or tipped by tinkering with the
smallest details of one’s environment.

The Power of Context says that behaviour is
a function of social context.
 Criminals are very sensitive to their
environment and are prompted to commit
crimes based on what is around him.
 The little things really matter.

 You do not have to solve
the big problems to solve
crime.
 It has a lot to do with the
message sent by graffiti
on the walls.
 The essence of the Power
of Context is that our inner
states are the result of our
outer circumstances.

 The Power of Context says
children are powerfully
shaped by external
environment.
 Studies show that a child is
better off in a good
neighborhood with a
troubled family than a
troubled neighborhood
with a good family.

The Magic Number 150
 The Rule of 150 suggests that the size of a
group is a factor that can make a big difference.
 For groups to be incubators for contagious
messages, groups must be kept below the 150
tipping point.
 Above 150, it is harder for groups to agree and
have one voice.

 The bond in small groups is
a kind of peer pressure.
 Since everyone knows
everyone well enough, how
others see you is important.
 The 150 Rule makes
information flow and tip
around the group by
exploiting the bonds of
memory and peer pressure.

Paradox:
 The paradox of an epidemic is that in order to
create one large contagious movement, you
have to create many small movements first.

Case Studies
Rumors, Sneakers, and the Power of
Translation
 Airwalk tipped because its advertising was
founded on the principles of epidemic
transmission.

Case Studies
Suicide, Smoking, and the search for the
Unsticky Cigarette
 The same applies to
Smoking
 This illustrates the Law
of the Few as well as
the Stickiness factor.
 Studies show Suicide can be Contagious;
highly publicized suicides give others
“permission” to die.

Conclusion – Focus, Test, Believe
1. Resources should be concentrated on three
groups:
 Connectors
 Mavens
 Salesmen
Tipping Point Lessons

2. The World does not accord with our intuition.
Those successful at creating social epidemics
trust their intuition and don’t always do what
they think is right.
Human communication has its own set of
unusual and counterintuitive rules.

3. What underlies a successful epidemic is the
belief that change is possible and people can
radically change their behaviour or beliefs.
This is counterintuitive since we tend to think
that we are autonomous and who we are and
how we act is static.

4. We are powerfully influenced by our
surroundings
 E.g. Removing graffiti in New York made New
Yorkers better citizens.
 E.g. Our attitudes towards smoking and
suicide show that we are suggestible and
sensitive to small details.

 If there is difficulty and volatility in
the world of tipping points there is
hopefulness as well.
 Manipulating the size of a group,
changing the presentation of
information, and reaching people
who hold social power can allow us
to engineer the course of social
epidemics.
 With a push in just the right place
the world can be tipped.

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