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Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin

November 5, 2005; 7:39 am by Anna

In a world where viral marketing, buzz and word of mouth are well-known terms for every manager, Godin, in Unleashing the Ideavirus (and for that matter also in his other books), points to the problems that companies face in implementing these concepts and also how to solve them. The same Copernican Revolution that is needed to enter the second generation of Experiences and the Support Economy, is needed within the field of marketing. The company is not – and ought not to be – at the center, but the customer, the individual, should be.

What Godin says is that marketing by interrupting people with unanticipated, impersonal, irrelevant ads, hoping they will buy something isn’t cost-effective anymore. Complete and total control of the company may leave many people feeling safe and secure but those days are over, if they have ever existed. Magazines, newspapers, radio, TV and websites are not full of ads because they are always effective. No, they are full of ads because in exhange for money the marketer gets the illusion of being in charge, in control of the conversation, if only for a short while. But it is an illusion, or so Godin says. In an environment cluttered with messages, human attention is scarce, as Davenport and Beck and Simon have explained, and ideaviruses become the currency.

Why are they called ideaviruses? Because ideas can become contagious, in precisely the same way that viruses do. Ideas not only replicate easily and well, but they get more powerful and more valuable as you deliver them to more people. Sticking with this metaphor Godin introduces the term ‘sneezers’ to describe people who distribute the ideaviruses, distinguishing ‘powerful’ and ‘promiscuous’ sneezers. Powerful sneezers can’t be bought because every time they accept a bribe in exchange for spreading a virus, their power decreases. For this reason, it’s difficult to manipulate them, and equally difficult to predict what might motivate them to adopt an ideavirus. Powerful sneezers can’t be bought, but they are still selfishly motivated.

Promiscuous sneezers on the other hand, can be counted on to try to “sell” their favorite ideavirus to almost anyone, almost any time. They can be motivated by money or other inducements and are rarely held in high esteem as opinion leaders. Many marketing strategies revolve around turning people into promiscuous sneezers (send this message to 5 friends and get to play one game for free, notify 3 friends of this website and when they react your winning chance doubles, etc). Risks of this strategy are also explained in the book. Because of the growing number of promiscuous sneezers, powerful sneezers will become ever more important. Our limited attention is scarce and precious and we will be far more likely to listen to someone who is spreading a virus for non-personal gain.

Another reason to read this book is the clear explanation Godin gives of the different types of ideaviruses. Viral marketing for example is a special case of an ideavirus in which the carrier of the virus *is* the product. When using the product or service, the virus is automatically spread. This also goes for experiences. The experience *is* the marketing, as Pine and Gilmore have said.

Also the difference between word of mouth and an ideavirus is important for experiences. Word of mouth tends to spread slower. If you like a book, you might tell a friend or two. And then your friends are unlikely to tell someone else until they read it for themselves. To spread word of mouth you have to have had the experience. Godin gives another example: a professional massage. In order to understand the power of a massage, you have to get one. There are no good ways yet to transfer the message to someone who has not had the experience. This is a crucial issue that has also been explained by Reed, in discussing primary and secondary experience (primary experience meaning that you experience something for yourself, secondary experience meaning that you hear about someone else’s experience)

By now the importance of having people experience things for themselves should be obvious. It should then also be obvious according to Godin, that one of the dumbest things marketers do is put artificial barriers in the way of trial, like a car seller charging people for a test drive, a politician charging people to hear his speech, or moviestudios charging for seeing the coming attractions. Many companies impatiently ask for money too soon and require people to pay the most when they know the least. A rule that Godin gives is that if charging for exposure to the virus is going to slow down the spread: give it away for free.

Ofcourse this goes directly against the traditional ‘laws’ of business that want to keep control in the hands of the company. But you should realize that while you are busy fearing what will happen if you share things and give things away, many online businesses have already implemented this ‘Tell a Friend’ model (in this context Godin also makes a historical comparison between what the music industry is trying to prevent now with all the P2P networks, and the way they behaved when radio and later MTV arrived).

The whole issue can be reduced to two points. First of all the shift from a company-centric perspective to a human-centric perspective. From the perspective of the

ind ividual an unknown idea, company, product, artist or whatever *is* a commodity. If you don’t know what makes the idea, company, product or artist unique, then why would you pay for it? It would make sense to spread the virus for free so people would experience what the extraordinarily unique property of the offering is and the offering would no longer be considered a commodity.

Second of all there is a need for recognition of a broader concept of values. The logic of ideaviruses, like that of meaningful experiences, represents a substantial change from standard operating procedures and companies are generally not eager to change the status quo, risking the planned-for revenue and profits according to Godin. Not everyone is motivated by profit and when this fact does not enter your mindset, you are headed for trouble. Or as Godin explains: “If you catch yourself asking this question about a new business model innovation (“How would we make money?”) you’re headed for trouble. The Internet doesn’t care how you make money. The Internet isn’t going to wait while you figure out how to react. Instead, there’s some crazy entrepreneur who’s willing to spend years of his life making you miserable by wrecking your business model. Email didn’t ask the fax companies if it was okay with them if a new, instant, permanent, digital communications tool came along and wrecked the fax business. Matchmaker.com didn’t hold meetings with the extremely profitable video dating services out there to find out if it was okay for them to launch. Who cares if Matchmaker.com never makes money? What matters to the existing businesses is that these new kids on the block have wrecked the business landscape for the old providers. Giving digital media away is a reality. Non-dominant players in any industry will always succeed more by giving away digital content and then profiting later than they will by holding back to preserve somebody else’s business model” (pp.150-151). There are people who are motivated by other values than merely the economic ones, as has been also described by Von Hippel, but there can be severe consequences for the bottomline and business models of traditional companies.

For more traditional thinkers this whole ‘giving away for free’-logic may seem strange, even absurd, but companies should recognize that it is already happening. It is exactly what people who publish their books with Creative Commons do, it is exactly what MIT has done, it is exactly what is happening at online fora and communities all around the globe. Also Godin practices what he preaches: this book was first ‘unleashed’ in PDF-form on the Internet, with the following remarkable copyright notification on page 2: “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.”