Rating: I liked it

Had a lot of good learnings regarding marketing triggers and what makes some ideas stand out from others. I can tell the author has some influence from Chip and Dan Heath.

Fantastic and brief insight on the psychology behind how to market products to go viral.

I gave up. Ironically, it wasn't well written, and doesn't really contain anything that marketers don't already know. Might be ok for beginners in comms roles, but nothing new for established professionals.

3rd read:
I feel terrible writing this review, and it breaks my heart. This book just isn’t that great.

Some backstory, I used to love this book. I’ve worked in marketing for years, and I love psychology. This was the first book that introduced me to using psychology for marketing based on “evidence-based” research. Jonah Berger is a professor and Wharton, and I’ve read all of his books. I decided to give this one another read as a refresher since it’s been a few years, and I was just in shock reading some of the nonsense in this book.

So, what’s my problem? Well, learning about the difference between good and bad science is what did it. It ruined this book for me. Social sciences already have a bad reputation, but the studies used in this book are absolutely ridiculous. As I was reading, I was like, “There’s no way in hell that this would have consistent results.” Aside from that, there was so much selection bias and survivorship bias in this book that it was bonkers. The issue is that so much of what Jonah Berger teaches is subjective as well, so it’s extremely hard to falsify.

In between the bad science, there’s a lot of practical advice for getting people to talk about your “thing”. The issue is when it tries to use research to back it up. If you want to read it, go for it. I don’t think it’s a waste of time, but just be extremely skeptical of the research used in this book. And now, I’m going to reread his other books to see if they’re just as bad.


1st read:
PHENOMENAL book, and this is a must read for anyone in marketing or is an influencer online. I wish I would have read this before his second book, but it makes me want to go back and read it.

WOW, what a great book! Excellent writing, real-life stories and immediately usable advice made this book not only informative but enjoyable. The author's core message and principles are simple yet indispensable to anyone that wants to get their ideas out into the world. The book breaks down the 6 qualities of highly contagious or shareable ideas which are:

1. Social currency
2. Triggers (or cues)
3. Emotion
4. Public (or social proof)
5. Practical value
6. Stories

Im very surprised at how much I liked this book. I found myself writing note after note and sharing some of the interesting ideas with friends. I highly recommend.

Tony Rogers Jr
Author of Visionary: Making a difference in a world that needs YOU

A quick read, but I really enjoyed it. There was one thing, however. It was like a mirror of Nir Eyal's book "Hooked" BUT if you look at the publish dates, this book was published first. SO, this was actually the original book.

I recommend reading this book instead.

Also, the title of the book was quite intriguing with all the coronavirus talks we have lately, so that is why I picked it.

Great marketing book.

I picked up some really critical behavioral knowledge in this book that I will put to valuable use when marketing to people. One of the pieces that really popped out to me the most was that surrounding the human need to "fit in" and to "be part of the tribe". Marketers can leverage this by creating products and ads that try to appeal to those behaviors - such as what makes an article or video viral. Jonah goes into lots of detail about the virality of content and outlines what a marketer can do to increase the chance of "going viral".

Great props to one of my heroes Seth Godin too.

This is an outstanding book.

4.7/5