Tipping Point was not a conventional book for me. Its one of the very few non fictional books I have read, but the best among them.
It’s about the tipping points that caused many revolutionary movements. Author Malcolm Gladwell has given many examples i.e. Popularity of Hush Puppies brand of shoes in mid nineties, dipping of crime rate of New York city in nineties, and the most popular one is Paul Revere’s midnight ride to Lexington he knocked on doors and the spread the word, telling local colonial leaders in America of the incoming British, and telling them to spread the word to others.
Church bells started ringing. Drums started beating. The news spread like a virus that “The British are coming”. And in concord that day, the British were confronted and soundly beaten by the American colonial militia, and from that exchange came the war known as the American Revolution.
All 3 examples are the word-of-mouth epidemic. Words passed mouth to mouth like an epidemic to start a tipping point.
Author explained the tipping point with three rules
1) The Law of Few (Nature of Messenger)
2) The Stickiness Factor
3) The Power of Context
The Law of the Few says that Connectors (Who Knows lots of people, like my friend Saryu), Mavens (who has information on a lot of different products or prices or places, like my friend Rahul), and Salesmen (literally means Persuaders, I don’t know the one yet so I am not a connector then J) are responsible for starting word-of-mouth epidemics, which means that if you are interested in starting a word-of-mouth epidemic, your resources ought to be solely concentrated on those three groups. Paul Revere was a good connector, Mavens, Salesman because he rode to right directions to spread the word that makes him a good Maven, and he knew to whom to connect to spread the word that’s why he was good connectors, and at last he was able to persuade them that British are actually coming.
The Stickiness Factor says that to start an epidemic the stickiness should be there in message like Paul Revere rode for the cause that midnight, If he had instead gone on that midnight ride to tell people that he was having a sale on new adidas shoes, could not have galvanized the militia to coast.
The Power of Context Paul Revere’s ride ---- in some way --- owed itself to the fact that it was made in night. At night, people are home in bed, which make awful lot easier to reach than if they are off working. We automatically assume that information is going to be urgent otherwise this person would have not been here at this time. Power of context then gives the exact environment to tip an epidemic.
This we can see in Indian context as well. When the popularity of work done by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa spread in India, India united to welcome the Gandhi. He had done, is just start of ideology and it spread mouth to mouth with out humpy marketing or posters or hoardings. All three factors were the ingredients of his ideology. The Law of the Few, may be he was not a good connector and a Maven, but he was surely a good salesman, because he could persuade the poor Indians to be unite against British.
He had bunch of Connectors and Mavens like Sardar Patel, Nehru. And the stickiness in his ideology made whole India to stick to the cause he was offering. So he had The Stickiness Factor. Now we come to The Power of Context, I think; in this case when he came to India in 1915; India was suffering several wounds given by then British Raj. And there is no central leadership was there to lead India to independence movement or at least to restore the peace and harmony. And the earlier work done by Mahatma Gandhi also gave the hope to Indians. This all makes a powerful environment over the Gandhi Ideology, and made him to lead India to Independence.
I would suggest this book a must read for at least the management students to get the gist of the real time scenarios of oldest form of marketing strategy “Word-to-Mouth” and yet so effective.