Social Contagion II

Prof. Daniel He
18 August 2022
Ford Fiesta

◼ How successful was the Ford Fiesta movement?

◼ Define success

➢ What was the marketing objective?

Purchase Funnel

AWARENESS

INTEREST

DESIRE

ACTION

◼ Why does Ford want to increase prelaunch awareness?

Ford Fiesta
How to Change Perception?

◼ Ford brand loyalists might not be interested in B

segment vehicles

◼ Target audience might not be interested in Ford →

Brand level perception

◼ Target audience might not find B segment vehicles

appealing (exhibit 3) → Category level perception

◼ Solution = Social influence through digital marketing

Who is the Ideal Influencer?

◼ Quantitative metrics
◼ Level of influence: follower count

◼ Type of influencer: genre of content

◼ Type of followers: age, gender

◼ Qualitative metrics
◼ Brand safe

◼ Personality fit

◼ Vibrancy: creativity, fun

Why Not Just Hire the Biggest Influencers?

Value to Ford

Interest in
being an agent

Social capital
The Digital Marketer’s Dilemma

◼ How to create great content with influencers?

◼ Influencers’ Incentives
➢ Gain new followers

➢ Satisfy existing followers

◼ Brand’s Incentives
➢ Viral content

➢ Brand safe
Ford Fiesta

◼ How successful was the Ford Fiesta movement?

◼ What was the marketing objective?

◼ Measures of Outcome and Input

➢ 1 million video impressions

➢ 3 million tweet impressions

➢ 600,000 photo impressions

➢ 632 blog mentions leading to several million

impressions

◼ At $10 cost per thousand impressions (CPM), wouldn’t

it be cheaper to buy $100,000 worth of display ads?
Ford Fiesta

◼ Impressions ≠ Engagement

◼ Other outcome measures

➢ Familiarity is 42% compared to goal of 23%

➢ Website visits were 289,000 compared to goal of

144,000
➢ Test drive demographics:

➢ 35% female

➢ 55% under 34

➢ 81% non-Ford owners

Three Drivers of Social Epidemics

Part I What Makes Ideas Sticky?

Part II How Social Influence Shape Behavior

Part III The Power of Word of Mouth

Part II How Social Influence Shape Behavior
1) The Power of Social Influence
Social Influence Affects All Sorts of Decisions
◼ Products

◼ Health plans

◼ Grades in school

◼ Save for retirement

◼ Vote

◼ Careers
Conformity

◼ One way social influence affects us is through imitation

or conformity

➢ More likely to do something if others are doing it

➢ More likely to buy a car if neighbors have recently

➢ More likely to commit crime if others you know have done so

◼ Monkey see, monkey do

Soloman Asch Study of Conformity
 Normative Influence
◼ Fit in

◼ Attain rewards

◼ Avoid ostracism
Is This Surprising? Why or Why Not?

◼ How might (a) number and (b) consensus of others

influence the level of conformity?
➢ more others → harder not to conform?

➢ consensus is important

◼ What if someone else said the real answer? What if

they said the wrong answer?
➢ Even one other person create doubt
Informational Influence
◼ People use others as information

➢ Should I bring an umbrella today? Wear a jacket?

➢ Think about a house and days on the market

➢ Same with kidneys

◼ Information cascades affect stock market

Shortcut to Judgment
◼ Imagine you had to try every restaurant before you
picked one

➢ Stronger when people have less time/motivation

➢ More likely when the situation is uncertain or you’re unsure what

to do
Implications
◼ In a meeting, people often go along with what someone
else said

◼ Groupthink: When a group makes a decision worse

off than the members would have made independently
due to conformity.

◼ What about wisdom of the crowd?

◼ Counteracting groupthink
➢ Make choice private
➢ Write down thoughts
➢ Vote ahead of time
3) Using Social Influence to Increase Success
Susceptibility to Social Influence

Ads say the bestselling or most popular XX

for this reason

If other people are doing it, it must be good

“Just Say No” Campaign

◼ Early 1980s, started by Nancy Reagan

◼ Kids are doing drugs, do you want to?
◼ Idea was that kids need to be ready to say no

◼ When researchers analyzed the

data though, they noticed that people
who saw more ads were more likely to
do drugs!
Stopping People from Stealing Petrified Wood

◼ Please don’t take the wood….

➢ “Many past visitors have removed petrified wood from the Park,
changing the natural state of Petrified Forest.”

◼ Will this be effective?

➢ No message – 3%
➢ Message about others removing wood – 9%

◼ Alternative: “Please don’t remove the petrified wood

from the Park, in order to preserve the natural state of the
Petrified Forest.”
Goldstein et al. (2008)
Goldstein et al. (2008)
◼ Field experiment: N = 1,058 across 190 rooms

◼ Descriptive Norm condition: JOIN YOUR FELLOW GUESTS IN

HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. Almost 75% of guests who are
asked to participate in our new resource savings program do help by using
their towels more than once. You can join your fellow guests in this
program to help save the environment by reusing your towels during your
stay.
Goldstein et al. (2008)
Implications

◼ When do we want to make the private public?

➢ Want people to realize others feel the same

◼ When do we want to make behavior private?

➢ Don’t want people to imitate
4) When Social Influence is Anti-Social
Insecure Novices
Social Influence is Like a Magnet

Social influence → attraction

(imitation; people do what others do)

Social influence → repel

(Divergence: people avoid what others do)

Adoption by Outsiders Can Change Meaning…

◼ Shifts in the meaning of consumption can lead people

to diverge to avoid sending undesired signals
5) Conformity or Divergence?
Which Would You Choose?
Now Imagine You Saw Someone Else’s Choice
Subject 1 Subject 2
Subject Number
Year in School
Car Brand
Dish Soap
Music Artist
Tool Brand

Subject 1 Subject 2
Subject Number 36
Year in School Grad Student
Car Brand BMW
Dish Soap Sun stations
Music Artist Dave Matthew
Band
Tool Brand Estwing
Functional vs. Symbolic Consumption
Meaning of Consumption

• Imagine you meet someone at a party and they tell you they drive a
BMW? What would you think of them?

• Compare that to if they told you they drove a Toyota?

• Someone told you they’re a lawyers vs. historian

• Consumption has meaning. What we buy, say and do can act as a

signal of identity. Communicating things about people to others.
- BMW – wealthy, showy, drinks wine rather than beer
- Toyota – functional, utilitarian
Ford Fiesta Case Takeaways
◼ Concepts
➢ Word of mouth vs. loss of control
➢ SUCCESs model

◼ Content creation
➢ Guideline for your own brands
➢ See exhibits 6 and 9

◼ Measurability
➢ Looking ahead in the course
Deliverables for Next Week

◼ Contagious: Why Things Catch On Introduction Chapter

◼ Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius (2008), “A Room
with a Viewpoint,” JCR
◼ Muchnik, Aral, and Taylor (2013), “Social Influence Bias:
A Randomized Experiment,” Science

◼ Submit list of group members and brand/product by

9 pm Friday (Aug 19th) on Luminus
◼ Include: Brand/Product, Section #, Names (Last,
First)