The Tipping Point: It Was All in FY

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Reviewer: Lucy Alexander

Why would teenagers in a trendy part of New York City in the mid-1990s suddenly start wearing Hush Puppies, the Volvo station-wagons of footwear? And once they started, how and why would teenagers all over the country suddenly adopt the trend almost simultaneously, putting the dated, “sensible” shoes on the fashion runways from New York to LA? In dissecting this mystery and dozens like it, The Tipping Point surprisingly dusts off themes from just about every first-year course.

The “tipping point” is that critical yet often indefinable moment at which a single, self-contained event takes on a life of its own and spreads like wildfire to thousands of people. Gladwell argues that all such phenomena rest on three components: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.

The Law of the Few says that it takes only a few people to spread a message or behavior, but they must be the right types of people. First are Connectors, the people for whom circular Rolodexes are made, matchmakers whose lives consist of linking up people they know with people they meet who have a related interest or a complementary capability. Next comes the Maven, a walking encyclopedia about the subject at hand. In the Hush Puppies example, this is the person who knows all the back-alley shoe stores where you can dig up shoes with an annual sales volume of less than 30,000 pairs. The final piece is the Salesman, who can make even wearing shoes your mother used to wear seem like a good idea. These functions can also be metaphorical. For instance, Connectors in the AIDS epidemic were sexual butterflies with hundreds of partners. In first-year marketing, Brooke Shields was the Salesman for stopping smoking.

The Stickiness Factor is what in MC we called “knowing your audience and tailoring your message to them;” it answers the question “what’s in it for me?” And do you remember hierarchical value maps from marketing? Gladwell also says that for any idea to stick in the minds of people who are exposed to it, it has to tap into some fundamental, personal need – self-esteem, health, safety -- and spur them to action (just like AIDA). It also has to be delivered in an appealing form. For instance, trendy kids know that clothes can help them be cool.

The last element in the epidemic equation is the Power of Context, similar to moral muteness from ethics. We subconsciously deduce what is acceptable behavior from clues in our environment. Gladwell’s example is graffiti in New York’s subways. While the graffiti paled in comparison to the murders taking place in the early 80’s, its tolerated presence sent a subconscious message of lawlessness and apathy. Its removal signaled a newfound enforcement of order.

Once you understand Gladwell’s distinctions, and with the right information, you can observe these factors in just about every social phenomenon, from the rash of cell phones to the potential of the Internet for facilitating such phenomena. This book can thus be both a diagnostic and a strategy tool, if you can figure out how to apply the knowledge prospectively.