This week, the article topping the Most Popular (in other words, most e-mailed) list on the New York Times’ iPhone app (and online, too) is about what New York Times readers e-mail most. The author was surprised to find that it wasn’t articles about sex.
And the researchers who studied the results for 6 months, Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman from Wharton, were surprised it wasn’t just “practical information about health or gadgets.”
“It turns out that readers have more exalted tastes,” – and that people prefer sharing positive rather than negative information and like sharing intellectually challenging articles, too.
The most common theme, though, is articles that inspire awe – as many of the science article people share tend to do.
The study has interesting implication for online, e-mail-based, and viral marketing. The rule in creating direct e-marketing is to keep things super short and simple. But if what people REALLY want is to be awestruck, advertisers are going to have to work a lot harder to get the results they want.
Maybe that’s why Apple does so well for itself. If the end goal of any new consumer product was to “inspire awe” (a drastic step away from the features and benefits that clutter up the minds of creatives as they strive to do something original), it’s anyone’s guess how much more exciting the consumers’ world could become.
And thanks, Professor, for bringing up this article in class right before I published my post :-)
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