Customer Reviews

Unleashing the Idea Virus: Stop Marketing at People! Turn Your Ideas Into Epidemics

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Turns out our CEO got her hands on a copy of this thing...and guess what: she trimmed the company's marketing budget by 80% after reading it. Way to go Seth! Thank a lot buddy.

This book really helps to point out the faults and implifications of traditional advertising and presents a new form of avertising that is more effective and less costly. This book is really inspirational to small business owners like myself who need to find cost-effective ways to advertise their products, and develop strategies for growth and expansion.

In Unleashing the Ideavirus, Seth Godin says your idea is contagious, like the flu. But hold on - he's not being insulting. If you think of your idea as a virus, says he, you can "infect" the marketplace by motivating customers to talk about your product. He stretches this metaphor to explain how to captivate powerful "sneezers" so they will spread the word. Not a pretty picture, if you are a literal type of person, but you get the concept. For the right product or service, this is an alternative to advertising (or, as Godin calls it, "interruption marketing"). Though he builds on multi-level marketing concepts, Godin distances himself from their negative image. He writes in a breezy, easy style, with examples, charts and illustrations. If you want to spread the word about this book, we suggest that you just cough politely on someone in marketing, advertising or sales.

This is a readable and engaging little book on marketing that you can really read in just a few sittings since it's such a quick read. It was interesting to learn about some of the more spectacular marketing successes in recent years and how they were achieved, such as Paypal, Hotmail, Napster, and others. If you're an experienced advertising person you may already be familiar with the basic principles here, but if you're new to the area or are looking for some new ideas or a fresh approach, Godin's book is worth a look.

Godin's main idea, however, is deceptively simple, and it really can be summed up in just a few words. He believes that the most successful marketing campaigns are those that are simply spread by means of word of mouth, from person to person. The product was so "infectious," in other words, that the marketer didn't have to do anything but just get the initial word out, and it spread from there until it became a virtual epidemic of consumer consumption.

There are ways, though, that you can help this process along, such as Steve Jurvetson's idea of including a little promotional message with every person's email advertising their service, which was then sent by all Hotmail customers to everyone they emailed, and it snowballed from there, growing to 12 million users in 18 months.

Godin's enthusiasm for marketing is contagious itself, and in fact he discusses the concept of "sneezers," or people who are able to "infect" others and influence their purchasing decisions through their influence. (As someone with occasionally less than impressive immunity, I would have preferred the author not get quite this cute with the terminology, but oh well :-)). He discusses Oprah Winfrey, who he says is the most successful "sneezer" of our generation in her power to influence millions of people to buy the books from her book clubs and other products, not to mention her ability to make comparative unknowns like Dr. Phil successful media personalities just from the exposure gained on her show.

My only complaint about the book is that, as I said, the idea is pretty simple, and probably have been explained in a much shorter book rather than the actual 197 pages. A lot of the text is spent discussing various examples, which, although interesting, could have been pared down quite a bit. But overall, this is a well written, interesting, and enjoyable book to read on some of the most wildly successful marketing strategies of recent years with some useful ideas for putting them to work in your own business.

Seth Godin is the master of marketing THINKING. In this fabulous book, which goes deeper than you think it might, Seth takes apart the anatomy of BUZZ... what gets people talking and spreading the word abour products, services, ideas, websites... anything.

Far from a brainiac book, Unleashing the Ideavirus is chock full of SPECIFIC and SMART ideas you can implement right now (if you're fast and brave enough) to make a real difference in the marketing profile your company's products and services enjoy. Another classic, and precursor to Purple Cow.

You should have both in your library. Period.

Unleashing the Ideavirus offers practical ideas on how to spread a marketing message without spending alot of money. Some of what Seth Godin describes may be more common sense than revolutionary. However, he does present several fairly sound approaches to marketing and taking advantage of the concepts of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point (a 5 star book and one of my favorites).

My main problem with Unleashing was the organization of the book. Unleashing the Ideavirus was a bit disjointed. It does not flow as nicely as the author's Purple Cow (by way the a 5 star book!) which I would highly recommend.

There are lots of really great marketing ideas in this book. To implement them is a different story. You have to have a big imagination, plus lots of creativity to emulate the super successes found in the book.

I noticed that many of the other reviews seem to think that Seth is going to give them a step-by-step system how to turn their idea into an idea virus. Reading this book with that expectation you are going to be let down.

Every situation is different. You have to connect the dots. You have to apply the ideas in this book, it to make it work for you. You get the idea. (No pun intended)

Zev Saftlas, Author of Motivation That Works: How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated

I am not sure what book others read, but this book was aweful. It is unfortunate because the concept is interesting. The execution, however, is best described as a literary train wreck.

Afer reviewing this book and looking at these reviews, I think that the author/publisher, applied some of the concepts in the book to mis-lead people looking for real reviews.

One of the concepts discussed in the book is to pay people to spead your idea/virus, so that others will become interested, purchase your product. There is clearly a disconnect between many of these reviews and the actual execution of the book itself. In fact, I have never seen such a huge disconnect. I find it difficult to believe that it is only a matter of a difference of opinion based on my experiences with other reviews.

Not only is it poorly organized, but the information presented as fact is sometimes clearly wrong (referencing the Prius example used in the book) and recommendations are taken out of context. Proposing solutions without framing them in real-world business context (that is factually accurate) is worthless. Answers work ONLY in the context in which they are applied.

I would strongly recommend that you don't buy this book or waste the time to read it. Far better books are on the market dealing with marketing solutions.

(This is my first review. I decided to write it to counter some of the oddly positive reviews written by others. If you read these reviews, you will have a better understanding of what the author is trying to say. Some of the reviewers have completed a better, more efficient explanation of the concept in less than 1000 words than the author could do in an entire book.)

If you liked the Tipping Point and you are into business, you will love this book. It is easy and fun to read.

This "viral marketing" is, in fact, too often "stealth marketing"...which is an abuse of public trust. "stealth advertising" is when a marketer enters an online chat-forum (or spams via e-mail) and doesn't declare that he's a marketer, working for less than altruistic, honest reasons. It backfires, when the lie is uncovered. The problem arises when marketers enter forums and start "sneezing"...without declaring themselves to BE marketers. Eventually, this backfires on the marketer, and on the product. The users who discover that they've been duped into helping an advertiser, or accepting SPAM into their mailbox, begin to spread negative comments about the marketer and products. Negative word spreads alot faster than positive word, because people are shy to be happy-happy-joy-joy like an advertisement, but eager to "keep things real" by spreading the words that our advertising-overridden world won't: "What's BAD ?"

So...see beyond the hype, here. If you're using this book --and "viral marketing"-- as a basis for launching STEALTH ADVERTISING, then DON'T. It'll blow up in your face, causing more harm than good. Declare your advertising AS advertising, or you risk doing more harm to yourselves than good.