David Hornik Learns About Marketing from Syphilis

One of the fun sessions at FOO Camp today was David Hornik's discussion on viral marketing, subtitled "What can we learn from syphilis?" More specifically: What are the characteristics of good viruses in epidemiology?

• Highly communicable. Of especial note are viruses that prey on conventions, such as the handshake. The convention of the handshake enables one sneeze to infect people all day long.
• Prey on vulnerabilities. As Hornik says, "Not all orifices are created equal." Those that rip more easily are more vulnerable to blood-borne infection, and so AIDS made its early threat upon the gay community.
• Align with essential consumption. The bacterial contagion that causes diarrhea comes from fecal matter, and when people don't (or can't) wash well, viral agents spread via food preparation.
• Super contagions don't need vulnerabilities. Worms don't need to access blood in order to infect you; they simply dig right into your skin and take up residence in your organs.
• Piggyback onto pleasure. An overwhelming number of viruses are transmmitted sexually, and taking drugs is essentially mainlining viruses.
• Don't be lethal. Dead or really sick organisms (such as people) are less mobile than others, so if you kill the host, you can't propagate.
• Be asymptomatic. The "good" viruses are silent but deadly, and since you don't know that you have one you will go around spreading it. Herpes is a more benign example and often lies dormant. Syphilis is a dangerous example, gaining the strength to kill you during its dormancy.
• Efficient distribution. Viruses need people; to spread effectively, they go to where the people are. Enclosed spaces such as hotel conference rooms and airplanes are wonderfully efficient in spreading Legionnaire's disase.
• Inject into carrier genes. Viruses mutate the rest of your cells; they blend in with your own DNA, and it's hard to separate out the good from the bad.

Viral marketing delivers benefits from multiple views - the control of marketing, combined with the free/low cost of PR. Spreading a virus is superior to spreading the word, as the virus attaches the experience to the message, as versus simply spreading the idea. Adopting viral characteristics in a marketing effort - or even better, in product design - will help to drive exposure without driving costs.

Comments

[Cathy Brooks]

As always, a great outline of a conference session! Thanks, Christine, for always being so helpful on this!

David Hornik is a great speaker, and definitely has a penchant for making analogies that catch the attention. I spoke with him recently and posted the first of a two-part podcast series just this week. You can hear his comments at: http://www.guidewireconnection.com/podcasts/default.asp?item=177163

[Bertil]

Christine,

As a PhD student working on this very subject, I really enjoyed this post; trying to do some Innovation Economics with references mostly in Medical journals can be a lonely experience, so I really wanted to take the opportunity to comment.

Of course I made it too long (damn' academics) so I let it in my blog-to-be-opened. I guess I'll fill in the description later. Link is wherever TypePad puts the URL: info.

Basically, not everyone gets certain epidemics: there are types, clusters, hubs, sensitivy. . . I would love to prove that these are as important as the (essential) points made at the FOO Camp.