Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and other books like "The Influentials" have been making a case for marketers targeting their message to a relatively small group of trend-setters or thought-leaders they call "Influentials." If you can interest them in your product or service, they have the clout through word-of-mouth persuasion to get the masses to follow their lead, say the books.
The concept of influentials actually goes back to two sociologists who in 1955, according to the February issue of FAST COMPANY, chronicled their theory of marketing influence in their book "Personal Influence," where they introduced the idea of what they dubbed "opinion leaders."
Over the past 40 - 50 years, marketers have targeted those opinion leaders with their advertising as a way to break through to the larger markets they hope to penetrate. In the past few years, more than $1 billion is spent annually, according to MarketingVOX, on word-of-mouth campaigns targeting influentials, and the trend is growing by more than one-third every year.
So along comes a guy named Duncan Watts -- a Columbia University network theory scientist currently working for Yahoo (unless he's one of the several hundred caught in recent layoffs there). Watts says all that money being spent to reach influentials is a waste.
His experiments, outlined in detail in FAST COMPANY, claim that moving markets through influentials just doesn't work. A number of random factors come together to create WOM, or viral buzz. The emergence of a trend, he says, depends more on the receptivity of the public to a particular message at a particular time, and not on the blessing of so-called influentials.
Viral marketing a dud? That flies in the face of trendy marketing, which often encourages companies to focus on a well-connected few who spread the word out to the masses. Watts says his experiments and analyses show viral marketing through influentials may ultimately be less effective than that old standard -- mass marketing.
He recognizes the power of viral, but claims it is impossible to know who is going to spark the fire. Therefore, he says marketers should aim at as broad a market as possible within their target demos, rather than waste money chasing "important" people.
I won't hazard a guess as to which theory is right, or perhaps more effective. Watts' experiments are interesting and should challenge us to look more closely at how we try to get our messages out to potential buyers. I suspect some combination of the mass market and the "influentials" approach might work for some, customized for who you want to reach and how much you have to spend.
Check out the FAST COMPANY article if you have time (it's lengthy, but interesting) and let us know what you think.
Update 1/29/08: Gavin Heaton explores the subject a bit more at his blog today.