Diffusion – Of Ideas, Infections and Innovations

Quick Read: Why do certain ideas spread faster than others?  Diffusion – a social process where people talk to people is still the way that ideas and inovations spread. Stories from diverse fields like health care and ethnic foods provide further evidence.  

Did you know the story of the humble Doctor’s coat?

Till a major part of the 19th century, a doctor’s coat used to be black in color. Why? Because a visit to a doctor had an air of ‘finality’ attached to it, almost like the solemn nature of a funeral. As per this historical account, until the late 19th century, seeking medical advice was usually a last resort and frequently a precursor to death. The reason? Poor hygiene standards in medical practice.

In fact, back in those days,  a doctor’s badge of a busy practice was their black coats stiffened with blood and remains of previous operations. Practices like washing hands, sterilising instruments were virtually unheard of in medical practice during those days.

Naturally infection became the curse of surgery – becoming the single biggest killer of patients who underwent even uncomplicated procedures. Infection was so prevalent that the discharge of pus from a surgical wound was thought to be a necessary part of healing!

Ever since then, many medical practitioners tried hard to conceive of and spread the idea of basic sanitation as an effective means to combat preventable life threatening infections. But failed.

For e.g, Ignaz Semmelweis published the earliest known studies that showed basic hand-washing to be effective at reducing mortality rates of surgery patients. His findings were known to have offended the doctors! Even Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory or Joseph Lister‘s concept of antiseptic surgery techniques contributed little to the mainstream propogation of the idea of sanitation in health care.

grossclinic(“The Gross Clinic,” by Thomas Eakins, 1875. Source)

The break through in seeding this key idea came over the course of several years as follows.

It turned out that the key message to teach surgeons was not how to stop germs but how to think like a laboratory scientist. A few pioneering German surgeons siezed upon this idea – of the concept of surgeon as a scientist – and seeded this in their students’ minds, many of whom were young medical practitioners from US and other countries.  The result?

The students swapped their black coats for pristine laboratory whites and returned to their home countries as ambassadors not only for the use of antiseptic practice to kill germs but also to prevent germs.  Evangelising through their own students and colleagues, they finally spread the ideas worldwide.

So, the idea of basic sanitation and sterilization for health care and germ prevention spread not because of academic journals or publications, but because of social diffusion – where people (medical practitioners) talked to people (students).

Spreading a Miraclous Solution. One Person At a Time

In many parts of the world, Diarrhea remains the world’s biggest killer of children under the age of five. ORS (Oral rehydration solution) has been known to be a simple yet effective cure for the illness which required a miraculously easy formulation that can be made at almost every home around the world  (water + sugar + salt).

In 1980, a Bangladeshi nonprofit organization called BRAC embarked on a nationwide ORS adoption drive. How did they go about this? The organization didn’t launch a mass-media campaign. It attacked the problem in a way that is typically dismissed as impractical and inefficient: by going door to door, person by person, and just talking.  

ORT(Door to door ORS Education by BRAC, 1979 . Source)

They hired, trained, and deployed thousands of workers region by region who went door to door through more than 75,000 villages and showed 12 million families how to save their children with this simple solution. Eventually, the knowledge became self-propagating and child deaths from diarrhea plummeted more than 80%  between 1980 and 2005. The program was stunningly successful. (source)

Shifting gears a bit and moving over to Ethnic Foods..

 The Greek Yogurt Revolution In The US

Till 2005, Greek Yogurt was a niche segment in the US with a market value of just about $60 million. But in just 5 years a new brand, Chobani has gone to become one of the most explosive food start-ups ever to hit the market netting more than $1 billion in annual sales and rejuvenated the entire Yogurt category in the US. How did that happen?

Ofcourse, Chobani, under the visionary founder Hamdi Ulukaya,  had a brilliant execution of its mix – from clutter breaking packaging, category defying in-store placement (he is known to have insisted that Chobani packs be merchandised in the main dairy area, not in the specialty section), competitive pricing and appealing flavours.

Chobani(Chobani Ad Campaign extolling its fruity goodness. Source)

But fortunately for Chobani – the timing was just right. Consumers were adopting healthier snack options into their busier lifestyles. So much so that when someone opened a pack of Greek Yogurt, it inadvertently became an instance of conspicuous consumptiona prominent scenario of social diffusion enveloped in a message of healthy tasty snack. 

So each time a pack of Greek Yogurt was opened, it created awareness and generated talkability around Greek Yogurt’s health benefits and unique taste. And this was even before its first mass media campaign. As Niel Sandfort, Director of Marketing at Chobani says..

“Before you even think about mass media or paid media, you have to have your ducks in a row on a number of fronts.”

So by the time, the company embarked on its first mass media campaign, the size of the population that was aware of or bought Chobani at least once, reached a “tipping point“, allowing the product to take hold widely. The result? An explosion in the growth of the Greek Yogurt segment. 

Today, the Greek Yogurt category – once a niche segment –  now accounts for 36 percent of the $6.5 billion in total U.S. yogurt sales (source) with Chobani being the number one seller in the category, with nearly 52% market share in the US!

Perks Of Being A Party Food

Guacamole – is an avocado based dip that originated with the Aztecs in Mexico. But in less than a generation, it went from an unknown Mexican delicacy to becoming part of everyday cuisine as a dip, condiment and salad ingredient. This growth of gacamole  was partly because it’s a party food. i.e., people discovered it when others shared it. 

So in essence, while we yearn for frictionless, technological solutions, people talking to people is still the way that ideas and innovations spread. In fact,Diffusion of innovations – a theory by Everett Rogers that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread throughcultures – says diffusion as a social process of people talking to people is central in spreading an idea or innovation among the members of a social system.

Meanwhile Sabra – a PepsiCo owned company that sells Middle Eastern food products in the US  – is fretting that 80 million Americans have never heard of hummus

(H/T: to Seth Godin for this riff on Guacamole, to Atul Gawande for this valuable article on idea diffusion in medical practices. Featured Image source 

Icons – The Visual Metaphors Of Our Culture

Ever wondered what could be the primary cause of our childhood fascination with cartoons? I did. Tons of times in fact. With little success very often.  Thankfully for me Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics gives a clear and a straightforward explanation for that.

Understanding Comics Pg 36

(Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics, Pg 36)

Essentially, he posits,  the mental picture that we we have of ourselves is simple and basic . Therefore, we are able to project ourselves into the ‘simple character’ but not the ‘complex one’.

The obvious lesson here that is applicable to advertising could be – if you want your audience to feel like they are the main character, make sure the character isn’t overly elaborate and detailed.

The classic iPod ads of 2001  have smartly taken this theory a step further by featuring just a set of male and female silhouettes.

iPod

(Image Source)

This abstraction of pictures from reality to icons is thus a powerful mode of expression that comics (and comic artists) have deliberately and meaningfully perfected over the years.  For, after all, (visually) quoting Scott..

Understanding Comics Pg 59

(Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics, Pg 59)

“There is no life in an icon except that which you give to it.”

While this insight forms the cornerstone of what constitutes the vocabulary of comics, it lends a very powerful commentary  that is relevant for our practical lives too. Let me explain.

Just like we are said to be exposed to thousands of marketing/ brand impressions per day, I’d wager that we are also exposed to as many (if not more) iconic impressions each day. While a brand’s logo – by definition – could also be called as an ‘icon’, my focus here is more on icons that constitute the typical signage/symbols that we are used to seeing all around us each day – e.g.,  traffic signage, safety signage, industrial signage, traveler signage etc.

dot_pictograms_full

(DOT Pictograms)

Since these signage icons have been around for years, most of us grow up intuitively accepting them as part of our unspoken language. Thereby they practically end up becoming the visual metaphors of our culture.

Armed with this insight – The Accessible Icon Project was born with a goal to  show a more humanized depiction of the differently abled in the International Symbol of Access.

Symbol of Access

I’ll let you read a comprehensive account of the project here, but the highlight of this guerrilla art project was that it succeeded in reorienting the visual focus of the symbol from the chair to the person, while replacing the rigid, static representation with something more dynamic and active.

Result: The idea has been gaining tremendous momentum around globally as we speak, with NYC becoming one of the first cities in the world to formalize and adopt this new symbol with many disability organizations around the world vehemently following suit.

Metaphors are said to have the power of influencing our ideas, challenging assumptions and creating new world views. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, the power of a visual metaphor like this new ‘access icon’ above can be said to be amplified a thousand fold in shaping our collective biases, informing our cultural opinions and influencing our societal attitudes as humanity.

That’s when things get interesting. Symbolically and literally.

Sustainability Inc – A Case For Profitability In Charity

Can ‘Marketing’ and thereby a monetary value exchange  have a major role to play in non profits, NGOs and charities?  2 recent examples seem to prove a point.

Once Again

Once Again is a Bangalore based NGO that stands out for two reasons:

1. It accepts donations only in the form of old items. Not money.

2. It uses social media in a unique, relevant and a compelling way to trigger ‘action’ for its cause.

See its case study here:

The brilliance of their social media campaign to rake in donations notwithstanding, the big idea for me here is their fundamental business model: It collects items people don’t use anymore, and instead of donating these to the needy, it sells them at a  price (although minimal) to the underprivileged and uses this money for the empowerment of their community.

The exchange of monetary value in this equation triggers a chain reaction from ‘donation of the giver‘ to the ‘dignity of the receiver‘ while making the whole model sustainable. 

Cola Life

Can a crate of Coke save life? Most Likely – proves ColaLife, whose concept can be explained in 100 words as:

“You can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere in developing countries but in these same places 1 in 9 children die before their 5th birthday from simple, preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea.

ColaLife, an independent non-profit, is working with Coca-Cola to open their distribution channels in developing countries to carry ‘social products’ – oral rehydration salts and Zinc supplements – to save children’s lives.”

Get a low down on its business model here.

The big idea for me here is two fold:

1. The design of AidPods: The oral rehydration salts (ORS) in the ColaLife network are distributed in specially designed packs called as AidPods. These are  wedge-shaped containers that are designed to fit within the unused space of a coke crate, i.e., between the necks of the bottles. The design of the AidPod also serves as a contaier for the salts, as a measure for water, as a storage device and as a cup for drinking the ORS. No wonder it won the Product Design of the Year Award for 2013.

Yamoyo Kit

2. The ‘Social Marketing’ Model: At the heart of ColaLife is its ‘Social Marketing Model’ –  in which users value the product more because they pay for it. (ORS products are typically provided free of charge by medical centres in Africa, but are frequently unavailable and misused as there is virtually no monetary exchange taking place at any stage of the value chain). As this FT article says,

“the idea was to copy Coca-Cola’s model, which includes giving financial in­cen­tives along the supply chain from factory to store in order to ensure that people at all stages are rewarded for getting the drink to the customer. By turning a public health commodity – the salt and sugar mix – into a branded consumer product and using marketing to create demand, everyone would benefit, and help make the project sustainable.”

These are just a few of several recent examples out there that have one point to prove:  ‘Marketing’ and thereby a monetary value exchange do and should have a major role to play in non profits, NGOs, humanitarian agencies and charities  in order to remain sustainable and have truly far reaching consequences to the needy.

In his recent TED talk, Dan Palotta  nails it when he says: “Business will move the mass of humanity forward, but will always leave behind that 10% of the most disadvantaged and unlucky- which is why we need philanthropy and nonprofits. But the non profit sector as we know it doesn’t seem to be working.”

And that begets the question – couldn’t the nonprofit sector use the same strategies as the businesses to sustainably serve the needy?