Tip 'n Go

Shoe designs thought to be outdated and old are suddenly roaring to the forefront. A crime laden subway system is reborn again without the graffiti and without the high level of crime.



One small change has been made. The right group of people are suddenly wearing the shoe. The Broken Windows theory is obselete, and there are no longer places of disorder.



The epidemic has tipped.



In Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, he refers to an actual 'tipping point' as the moment when something changes within an epidemic that, in turn, makes it 'tip' and spread like wild fire. Acting as helpers to these points are three rules of epidemics: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. Each of these rules should play a vital part in our athletics campaign, "One Team, One Spirit."



The Law of the Few represents making contact with the right people and having them accept your idea. As a part of our campaign, our team has designed "Fan Frenzy," a spirit contest centered around our registered student organizations. Each student within our class participates in at least one extra-curricular activity on campus, and if each of us stood before our organization and announced information about the contest, our fellow members would listen. Now, imagine, if we did that and our friends did that at organizations that they are involved in, and maybe, we visited the remaining RSO's on campus to spread the word. Well, we might just be able to start an epidemic of our own simply through word-of-mouth. Gladwell put a lot of faith into the concept of word-of-mouth, and it proves to be one of the most effective and cheapest ways to get a result.

Recently, in my Consumer Behavior class, we were discussing how to market an effective ad. We basically wanted to know how to make something "stick." Gladwell's concept, the Stickiness Factor, will be one of our biggest challenges within our campaign; however, if we follow the rules I learned from my other class that day, we might find it a little easier. Taken from a movie involving a foreign political candidate, his political advisors developed three easy steps to make his message stick. First, the message needs to be simple. Secondly, the message has to resonate, and finally, the message has to be repeated. For the most part, I think we are actually already off to a good start with accomplishing these steps with our publicity efforts; however, we need to find a way to make our campaign have more of an impact.

Within Gladwell's Power of Context rule, it is noted that people, in general, are a lot more sensitive to their surroundings than they may actually appear. We are sensitive to our immediate context as well as the personalities that surround us. Just as personalities can be altered and changed, so can our surroundings. As a team, we are slowly changing the surroundings on Georgia College's campus. Take our lovely Thunder cut outs for instance, it may appear to be only a small change since they are only in four locations, but we've received some amazing feedback on them after only one event. What will happen when they are out more often for the basketball games? Also, why don't we dress them up for each of our events in order to make him stand out a little more, and possible help our message stick? Yet again, the use of word-of-mouth techniques can come in handy. Sitting in class before a lecture starts, you and your friend might talk about the upcoming basketball game, and the person two rows over hears you and it sparks their interest. In a way, you have altered their surroundings. In order to make the most of this, we need to use the three types of people discussed by Gladwell: Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.

Thinking about which of these three personality categories I fall under was not the easiest task. None of them explained who I am to a tee, but I did find qualities in one category. Most like a Maven, I tend to be the quiet one in a room, who lets the information around her sink in. I'm extremely observant, probably a lot more than I need to be, and while I may not always ask questions, I'm still thinking them. I just tend to find answers my own way. Through my experiences and personal research, I have picked up some random pieces of knowledge; however, I'm always more than happy to share that knowledge if an opportunity presents itself.

In regards to opportunities, our class has fully immersed ourselves into the world of social media. Using blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and later, Flickr, we are tackling one of the most recent phenomenons in the PR world. While none of these have personally tipped for me yet, I know they will in good time. I can see Twitter tipping first, because I use it most often. Sometimes, I feel as if I had more time to devote to exploring social media than perhaps, they would have already tipped. Although, until they do, I will have plenty of other smaller movements within our campaign that will hopefully, help it to tip in the near future.