Word Of The Moment: Sneezers

Excerpted from Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus

Sneezers are at the core of any ideavirus. Sneezers are the ones who when they tell ten or twenty or 100 people—people believe them.
 
Sneezers Are So Important, We Need To Subdivide Them

There are two basic kinds of sneezers:

Promiscuous Sneezers

This is your uncle the insurance salesman. These are members of a hive who can be counted on to try to “sell” their favorite ideavirus to almost anyone, almost any time.

1. Promiscuous sneezers can be motivated by money or other inducements.
2. Promiscuous sneezers are rarely held in high esteem as opinion leaders, but if they’re promiscuous enough, they can be extremely effective.

Powerful Sneezers

Indiana Jones sold more hats for Stetson than any single person since the invention of the Marlboro Man. Why? Because Ford has the influence to set style, because his appearance in a movie wearing that hat coaxed millions of men who wanted to be like him into buying a hat.
       
The paradox of the powerful sneezer is that he can’t be bought. Every time a powerful sneezer accepts a bribe in exchange for spreading a virus, his power decreases. When Bruce Springsteen does ads in Japan, or Whoopi Goldberg shills for Flooz, they have less leverage as powerful sneezers. The public knows that they can be motivated by more than just taste.

In fact, every time a powerful sneezer tries something new and introduces a new idea, she takes a risk. If her followers reject the virus (for whatever reason), her ability to introduce future viruses decreases. For this reason, it’s difficult to manipulate powerful sneezers, and equally difficult to predict what might motivate them to adopt an ideavirus.