demand for experiential or hedonic products be modeled also as a function of “emotional product attributes” or emotions that a product might elicit from consumers. Our category of interest is the U.S. motion picture industry. We calibrate emotional attributes of a movie by mapping a movie’s plot keywords on a list of human emotions by using a word pattern recognition method called Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). We propose a factor model to reduce this multidimensional representation of correlated emotional attributes to two factors - “emotional complexity” and “negative emotions”. These two factors are simultaneously incorporated in a random-utility choice model of 982 movies released in theaters in 1999-2005. We find that consumers prefer movies with greater emotional complexity. Demand for movies with negative emotions is moderated by consumers’ sense of well-being, as measured by the Consumer Confidence Index. Importantly, our method of capturing emotional product attributes is simple, off-the-shelf, inexpensive, and scalable to studying markets with a large number of products. Substantively, our findings combine insights from economics and psychology, and are of interest to studios and theaters in their production and release timing decisions.

1. Let sharing benefit everyone

In 1991, telephone firm MCI (for whom I once worked) was vying for new customers in the recently deregulated long-distance calling market. While rivals AT&T and Sprint relied on cold calls and direct mail, MCI launched its “Friends & Family plan.” Suddenly, every MCI customer had a compelling incentive to promote its service: discounted calls to their relatives and friends. Though this concept is now ubiquitous, at the time it was truly innovative.

MCI’s telemarketers could now begin sales calls by saying “I’m calling on behalf of your friends and family”, giving them three times the close rate as cold calls. By the end of the year, the company’s revenues, customer numbers and call traffic had increased significantly. An official AT&T response stated, “We would be uncomfortable using our customers as salespeople for our products.” If that represents the prevailing attitude of the early 90s, then MCI’s thinking was really ahead of its time.

What do your users and the people they know care about most when it comes to your product? Is pricing as big a concern as in the long-distance calling market or could, for example, access to premium features be more important? Figure this out and you will have a tool to drive viral growth.

1. Give sharing an emotional value

Coca-Cola is famous for its emotional marketing campaigns, from popularizing the modern image of Santa Claus to teaching the world to sing. The company recently gave this emotional appeal a viral twist by replacing the famous Coke logo on cans and bottles with thousands of names. The idea behind the Share a Coke campaign is to find one with the name of a friend or family member and buy it for them.

The forthcoming Apple Watch will also aim to create emotional connections with its “digital touch” features. Some tech observers are convinced that the ability to share heartbeats, sketches and other ephemera will make Apple Watch the most viral of all of the company’s products.

All good products have some form of emotional impact on users. Can you harness yours to drive growth? Or think about a new feature or user experience that could add an emotional incentive to sharing your service.

Related: 5 Simple Hacks to Make Your Content Way More Shareable

1. Make sharing the purpose of your product.

GoPro makes lightweight video cameras designed for sports enthusiasts to record their activities. The technology is impressive, but GoPro’s transformation into a viral product is more a result of its action-packed online videos and in-store displays. The firm’s marketing doesn’t boast about product specs or features, instead they show actual users' experiences.

GoPro’s “be a hero” tagline emphasizes that its cameras aren’t for just recording your latest extreme outing, they’re for sharing your adventures and impressing your friends. Customers are the company’s best marketing tool, because they constantly share footage that highlights why anyone who loves action-based activity should have a GoPro product.

Too often products focus only on their functional objective and forget that sharing can enhance the user benefit. Think about how to make sharing part of your purpose. How does your product become the publisher for what your users do with it?

1. Align your product with a powerful idea.

The spread of ideas assuming a viral pattern is a theory propagated by the likes of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and the 2010 movie Inception. Associating a product with an idea is something beauty brand Dove has done extremely well. Positioned as the natural alternative to traditional beauty products, Dove’s marketing campaigns usually feature “natural women” and not stick-thin supermodels.

Dove’s “campaign for real beauty” goes beyond product promotion. This YouTube video depicting an ordinary girl being transformed into a billboard model with some hair, makeup and Photoshop tweaking, is a persuasive message about the modern beauty industry. It’s something anyone can get behind even if they don’t buy Dove products. Having been watched by more than 18 million people, the video has built brand advocacy for Dove as a different way of thinking about beauty.

Can you become a part of the community interested in the broader idea behind your product? Join organizations, support causes and invite speakers to give talks at your office. Above all, be genuine in your support—some things are more important than your viral growth.

1. Use social proof if your product has a perceived risk.

Having said earlier that referral programs are barefaced bribery, there is a place for using cash or other incentives to help build your audience. Ride sharing app Uber offered users free rides for referring friends to overcome any uneasiness people may have felt about using unlicensed taxis. For new users, knowing that a friend had previously used the service established Uber as reliable and trustworthy. And of course, they too got a free ride.

What are the potential barriers to people using your product? Will social proof from other users help overcome these? If so, breaking out the checkbook could be the fastest way to growth.

Don’t be discouraged if your product isn’t naturally viral. Offline brands like Dove, Coca-Cola, and GoPro have shown that all it takes is a little creative thinking. Which of your favorite viral promotions did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

if someone else had invented a startup called "thinkspace" or if IBM had something like that or something, we'd have more trouble, but it seems to me we'd be THE space to THINK based on this search yielding nada mucho...

Helping folks really be in teams like you and I are doing now... that would be a pretty big hit, I would think. @b

Folks want to think all the time and that means this gets huge, fast.

Oddly, it feels like it's from my FINGERS and not my BRAIN so much.

/spex/team

http://metanotes.com/spex/team

Interesting that this is an important concept in the history of homo sapiens yet there seems to only be this neologistic compound word "brainstorm" to express this concept...

/../dad

http://metanotes.com/user/sri/dad

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/11/content-marketing-playbook-connecting-customers/

Thinking is a property of the moment more than of the brain.

Should we brainstorm?

"Mental activity" is different from "thinking".

We want things to happen in our lives and we need a way to make them happen faster through strategy, tactics and efforts.

We needed space to think.

Build what folks will use all the time so everyone wants in.

"I NEEDED SPACE TO THINK"

http://metanotes.com/user/sri

• Having a goal makes me feel like I need to think because thinking has helped me reach some of my goals in the past.
• Thinking is better than being idle when you have a goal on your mind.

Using your brain isn't as good as using your MIND.

I felt triggered to open METANOTES to brainstorm around a book I just read so that I could meet the goal that was highlighted as a good target in the book, which is to cause your software to form a beneficial habit in users.

Even if it didn't actually help me reach them, I would feel emotionally compelled to think about my goals. Indeed, my goals are actually the most interesting thing about me. Not my past but the future I see ahead. Indeed that's where the collaboration comes in; not where you've been but where you're going. So I would think about my goals if I had a way to do so at the slightest opportunity.

A million ways to create but WHAT TO CREATE THAT WILL MATTER?

PRODUCING gets you closer to WISH. CREATING can actually wind up being sort of distracting. It's nice to be able to express yourself and all.

But it's really nice to be able to express your directed thought towards actions you plan to take in the real world towards a WISH you have.

particularly when simply articulating the fact that you even HAVE that WISH moves it from unconscious to conscious, from desire to policy.

I use this when I am inspired to make some progress towards a goal.