Online Extra: Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell
The author of The Tipping Point, says he's no consulting guru, but his viral marketing analysis is proving contagious
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New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell created a stir in the marketing world with his best-seller, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Little, Brown & Co., 2000). The deceptively modest book used
an epidemiological model to explore how trends get disseminated, and its release coincided with marketers' increasing frustration with traditional media and their fascination with consumer phenomena that had enjoyed a "viral," or word-of-mouth, build in attaining broad popularity.