Jonah Berger
Most products, messages and change initiatives fail not because the idea is wrong, but because it does not move through people. Buyers know they need word of mouth, persuasion that lands, and customers and employees who actually shift behaviour. What they lack is a tested model for which specific levers cause that to happen.
Jonah Berger is a Wharton marketing professor whose research on virality, persuasion and behaviour change gives organisations named, testable frameworks for getting customers and employees to act.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Jonah Berger
- He has built two operating frameworks, STEPPS for word of mouth and REDUCE for overcoming resistance, that translate directly into product, marketing and change decisions rather than sitting at the level of theory.
- The research base is unusually deep for a commercial speaker: 80+ peer-reviewed articles, much of it using natural language processing on real consumer and organisational text, not anecdote.
- His client work spans Apple, Google, Nike, Amazon, GE, Moderna, Facebook and the Gates Foundation, which means the frameworks have been pressure-tested across consumer brands, platforms and mission-driven organisations.
- Contagious won the Berry-AMA Book Prize for the best book in marketing, the field’s most credible peer recognition.
- He addresses two distinct buyer problems with one body of work: how things spread (marketing, product, communications) and how to move people who do not want to move (change, transformation, sales).
Biography highlights
- Marketing Professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
- PhD in Marketing, Stanford Graduate School of Business; BA Stanford.
- Author of Contagious, Invisible Influence, The Catalyst and Magic Words; books published in over 35 countries.
- Berry-AMA Book Prize for Best Book in Marketing (Contagious).
- Wharton Iron Professor Award for faculty research; recognised by the American Marketing Association as a top-five most productive marketing researcher.
- Research and commentary featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review and NPR.
Biography
Most attempts to change behaviour rely on more pressure: more advertising spend, more incentives, more internal communication. The research suggests the opposite often works better. Removing the friction that holds people in place changes more behaviour than pushing harder against it.
That argument sits at the centre of Jonah Berger’s work as a marketing professor at the Wharton School. His book The Catalyst sets out a five-part model, REDUCE, for identifying and dismantling the specific barriers that stop customers, employees and citizens from changing their minds. It is paired with the earlier STEPPS framework from Contagious, which names the six factors that make products and ideas spread.
The academic foundation is substantial. Berger holds a PhD in Marketing from Stanford and has published more than eighty peer-reviewed articles, much of it applying natural language processing to large bodies of consumer and organisational text. Contagious won the Berry-AMA Book Prize for the best book in marketing. Invisible Influence and Magic Words extend the same methodology into social influence and the language of persuasion.
The frameworks have been used inside Apple, Google, Nike, Amazon, GE, Moderna, Facebook and the Gates Foundation. The value to a senior team is the same in each case: a defensible, named model for two questions that boards and chief marketing officers ask repeatedly, why some things spread and others do not, and why people resist change even when the case for it is sound.
Key speaking topics
- Word of mouth and viral marketing
- Behavioural science in commercial strategy
- Change and persuasion
- Consumer behaviour and decision-making
- Language and influence
- Social influence and choice architecture
- Branding and customer engagement
Ideal for
- Chief marketing officers and brand leadership teams setting strategy on growth, virality and customer engagement.
- Transformation and change leaders running programmes where employee or customer resistance is the binding constraint.
- Sales and revenue leaders looking to apply behavioural science to pricing, messaging and conversion.
- Product and innovation teams working on adoption of new offerings.
Audience outcomes
- A working knowledge of the STEPPS framework and how to apply each principle to a current product, message or campaign.
- The REDUCE model as a diagnostic for stalled change, with the five categories of resistance named and addressable.
- Specific language techniques from Berger’s natural language processing research that shift persuasion outcomes.
- A sharper read on which behavioural levers genuinely move customers and employees, and which ones do not.
- Concrete examples drawn from consumer brands, platforms and mission-driven organisations Berger has worked with.
Talks
A talk on the specific words and linguistic patterns that change persuasion outcomes, drawn from Berger’s natural language processing research.
Key takeaways:
- Which categories of language consistently increase persuasion, engagement and trust.
- How small shifts in word choice change buyer, employee and customer behaviour.
- A method for auditing the language used in pitches, communications and customer-facing copy.
A reframing of change as barrier removal, built around the REDUCE model.
Key takeaways:
- The five categories of resistance that block change inside organisations and markets.
- Why pushing harder usually entrenches the position you are trying to shift.
- A diagnostic for identifying which barrier is binding in a specific change effort.
The original talk based on the STEPPS framework for virality and word of mouth.
Key takeaways:
- The six factors that make products, ideas and content spread.
- Why social currency and triggers matter more than content quality alone.
- How to engineer practical value and story into commercial messaging.