When I first saw the new iinet campaign where they claim to be the new No.2 in DSL Broadband, I quickly knew I had to write a blog post about how similar this campaign is to the great Avis “we’re no.2 so we try harder” campaign from the 1960s.

Fortunately, my friends over at Marketing Magazine have already covered this angle which frees me up to look a bit deeper into why this strategy will work for iiNet.

An article in the New York Times titled “In E-Book Era, You Can’t Even Judge a Cover” got me thinking. Social proof is one of the most powerful concepts in psychology and persuasion, but if you cant tell what someone is reading by the cover, how can you be influenced by it?

Last year as part of my Masters degree, I wrote a paper on why iPhone adoption will be faster in Australia than the US. Key to this claim was diffusion of innovation theory, to which I introduced a new concept titled The Newton Ball Diffusion Acceleration Effect.
In the year since developing this concept, I have been responsible for several new product launches, that have all been successful way beyond expectations due to another theory that I have developed on how to accelerate diffusion of innovation.

I am now ready to share this secret with you, it is called Accelerating Diffusion of Innovation: Maloney’s 16% Rule.