Speaker Single
Dr. Jonah Berger
Best-Selling Author, Wharton Professor and Expert on Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, Word of Mouth, and How Products and Ideas Become Popular
Dr. Jonah Berger is a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a world-renowned expert on decision making, social influence, word of mouth, and how products, ideas, and behaviors become popular. A follow-up to his New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller Contagious: Why Things Catch On, his latest book Invisible Influence looks at the hidden forces that motivate our everyday decisions including what to buy, what to wear, and how to act. Berger has a PhD in marketing and consults, teaches, and researches consumer behavior and trends, leading effective change, making better decisions, becoming more influential, and getting things to catch on. He is an exciting and fresh voice on marketing and strategy.
What makes things popular? Why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumors more infectious? Jonah Berger spent the last decade answering these questions, explaining why certain products get more word of mouth than others and why certain online content goes viral. With Contagious, he reveals the science behind word of mouth and social transmission and shares how six key emotional and societal factors drive all sorts of things to become contagious–from products and policy initiatives to services and culture change within organizations. In his new book Invisible Influence, Berger looks at the psychology and social science behind trends and choices, highlighting how businesses may use his insight to influence employees, consumers, potential business partners, and investors.
Berger has spent more than 15 years studying judgment and decision-making and consulting for Fortune 500 companies. He looks at how organizations can sway behavior and describes how to prevent consumers from getting mired in “decision-making quicksand.” With research and insights grounded in rigorous research and the best contemporary psychology and behavioral science, organizations can put Berger’s insights to use whether they are selling a product or crafting a new corporate culture. He also shows leaders how to avoid the “curse of knowledge” and communicate change in way that encourages buy-in. Berger shares tools for shaping the choice context, being more persuasive, driving customer growth, and being more influential.
Berger has published dozens of articles in top-tier academic journals like Journal of Consumer Research and Marketing Science. Popular accounts of his work often appear in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Wired, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, the Atlantic, the Economist, and more. His research has also been featured in the New York Times Magazine’s annual “Year in Ideas” issue. Berger was named one of the American Management Association’s 2014 “Top 30 Leaders in Business.” He has also been recognized with a number of awards for both scholarship and teaching, including Wharton’s “Iron Professor” Teaching Award and the MBA Curricular Innovation Award. He received the Journal of Consumer Research’s Best Paper Award and Early Career Awards from both the Association for Consumer Research and the Society for Consumer Psychology.
