For Hush Puppies--the classic American brushed-suede shoes with the lightweight crepe sole--the Tipping Point came somewhere between late 1994 and early i995. The brand had been all but dead until that point. Sales were down to 3o,ooo pairs a year, mostly to backwoods outlets and small-town family stores. Wolverine, the company that makes Hush Puppies, was thinking of phasing out the shoes that made them famous. But then something strange happened. At a fashion shoot, two Hush Puppies execu-tires - Owen Baxter and Geoffrey Lewis - ran into a stylist from New York who told them that the classic Hush Puppies had suddenly become hip in the clubs and bars of downtown Manhattan. "We were being told, " Bax-ter recalls, "that there were resale shops in the Village, in Soho, where the shoes were being sold. People were going to the Ma and Pa stores, the little stores that stillcarried them, and buying them up."...

THE TIPPING POINT is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This bestselling book, in which Malcolm Gladwell brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

Introduction 

ONE

The Three Rules of Epidemics 

TWO

The Law of the Few:

Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen 

THREE

The Stickiness Factor:

Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, and the Educational Virus 

FOUR

The Power of Context

(Part One): Bernie Goetz and the Rise and

Fall of New York City Crime 

FIVE

The Power of Context

(Part Two): The Magic Number

One Hundred and Fifty 

SIX

Case Study: Rumors, Sneakers, and the Power of Translation 

SEVEN

Case Study: Suicide, Smoking, and the Search for the Unsticky Cigarette 

EIGHT

Conclusion:

Focus, Test, and Believe 

Endnotes 

Acknowledgments 

Index