Jack Shams
AP Human Geography
9//15
Globalization in a Bottle
The Tipping Point
Chapter 1: Introduction to Human Geography
Thoughts and Ruminations
Essay Question: How are the terms Hierarchical Diffusion, Relocation Diffusion, and Contagious Diffusion discussed in chapter one and how do they relate to Globalization in a Bottle and the Tipping Point?
In today's world the Coca-Cola symbol is the most widely known trademark in the world. This may be due to its addictive taste and cute polar bear commercials at Christmas time, but don't let these small aspects fool you. The Coca-Cola brand built their empire through war and United States military. This may sound crazy at first, but it truthfully was genius. As World War II began and thousands of American troops began to mobilize the president of the Coca-Coal company, Robert Woodruff, decided that, "Every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for five cents, wherever he is, and whatever it costs the company." With the drink already popular among American troops, this caused even more of them to start drinking it. In fact, it was so popular that the military itself began to supply it to the troops because it was a refreshing non intoxicating beverage. With the entire United States military endorsing Coca-Cola, the general population of America got on board as well. This is called Hierarchical Diffusion. This means that once a popular figure such as the military began drinking Coca-Coal regular American citizens began endorsing it even more. This caused the Coca-Cola brand to take off in America and soon it would take off outside of America as well. With the military now supplying Coke to the troops overseas, people who had never heard of Coca-Cola were being introduced to the popular American brand. This is called Relocation Diffusion. This is when a group of individuals have already endorsed a certain idea or product and take it somewhere els and begin to spread the ideas or product. In this case the American soldiers had endorsed Coke and with Americans being so present in other countries Coca-Cola naturally followed them. This allowed the Coca-Cola brand to be introduced to the rest of the world which eventually caused it to become a globally endorsed company.
Husk Puppies are a well known shoe in today's world, but before 1994 that was not the case. The the early 90's Hush Puppies were not a hip or in style brand that could barley sell 30,000 pairs a year. On set at a fashion shoot two Hush Puppies executives, Owen Baxter and Geoffrey Lewis, made a huge discovery. A stylist from New York told them that Hush Puppies had suddenly become popular in huge New York City clubs. He continued to tell them that people were going out of their way to go to the small village stores that carried them to buy them up. With this sudden resurgence of the Hush Puppy Baxter and Lewis were baffled. They did not know why this was happened or what caused it, but Hush Puppies continued to become one of the most popular shoes in America. In 1995, some of the biggest designers from around the country wanted to feature Hush Puppies in their new collections. After this over 430,000 pairs of Hush Puppies were being sold and each year that number grew. In 1996 Hush Puppies won the prize for best accessory at he Counsel of Fashion Designers award dinner. One might be asking how did such a dead brand become a staple in America style so quickly. The answer is Contagious Diffusion. This is when a small group of individuals decides to begin endorsing something for reasons such as the certain thing, is not popular anymore and they want to stand out, or they just think it looks cool to them. Whatever the reason may be, this causes others to being doing the same and a certain type of domino effect beings to take place. In this particular situation, the group of people who began wearing the Hush Puppies to clubs made other people think they were in style again, and therefore many people began wearing them again. This infectious spreading of the Hush Puppies caused them to go down in history as one of the most popular shoes of all time.
Somebody wanted to connect similar groups of people and ideas on social media but all the ways that people were coming up with were too complicated so he tired using the pound sign (#) then it became known as the hashtag.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/11/07/good-question-how-did-the-pound-sign-become-a-hashtag/
This map shows where the hashtag started and the two largely populated states. The hashtag started in San Francisco, California when Chris Messina, a former Google developer, sent a tweet in 2007 bringing up the idea of the hashtag. Messina's tweet read, "How do you feel about using the # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp?" This tweet started the hashtag rage. The hashtag spread from San Feancisco to other densely populated cities such as New York City and Dallas. This caused many people to begin using the hashtag making it a widley known symbol and idea. This sudden surge in the social media world caused stocks to rise and brought over 30 million dollars to the social media companies. Today the hashtag is a symbol almost everyone is familiar with and uses on a daily basis.
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