Hype is the act of overstating the importance or novelty of a product, service, idea or concept. It is used to create a sense of urgency and to promote sales, especially on social media. It is often associated with the “dope factor” and has become a common sales tactic for brands trying to reach and entice a younger market.
The word hype is derived from the Greek hyperbole, which means “over-exaggeration.” It is rooted in a word that dates back to the fourth century B.C. and was used for swindlers and tricksters before it became a part of commercial jargon in the 1970s.
When hype is used correctly, it can be a powerful weapon in the marketing mix to get in-demand users and customers on board with your project. However, it is best used after you’ve reached product-market fit and have your flywheel spinning fast enough that the network can support your hype subsidy without losing its traction.
It is also very useful in hiring, particularly when the talent you want to hire hasn’t yet been vetted by your internal team. It can sway potential employees to join your team and accelerate the process of bringing them onboard.
To understand the role of hype, we investigated its frequency in NIH abstracts from 1985 to 2020 (see eFigure in the Supplement). We extracted adjectives from abstracts that carried a promotional or advertising sense and assessed their absolute and relative shifts between 1985 and 2020.
We found that the majority of hype adjectives occupied 8 broad semantic categories–importance, novelty, rigor, scale, utility, quality, attitude, and problem. These terms tended to be most common in abstracts that were most successful in gaining attention, and were also correlated with other factors such as the research environment.
Adjectives categorized as hype shifted significantly in both absolute and relative frequency between 1985 and 2020. The most frequent hype adjectives accounted for over 50% of the shift in frequency. The relative increase in popularity of certain adjectives, such as novel and critical, was larger than the absolute increase.
When applied incorrectly, hype can cause a company’s business to collapse. This is because hype can sway the perception of your business to the point where it outpaces reality, thus making it difficult to compete in the marketplace.
Similarly, when hype is used in social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, it can cause people to ignore your competitors’ content and focus exclusively on yours. This can be a dangerous strategy if your competition is also swaying their audience to avoid your competitor’s content and services.
In addition, hype can be a catalyst for in-demand users to get onboard and lean in with their time, as it encourages them to invest in the platform. When used correctly, this can catalyze hypergrowth in a startup’s user base.
It is important to be aware of the dangers of hype and shunning it until your platform and loops are ready for it. Stoking hype too early can be detrimental for your company in the long run, and can lead to a painful rebuilding period, or even a lucky acquisition.