Sure, statistics in marketing has been around for hundreds of years. I think his key point was alluded to with "just so it would go viral online" as being the

Sure, statistics in marketing has been around for hundreds of years. I think his key point was alluded to with "just so it would go viral online" as being the new and growing theme. The trick is getting the public at large to spread the message, and the goal not being the message itself but rather a higher pagerank and traffic. Before, the statistic itself had to be meaningful, i.e. "users of our weight loss supplement lost 43 pounds in the first month". Now, the statistic just has to be "shocking" but not actually sell anything.