Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Have you ever read a corporate website full of shop-talk? "The Company's flagship products include a variety of multi-port 10GB and Gigabit Ethernet, copper and fiber-optic, server adapters and innovative BYPASS adapters designed to increase throughput and availability of server-based systems, security appliances and other mission-critical gateway applications." Huh?

Without looking back at the passage, try to summarize in your mind what you just read. This passage, taken from a technology company's "About Us" section, highlights what Dan and Chip Heath refer to, in their book "Made to Stick", as "the Curse of Knowledge".

"Don't Be Evil" is the way Google defines its mission. Southwest? "We are THE low-fare airline." Google and Southwest are two complex companies that have been able to reduce their message and self-identity into simple and powerful core messages that help to guide the actions of not only their employees, but also of their consumers.

To combat "the Curse of Knowledge", and provide messages both simple and profound, the Heath brother's suggest that readers use the "Six Principles of Sticky Ideas" or SUCCESs (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credentialed, Emotional, and Story). A salesperson, teacher, doctor, researcher, preacher? Doesn't matter. We all stand to gain from making our ideas stickier.

In "Made to Stick," the Heath's attack corporations, individuals, and other communicators for inundating listeners and readers with messages that fail to resonate. They laud those that adhere to time-tested principles that jive better with the way that the human brain is hardwired.

Take for example Subway's famous "Jared" ad-campaign, and compare it with their preceding campaign, "7 subs with 6 grams of fat." The Heath's argue that understanding the "Six Principles of Sticky Ideas" would have made it easy, ahead of time, to know which of the two campaigns were going to resonate more with audiences.

The "7 subs with 6 grams of fat" is abstract, fails to tell a story, and doesn't target human emotion. Is 6 grams a lot? What does this mean for me? The human brain is not hardwired to remember numbers. But it can remember stories. So to communicate how Subway can be a healthy fast food alternative, Subway decided to tell the story of an obese college student, who decided he needed to lose weight. This college student decided to reduce his diet to two Subway sandwiches per day (a tuna and a veggie sub), and combine this new diet with an increased walking regiment. This student was named Jared. And he lost over 150 pounds!

The story of Jared resonates with audiences, because it shows how Subway subs can lead to a healthier life, rather than merely telling audiences. Sticky ideas, after all, are easy to remember.

The Heath's principles are nothing revolutionary in the field of rhetoric, PR, or advertising. Like Malcolm Gladwell What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, the Heath's are mostly rewording old social psychology and rhetoric findings into a new, more accessible, popular format. This book has no new ideas. But the co-authors should be lauded for condensing into an easily digestible format the principles they espouse. The accessibility of the ideas in "Made to Stick" can be a powerful reminder to us all (from the Corporate PR Specialist to the bridesmaid in need of crafting an effective, moving wedding toast) that it is often not what you know that matters, but rather how well you can share what you know. The Heath's reiteration of old principles is a testament to those principles' timelessness.

Chip and Dan Heath tell the story of a "friend of a friend" who meets an attractive woman in a bar while on a trip out of town. The woman flirts with the man and buys him a drink. One thing leads to another and he wakes up dazed and confused lying in a tub of ice water. What the heck happened, you ask? One of his kidneys has been harvested by a ring of organ thieves! Aaaaaggghhh!!!

They tell a more complete version of the story in the book, including all the right details. The story is a successful urban legend which means that the story has qualities that make it "stick". That's why it works so well and continues to circulate as an urban legend. "Stickiness" is information that is "understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thought or behavior." The book "Made To Stick" is an outstanding work which helps to explain why certain types of knowledge "stick" with us, even without our making a conscious effort to keep it in our minds.

"Sticky" knowledge tends to be: simple; unexpected; concrete; credible; emotional; and conveyed in stories. Of course, you'll have to read the book to get more details on each of those qualities of stickiness. It really is interesting and worth reading. "Made To Stick" seems to be directed primarily to business people and educators, but the information in this book would be helpful to anyone who needs to communicate effectively in life--and, so, that's basically all of us.

Since the book is about communicating effectively, one would expect its content to be communicated in a "sticky", effective way and it is.

Dan Marler
Oak Lawn, IL
[...]

This is an excellent book that will help you think about the real story or the most compelling benefit that you should offer and communicate and then discuss how you can best communicate it to make it stick in a person's mind. People involved in copywriting, branding, advertising or any other form of marketing communications will benefit from this book as it will cause you to really think about your most compelling benefit and how to best communicate it. Also, anyone who needs to present ideas to motivate action in others will most assuredly take some things away that will make their presentations stronger and more effective.

The stories and case studies in this book provide brilliant illustrations on how humans do not always respond or behave in expected ways. It is this fact that means that understanding your audience is key to understanding how to best communicate with them. Know what motivates them and you hold the key to building great brands, great products and great marketing communications

I highly recommend this book.

--Review by the author of the e-book, "How to Build and Manage Your Brand (in sickness and in health)."

This is a must read for all folks. There are so many applications for what the authors discuss in everyday personal and business life. Extremely engaging in their writing style, this is a quick read for us too-busy to read folks.

Chip & Dan Heath's engaging study into what sticks and doesn't is, not surprisingly, a book that will stick with great information for the reader to digest. Filled with interesting real life examples that are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible & emotional stories (SUCCES), the authors have successfully discovered the magic formula for defining ideas that stick with the best of them.

This book will entertain and enlighten the reader, making for a most enjoyable read; one that will certainly stick in the minds of an eager literary audience, ready to be guided through a somewhat confusing and sticky subject matter. Your perspective of advertising may never be the same again.