Made to Stick

by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, 2007

Reviewed by Marti Benjamin, MBA, CPC

"Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die"

The Heath brothers, authors of this book, are very clever. The cover of their book appears to have a piece of crinkled duct tape across the front. The cover is bright orange and the faux duct tape, appears real enough that it must be touched. They immediately establish their credibility in writing about sticky ideas.

Their definition of stickiness is an idea that is understood and remembered, one that has a lasting impact that changes the receiver’s opinion or behavior. (Page 8) As an example of a sticky idea, they cite an urban myth you may have heard: a traveler is approached by an attractive stranger of the opposite sex in a bar who offers to buy a drink; after taking the first sip, the traveler recalls nothing until awaking in a bathtub full of ice with a kidney removed. The Kidney Heist tale (much condensed in this rendition) is one of the most successful urban legends of the past 15 years because it includes the elements of a sticky idea—it has an unexpected outcome, concrete details and a strong emotional component.

Before we review the sticky idea principles described in this book, a word of warning from the authors: Be aware of “The Curse of Knowledge.” This is the dynamic of once you know something, you can’t remember what it was like not to know that information. (Page 21) Many advertising and promotional campaigns, business ideas and sales pitches fall short of their intended mark because the person crafting the message knows too much about the inner workings of the product or service. While you can’t un-learn what you know, it is possible to transform those ideas in a way that makes them stick with those that do not have the same depth (or curse) of knowledge.

The Heaths know there is no exact formula for sticky ideas, while there are several traits these ideas have in common. The ideas that have stuck with us generally share most or all of the following six traits:

Principle 1: Simplicity

Cut through the clutter and chatter and get to the core, the essence of the idea. This is not the same as creating a sound bit or a dumbed-down version of the idea; this is identifying the single most important part of the idea.

The Heath brothers use the example of Southwest Airlines to make their point about simplicity. (Page 28-30) At the core of the airline is the simple idea that they will be THE low-fare airline. That is the most important criteria when Southwest makes decisions: will the idea under consideration help them to be THE low-fare airline? If the answer is no or maybe, the decision is not to proceed. This is the process of forced prioritization—what is the single most important point? It is a painful process to peel away all of the other important ideas that support the core message, but the discomfort is worth it in the clarity gained.

Once the simple idea is isolated, the next challenge is to communicate it clearly. "Simple = core + compact." (Page 45) Think of the proverbs you have heard so many times, such as, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." This 11-word sentence carries a powerful and memorable message about the risk of giving up something certain in pursuit of something speculative. Its roots can be traced back nearly 2,500 years, qualifying as a truly sticky idea.

Build your new idea on the back of one that already exists in the receiver's mind, what psychologists call a schema. (Page 54) A schema is prerecorded information residing in the listener's mind and when you use an analogy or metaphor, the familiarity of that prerecorded information makes it easier to jump from that image to a modified one.

Principle 2: Unexpected

Re-visit Southwest Airlines for examples of the unexpected. Maybe you've been on a flight where the attendant giving the required safety announcement surprised you with something like, "In the event of the loss of cabin pressure, secure your own oxygen mask before assisting your children or your spouse who may be acting like a child." Didn't expect that, did you? And, you probably focused on the safety announcement like never before.

"The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern. Humans adapt incredibly quickly to consistent patterns." (Page 64) When the Southwest attendant says something different, we are instantly aware of the unexpected.

Getting our audience's attention and keeping it require both surprise and interest. (Page 65) Surprise jolts us to attention because our prerecorded schema has failed. What we thought would happen, didn't. We stop moving in order to take in all of the information; our muscles slack, our eyebrows lift (making our eyes open wider and increasing our field of vision) and our jaw slackens. We pay attention. "Surprise makes us want to find an answer..." (Page 69)

Gimmickry is a form of surprise taken too far and unrelated to the core message. Surprise for the sole purpose of surprise does not stick as intended; the image may stick but the message is lost. Surprise requires insight to make it sticky. The idea must connect the surprise to the core message.

"So, a good process for making your ideas stickier is: (1) Identify the central message you need to communicate—find the core; (2) Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message—i.e., What are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isn't it already happening naturally? (3) Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience's guessing machines along the critical, counterintuitive dimension. Then, once their guessing machines have failed, help them refine their machines." (Page 72)

Curiosity develops when we have a gap in our knowledge and that gap creates discomfort. To create a sticky idea we first point out the gap—what people don't know—and let them experience the rising sense of curiosity. If you watch television, you experience this technique frequently in the announcements of a program to air later. Does this sound familiar: "How will tomorrow's weather affect your commute?" Pointing out the gap in your knowledge—you don't know what impact the weather will have on your commute because you haven't heard the weather forecast—increases your interest. Compare the question above to a different lead-in to the weather report, "Stay tuned for the weather forecast at 11:00." The messages are basically the same, the level of interest is much different.

Principle 3: Concrete

Concreteness helps us avoid confusion by eliciting a clear mental picture. "If you can examine something with your senses, it's concrete." (Page 104) "The Kidney Heist legend would have been far less sticky if the man had woken up and found that someone had absconded with his self-esteem." (Page 106) While we might all identify with losing self-esteem, it is an abstraction, not as concrete as a kidney.

With a foundation of concreteness, we are better able to build more abstract insights. (I wish my professor for ‘Quantitative Methods for Decision-Making' had understood that!) Think of the memory storage process using the metaphor of Velcro. One side of the Velcro material is covered with tiny hooks and the other is covered with tiny loops that get snagged by the hooks when you push them together. So it is with our memory, "The more hooks an idea has, the better it will cling to memory." (Page 111) What my Quantitative Methods professor overlooked is that as a novice, I needed concrete images that I could build higher and higher levels of abstraction on; he forgot what it was not to know quantitative methods and he experienced the Curse of Knowledge.

Principle 4: Credible

What makes an idea or a person credible? We believe someone or something because of our life time of learning and our social relationships. We trust people either because of their expert status or because we want to be like them.

What qualifies Oprah Winfrey to endorse books or Michael Jordan to create demand for McDonalds? Neither Oprah nor Michael have credentials for the specific products they recommend but they are effective spokespersons because they have credibility with large numbers of consumers. Whether you agree with them and their recommendations or not, you recognize that they have achieved success in their field and that success allows them to speak beyond the scope of their narrow field of entertainment or sports.

Details boost the internal credibility of an idea and those with the greatest impact symbolize and support the core idea. "Statistics are rarely meaningful in and of themselves. Statistics will, and should, always be used to illustrate a relationship. It's more important for people to remember the relationship than the number." (Page 143) The human scale and the context of the statistics are what stick to our memory, not the raw numbers themselves. Illuminate the underlying relationship, not the numbers.

Principle 5: Emotional

Sticky ideas come from getting people to take off their analytical hat and respond with empathy to ideas that connect to things they already care about. "Once we put on our analytical hat, we react to emotional appeals differently. We hinder our ability to feel." (Page 167) When messages make people care about the subject, they act. Form an association between something they already care about and something they don't yet care about. That doesn't mean using the same things that every other message taps into; shift to a new turf or find associations that are unique and distinctive for that simple core message.

Build on self-interest, tangible benefits, and group-interest. One factor in making decisions is an ideal self-image: What would someone like me do? (Page 190)

Principle 6: Stories

Stories stick because they contain wisdom, they speak to possibilities that may have been invisible before. "The story's power, then, is twofold: It provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act). Note that benefits, simulation and inspiration, are geared to generating action." (Page 206) Stories put the message into a framework that is more lifelike and move the listener (or viewer) to action. Rather than presenting an argument that encourages debate, a story creates buy-in.

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©2007, Marti Benjamin