The Formula for Creating Ideas that Stick from Chip & Dan Heath
In Made to Stick, authors Chip and Dan Heath tackle the question:
Why do some ideas succeed while others fail??
Taking a magnifying glass to everything from urban legends to political slogans to iconic marketing campaigns, the Heath brothers artfully break down what makes an idea truly sticky, or as I understand it, understandable, memorable, and impactful.?
While my Kindle notebook is positively bleeding from everything I highlighted along the way, the most practical (and practical is the name of the game here!) is what the Heath brothers have called their checklist for SUCCESS. It lists all the qualities your message needs to succeed and have a long shelf life in the market of ideas.?
In what follows, I’ll briefly elaborate on each of the sticky-ness principles and provide a concrete example.
If you stick around until the end, you’ll leave with a crystal clear understanding of how to apply the takeaways from Made to Stick to breathe fresh life into your great ideas.?
Checklist for SUCCESS:
?? SIMPLICITY: find the core of your idea, strip it down to its most critical essence.
How do you simplify your idea??
For your idea to be sticky, you need to begin by simplifying it. It should be universally understandable and communicate the most important part of your message.?
To simplify your idea, you can use the Commander’s Intent approach. Commander’s Intent is a crisp, plain-talk statement that appears at the top of every order, specifying the plan’s goal, the desired end-state of an operation (p. 26).?
Example:?Southwest Airlines
"Herb Kelleher (the longest-serving CEO of Southwest Airlines) once told someone, I can teach you the secret to running this airline in thirty seconds. This is it: We are THE low-fare airline. Once you understand that fact, you can make any decision about this company’s future as well as I can. 'Here’s an example, he said. Tracy from marketing comes into your office. She says her surveys indicate that the passengers might enjoy a light entrée on the Houston to Las Vegas flight. All we offer is peanuts, and she thinks a nice chicken Caesar salad would be popular. What do you say? The person stammered for a moment, so Kelleher responded: You say, Tracy, will adding that chicken Caesar salad make us THE low-fare airline from Houston to Las Vegas? Because if it doesn’t help us become the unchallenged low-fare airline, we’re not serving any damn chicken salad." (pg. 29)?
?? UNEXPECTEDNESS: figure out what’s counterintuitive about your message; get your audience’s attention by surprising them.?
How do you create an element of surprise??
For your idea to be sticky, it needs to grab your audience’s attention and then sustain it by generating interest. How to do this? Share something that is surprising and counterintuitive… something that breaks an existing pattern and then provides insight or a new way forward.?
Example: The Ad Council 2002 Enclave Ad
"The Enclave ad is unexpected because it violates our schema for car commercials. We know how car commercials are supposed to behave… minivans deliver kids to soccer practice. No one dies, ever. The ad is unexpected in a second way: It violates our schema of real-life neighbourhood trips. We take thousands of trips in our neighbourhoods, and the vast majority of them end safely. The commercial reminds us that accidents are inherently unexpected — we ought to buckle up, just in case." (pg. 67)
?? CONCRETENESS: make your idea or concept universally understandable by using concrete language and examples.?
How do you make your idea concrete??
Use sensory language and concrete images. Our brains are wired to remember concrete data. Ideas that are naturally sticky are filled with concrete images—think of the urban legend of Halloween candy filled with razors.
Your idea becomes concrete the minute it evokes a sensory experience. You can picture the shiny candy wrapper, taste the sweetness of the chocolate bar, and surprise! the painful edge of a razor.?
Example: Nordstrom's world-class customer service:
"Nordstrom is a department store known for outstanding customer service. It’s expensive, but people like to shop there because the experience is so pleasant. To create this culture of 'world class customer service' there are certain concrete stories/examples that are shared internally. These signal to a new employee what it means to provide customer service that goes above and beyond. For example, 'did you hear about the Nordie who ironed a new shirt for a customer who needed it for a meeting that afternoon?' (pg.73)
World-class customer service = abstract
Nordstrom employee ironing a customer’s shirt = concrete
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?? CREDIBLE: invoke credibility to help people believe your idea
How do you make your idea credible??
Here are a few tactics you can apply to boost the credibility of your idea:
?? EMOTION: get people to care about your idea by making them feel something.?
How do you make people care about your idea??
We make people care by appealing to the things that matter to them or appealing to their identity. Think about Maslow’s Hierarchy’s needs. What needs does your product or service address? How does it appeal to the identity of your audience?
Another thing to keep in mind is that we are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions. Researchers have theorized that thinking about statistics shifts people into a more analytical frame of mind. When people think analytically, they’re less likely to think emotionally, and therefore act.?
Example:?Save the Children Charity:
The most successful non-profits get people to engage with their cause by sharing stories of individuals in need, rather than abstract statistics.?Take, for example, the Save the Children charity, which often shares the story of an individual child when asking for donations.
"How will your donation be affected if you’re told that your money will help feed Rokia, a cute six-year-old in Malawi versus your money will go towards “supporting “food shortages in Malawi that affect more than 3 million children” (pg. 166).
You’re much more likely to feel something when you see Rokia, playing with her friends, now healthy enough to pursue her dreams. Your donation made that happen.?
?? STORIES: get people to act on your idea by sharing a story.?
How do you tell a story that prompts people to act on your idea?
A story that mobilizes people is one that has all the qualities we’ve listed so far: it has a strong core message; it has concrete details; it feels credible; it evokes emotion; it has an unexpected element that offers a new way of thinking.?
You don’t even have to come up with this story yourself. You just have to get good at identifying a great story when you see one. Remember that most stories fall into 3 basic plots, and once you identify them, you can use them in the service of your product or service.?These plots include:
Example: Google Year in Review 2022
As seen above, the ad is an example of a connection plot. tells a story of a world moving from collective despair to collective hope for a brighter future. It uses concrete images and video clips. It evokes a range of emotions from sadness, to solidarity, to relief. It does all the above to move you to take action (be that re-sharing the video, or using Google to search for and revisit a moment from 2022) that will ultimately support Google’s objectives.?
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There you have it, folks! I hope this has felt as useful to you as it has to me. (I've got the SUCCESS checklist taped to my desk. I look forward to sharing examples of how I've been applying it to my work!)
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Comment below to let me know your thoughts! I’d love to hear of other real-world examples of Chip and Dan Heath’s principles in action.?Already read the book and dying to discuss it? Me too! DM me so we can book-club.
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What I’ll be reading/summarizing next: Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence