Introduction
The main problem is the
"Curse of Knowledge": The person sharing the idea has all sorts of
insider information that others don't, so they have already framed the problem
and understand its relevance. A single example illustrates the essence of the
problem: One study tested a "tapper and listeners" game: They asked a
person to tap out the rhythm of a song and have another recognize it - the
listener nearly always failed to identify the song. What happened, of course,
is that the tapper sings the song in their head and thus thinks he has the
right rhythm, but the person hearing the taps cannot hear the song inside the
others head and therefore has no idea of what the taps mean.
Chapter 1: Simple
The goal is to strip an idea to
its core without turning it into a silly sound bite. The hard part isn't
weeding out unimportant aspects, but it is in pruning the important, but not
truly essential aspects - i.e., distilling to the most important idea at the
core.
Find the core: Determine the
single most important thing, being careful not to bury the lead. The military
uses a "Commander Intent" instead of a plan. For example, rather than
details on how to take a bridge, the CI might be "take the bridge."
Use the technique of the inverted pyramid from journalism: Tell most important
aspect first, then tailor, then add details. This forces prioritization.
Share the core: The key to
motivating others with your ideas is to use the core message to help them make
decisions as they apply your idea. The essential part is to make the message
compact and to have it imply a sense of worth or priorities about how to
implement it. (Or, to put it another way it needs to be both compact and
profound.) For example, a newspaper editor liked to have his paper strongly -
and only - reflect local issues. He had a motto of "names, names, and
names." Note how this guides the individual decisions made by his
reporters.
One way to do this is to tap into
the memory of the idea's recipients by embedding schemas. (For example, it is
hard to remember the letters J FKFB I, but easy to remember the same set
arranged as JFK FBI.) In pitching a Hollywood movie a producer would describe
it in terms of other hits: E.g., Speed will be Die-Hard on a bus, or Alien will
be Jaws on a spaceship. One can use memory schemas to keep an idea simple: One
could describe a pomelo as a "large citrus fruit with a thick, but soft
rind", or as "a pomelo is basically a super-sized grapefruit with a
very thick and soft rind." Another way to describe this is as a
"generative analogy"; that is, a metaphor that generates new ideas.
Example of a Sticky Idea Contrast
the phrase of a CEO "let's maximize shareholder value" with JFKs
peel-clear call to "put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end
of the decade." This is simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional
(for the times), and a story. If JFK were an aerospace CEO he would have said
"Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry
through maximum team-centered innovation and strategically targeted aerospace
initiatives."
Using the core Southwest
uses "We are the low cost airlines." Thus, every decision involves
meeting this concrete and simple goal. E.g., deciding whether to offer dinner
on flights: Main concern isn't great passenger comfort, but it is low-cost so
no dinner. Contrast to Nordstroms which emphasizes customer experience and
would offer the dinner if they were an airline.
Generative analogy Disney
uses the term "cast member" to describe their amusement park
employees. This tells employees how to behave: Even if you are just sweeping
the park you are "on stage" and need to behave. Contrast this to the
poor choice by Subway to call their employees "sandwich artists". It
is completely useless as a guide to behavior: In no way does Subway want their
employees to innovate when making sandwiches, they should instead follow the
rules precisely.
Chapter 2: Unexpected
The first requirement of
effective communication is getting attention, the second is keeping it. In
order to do this you use the unexpected: Humans like to think in patterns, the
key is to break these patterns. For example, when a flight attendant at
Southwest does something different with the safety announcement.
In using the unexpected a key is
to avoid gimmicky. For example, a Super Bowl ad once showed a marching band on
a field, and then suddenly a pack of wolves came out of a tunnel and killed
them. This was not connected with the ad's message it all: The wolves didn't
reinforce the message.
So, a good process for making
ideas sticker is: (1) Identify the central message you need to communicate --
find the core; (2) Figure out what is counter-intuitive 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, counter-intuitive
dimension. Then, once their guessing machines have failed, help them refine
their machines.
A key is to always use a mystery
story - even in science. As scriptwriters have learned curiosity is the
intellectual need to answer questions and close patterns. Story plays to this
universal desire by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening
situations. So, they key is to open gaps first in presenting your ideas, then
work to close them; the tendency is to give facts first. The local news uses
this technique very well: They might bump with "There's a new drug
sweeping the teenage community -- and it may be in your own medicine cabinet!
The story after these ads." More sophisticated version of this include a
Sony engineer who visualized a "pocket radio" or JFK and his idea of
"a man walking on the moon." While these seem just like brilliant
ideas, they are actually sticky: Both create surprise - radios are pieces of
furniture, not something for a pocket; and men don't walk on the moon. Both
create insight. Rather than leading us along a plodding route from one
incremental step to the next, the ideas give us a sudden, dramatic glimpse of
how the world might unfold. And not just how, but why.
Getting attention with the
unexpected A TV commercial for the new Enclave minivan started as a
typical car commercial: Announcer describes all its new features as a happy
family piles into car and drives away, then - bang - a speeding car plows into
it. The screen fades to black: "Didn't see that coming? No one does."
It was seat-belt or safety ad instead of a car ad.
Using the unexpected Nora
Ephron's journalism teacher announced their first assignment: To write the lead
for the student paper. He give them facts: Entire school faculty will travel to
the state capital on Tuesday for a meeting with the Governor, Margaret Mead,
etc. He asked them then to write the lead. They all missed it: No school on
Tuesday!
Creating gaps Roone
Arledge at ABC noted that most sporting events where done in a "facts
first" way: The cameras started on the field and waited for things to
happen. He called it "like looking at the Grand Canyon through a peep
hole." He changed the shows to feature the stadium, and the town preparing
for the game, etc. He created "gaps" that made people not from the
area interested in the outcome from the game.
Chapter 3: Concrete
Of the six traits of
"stickiness" described in this book being concrete is the easiest to
accept and implement. (The hardest is likely finding the core message.) The
power of being concrete is illustrated by the longevity of Aesop's fables. For
some 2,500 years they have resonated and been remembered by humankind. They are
a striking example of concreteness. For example, the story of the fox and the
grapes ends with with the fox concluding that grapes out of his reach are
likely sour -- hence the phrase "sour grapes", which appears in
nearly every language. This provides a concrete image which lasts: Compare
"sour grapes" to the conclusion "don't be such a bitter jerk
when you fail." The latter has no staying power: It is naked fact.
Something becomes concrete when
it can be described or detected by the human senses. A V-8 engine is concrete;
"high-performance" is abstract. Concrete ideas are easy to remember.
Experiments have shown that people remember concrete over abstract nouns: "bicycle"
over "justice" or "personality." The kidney-heist urban
legend, for example, has tons of detail about the illicit procedure.
This illustrates that the
"curse of knowledge" is the main enemy of being concrete. The main
difference between an expert and novice is the ability of the expert to see
things abstractly. For example, the difference in reaction between a judge and
a jury: The jury sees all the concrete aspects of a trial - the lawyers'
clothing, manner, the specific procedures in a classroom; the judge sees all in
terms of legal precedent and the lessons of the past. Novices perceive concrete
detail as concrete detail; an expert sees concrete details as symbols of a
pattern.
Two examples of being concrete (a)
Movie popcorn contains 20 g fat; this is too abstract, say, instead contains
more fat than a bacon-and-eggs dinner, a Big Mac, and fries for lunch and a
steak dinner will all the trimmings - combined. (b) A simple mixture of salts
and sugar - oral rehydration therapy (ORT) - in water can save lives in the
developing world. Instead of giving facts and figures about how many can be
saved, its promoter carries with him a packet of the power and whips it out to,
say, a group of Prime Ministers and says "Do you know that this costs less
than a cup of tea and it can save hundreds of thousands of children's lives in
your country?"
Chapter 4: Credible
What makes people believe ideas?
We base it on authorities - our parents, traditional, experts, etc. If one can
bring in a true authority then the problem of credibility is easily solved, but
what if we cannot? This chapter focuses on how to create credibility when you
don't have such authority figures.
There are several ways to do
this: (1) Use an anti-authority, (2) use concrete details, (3) use statistics,
(4) use something called the Sinatra Test and (5) use testable credentials.
Anti-authority: You can use a
dying smoker to make the point that smoking isn't good for you. Or, consider
the scientist that could not get anyone to believe him that bacteria was causing
ulcers: He swallowed the bacteria himself and demonstrated his theory to be
correct. Or, a non-profit that claimed to turn homeless people into useful
workers would send a car around to pick up prospective donors and employers of
their clients. The trick: Their driver, unbeknown to the donors until later,
was a former homeless person.
Details: We don't always have an
external authority who can vouch for our message; most of the time our messages
have to vouch for themselves. They must have "internal credibility."
A person's knowledge of details is often a good proxy for expertise. For
example, a study revealed that potential jurors where more likely to grant
custody in a case where they had lots of details - even though irrelevant like
the type of toothbrush a child used - than when they had scanty, but essential
details. A lesson from urban legends is that vivid details boost credibility.
Statistics: This is a
time-honored and standard way to make a point, but needs to be used correctly.
Statistics are rarely meaningful in and of themselves. Statistics will, and
should, almost always be used to illustrate a relationship. It's more important
for people to remember the relationship than the number. Use them as input, not
output. Don't go make up your mind and then go looking for the numbers to
support yourself -- that's asking for temptation and trouble. But if we use
statistics to help us make up our minds, we'll be in a great position to share
the pivotal numbers with others, as in the Beyond War example in the box.
The Sinatra Test: Frank Sinatra
song New York, New York has a line "if I can make it there, I can make it
anywhere." The authors suggest this same idea applies to making ideas
credible. They advocate looking for the one test case that make your idea
completely credible. For example, if you had the security contract for Fort
Knox then any security idea you put forward would be credible. They use the
example of an Indian entrepreneur who build a delivery system like FedEx, but
for India. Even though he guaranteed on-time delivery - the only company to do
so - he could not get contracts because this wasn't credible, until he tackled
a major problem in India: Piracy of films. He got the contract to deliver
these, which he did without fail. Note how much more powerful this was then
"98.84% of our deliveries arrive on time."
Testable Credentials: This
challenges the consumer or receiver of the idea to test for themselves the
idea. The prime example of this was the "Where's the Beef"
commercials in the 1980s from Wendy's. The ads suggested that the hamburgers at
Wendy's were larger that other chains, and that the other chains had more bun
than burger. This could be - and was! - verified by any fast food consumer.
Another example is Ronald Reagan's query in the 1980 presidential debate
"Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
Statistics I: Beyond War The
nonprofit Beyond War noted that people would stop a child from the running with
scissors, but would shrug their shoulders when told there enough nuclear
weapons to destroy millions of children. To make the statistics about nuclear
weapons concrete they did the following: Beyond War would arrange "house
parties" in which a group of friends and neighbors would assemble to hear
about the dangers of nuclear weapons. The organizer from Beyond War always
brought a steel pail and BBs. He would drop one in - it would make a distinct
sound - and say it was the power of the bomb at Hiroshima. He then described
the devastation of this bomb. Then he'd drop 10 BBs into the bucket: This is
the fire power of one U.S. or Soviet nuclear submarine. Then he had attendees
close their eyes: He poured 5,000 BBs into the bucket saying it was today's
arsenal of nuclear weapons. (see p. 142-143 of the book for why this works so
well.)
Statistics II: Soccer Teams Stephen
Covey emphasizes teamwork in his writings. He once tried to give the dry
statistics: Only 37% of employees had a clear idea of their mission, only one
in five was enthused etc. He got more impact when he mapped this onto a soccer
team: "If a soccer team had this same make up only 4 out of 11 would know
where their goal was ... etc."
Chapter 5: Emotional
This chapter tackles the
emotional component of stickiness, but it's not about pushing people's
emotional buttons, like some movie tearjerker. Rather, the goal of making
message "emotional" is to make people care. Feelings inspire people
to act. For people to take action, they have to care.
To illustrate the effect of
emotion versus reason a group studied the effect of soliciting funds for
starving children in Africa with two appeals: An appeal based on statistics and
one focusing on a single named child. Of course, the latter won. The surprising
part of the study was that any time reason was evoked the amount of giving
decreased. For example if they used both the statistics and the individual
child it decreased; and if they asked a person to do a simple calculation, not
related to the charity, even this decreasing giving. Once we put on our
analytical hat we react to emotional appeals differently; they hinder our
ability to feel.
To make people care about ideas
we get them to take off their Analytical Hats: We create empathy for specific
individuals; or we show how our ideas are associated with things that people
already care about, or we appeal to their self-interest, although we also
appeal to their identities - not only to the people they are right now, but
also to the people they would like to be.
The Power of Associations: The
most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something
they don't care about and something they do. We all naturally practice the
tactic of association. The caution here is to create new associations that get
past the old, common ones which have become diluted in value. (The authors call
this "semantic stretch" when the superlatives of one generation -
groovey, awesome, cool, phat - lose punch.) A prime example of overcoming a
tired phrase with new emotional resonance is the case of "sportsmanship."
This term had become a tired phrase, which acquired too many meanings to become
emotionally powerful. For example, it had come to mean "prizes given to
those who lost the game." An advocate for true sportsmanship refocused the
emotional appear of the concept by calling it "honoring the game." If
people care about sports, then they care about the game.
Self-Interest: Another way to
make people care about ideas is to appeal to their self-interest. A common
error is to emphasize features over benefits, e.g., tell people you have the
"best seed", instead of that it will give them the "best
lawn", which is what they truly care about. In general people selling an
idea resist talking about self-interest: Yet an appeal with the word
"you" throughout, instead of a generic "people" is always
much more successful.
Appealing to Identify: In
defining self-interest it pays to not focus narrowly on money and other
tangibles - often intangibles such as self-esteem or a sense of duty form an
important motivator. Often people make decision not in a rational way - write
down all alternatives and look at pluses and minuses - but instead they make
them based on identity. They ask questions like: Who am I? What kind of
situation is this? And what do people like me do in this type of situation? For
example, a seller once offered a free popcorn popper to fire departments to
consider his safety program; this appeal to greed offended the firemen.
Making youth care' Most
teenagers believe cigarette smoking is dangerous. There is no credibility
problem with the message, yet many take up smoking. You need to make them care
to take action. An ingenious and effective set of ads where launched in the
late 1998. They feature a semi-truck that drove up to the headquarters of a
major tobacco company. Teenagers unloaded "body bags" that
represented the number of people killed a day by smoking. The ads carefully
directed their anger toward "The Man": The evil corporation, the
authority figure. So, the ads tapping into anti-authority resentment, the
classic teenage emotion. Once teens smoked to rebel against The Man. This ad
makes them rebel by not smoking.
Appealing to higher levels of
self-interest High school algebra teachers often get the question: Why
do I have to learn this stuff? The typical answer is that it will get you into
college, future math classes need this, etc. One teacher said this instead:
"Never. You will never need it. But then again why do you life dumbbells?
You do it for the future: If you are attacked you can fight, or carry your
groceries, or life your grandchildren. Same with algebra: You exercise your
mental muscles, which you will need your whole life - it is a means to an end,
not an end in itself." Note the emotional appeal is to a higher plane:
Learning and self-actualization. Note, too, that it contains elements we've
seen already: a) A surprise or unexpected answer, and b) make brilliant use of
analogy.
Appealing to Identity Texas
had a problem with roadside garbage. Signs to "Please don't litter"
or to "Pitch in" weren't working: They typical bubba didn't care. To
make them care the state developed a campaign that used very "Texas"
spokesmen - George Foreman, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson - to record ads
that said "Mama, tell you baby's, don't mess with Texas", implying
that tossing trash out the window of a moving car violated the macho ethos of
Texas.
Chapter 6: Stories
A key to making an idea sticky is
to tell it as a story. Stories encourage a kind of mental simulation or
reenactment on the part of the listener that burns the idea into the mind. For
example, a flight simulator is much more effective than flash cards in training
a pilot. The hard part about using a story is creating it. The best way to use
a story is to always be on the look out for them. Most good stories are collected
and discovered, rather than produced de novo. For example, Subway's powerful
story of Jared, a man who lost 245 pounds by eating at the restaurant was
discovered. (Compare the resonance of his story with the tagline they
originally wanted to use: 6 under 7, i.e., six sandwiches with less than seven
grams of fat.) The authors share the three major types of stories too look for.
1. The Challenge Plot: This is
the classic underdog, rags to riches, or sheer willpower triumphing over
adversity. The key element of the Challenge plot is that the obstacles seem
daunting to the protagonists. E.g., Subway's Jared losing 245 pounds.
2. The Connection Plot: A story
about people who develop a relationship that bridges a gap -- racial, class,
ethnic, religious, demographic, or otherwise. E.g., the Mean Joe Greene
commercial of the 1970s where he make friends with a scrawny young white kid.
All connection plots inspire us in social ways. They make us want to help
others, but more tolerant of others, work with others, love others.
3. The Creativity Plot: This
involves someone making a mental breakthrough, solving a long-standing puzzle,
or attacking a problem in an innovative way.
Here's how a story helps rid one
of the Curse of Knowledge. When explaining how to solve problems someone might
say "Keep the lines of communication open." They are hearing in their
heads a song filled with passion and emotion. They're remembering the
experience that taught them those lessons -- the struggles, the political
battles, the missteps, the pain. They are "tapping" -- as describe in
the first paragraph of this document. They need to share the story of their
trials. In fact, stories usually automatically meet other criteria for making
ideas sticky: They are almost always concrete, they are often emotional and
have unexpected elements. The real difficult is to be sure they are simple
enough.
