Marketing
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Why do some ideas stick?
A made-up tale about a man who wakes in a bath of ice, missing a kidney, gets retold for decades. A company's carefully argued strategy is forgotten by Friday. Chip and Dan Heath wanted to know what the sticky ideas share, and whether you can build it in on purpose.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
At Stanford, Elizabeth Newton asked people to tap out famous songs on a table. The tappers guessed listeners would name half of them. Listeners got 3 out of 120. Once you know something, you can't imagine not knowing it. The Heaths call this the Curse of Knowledge.
Ideas that last tend to be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible and Emotional, and they travel as Stories. The Heaths line the initials up as SUCCESs and use them as a checklist. Each trait is a way of getting past the Curse of Knowledge.
Herb Kelleher boiled Southwest's strategy down to being THE low-fare airline. He'd imagine a marketer asking to add a chicken Caesar salad on one route. The only question was whether it helped Southwest be THE low-fare airline. If not, no salad. A clear core lets anyone in the company decide.
In one study, a charity letter told the story of Rokia, a seven-year-old girl in Mali. Another gave figures about hunger across Africa. Rokia's letter raised far more. A letter with her story and the figures raised less than her story alone. Numbers pushed readers into calculating instead of caring.
Curse of knowledge
Once you know something, it's hard to imagine not knowing it, so you explain it badly.
Simple
Find the core of your idea, the way Southwest settled on being the low-fare airline.
Unexpected
Break a pattern to grab attention, then open a gap people want to close.
Concrete
Concrete pictures stick in the mind. Abstract words slide right off.
Credible
A claim people can check for themselves often beats one backed by an expert.
A story from the book
Art Silverman's health group found a medium cinema popcorn was loaded with saturated fat. Grams meant nothing to people, so he compared it with a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries, and a steak dinner. The popcorn beat all three combined. Cinema chains soon changed their oil.
One thing to try
Pick one thing you need people to remember this week, such as a deadline or a change of plan. Say it to a friend in a single sentence, then ask them tomorrow what you said. If they can't repeat it, make it simpler or more concrete and try again.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Made to Stick comes with a Name That Idea round and a Spot the Trap case to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhy do some ideas stick? A made-up tale about a man who wakes in a bath of ice, missing a kidney, gets retold for decades. A company's carefully argued strategy is forgotten by Friday. Chip and Dan Heath wanted to know what the sticky ideas share, and whether you can build it in on purpose.
The Curse of Knowledge; Six traits that spell SUCCESs; THE low-fare airline; One girl beats the statistics.
Pick one thing you need people to remember this week, such as a deadline or a change of plan. Say it to a friend in a single sentence, then ask them tomorrow what you said. If they can't repeat it, make it simpler or more concrete and try again.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Made to Stick in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Name That Idea round and a Spot the Trap case to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
