Ideas That Stick
CHIP AND DAN HEATH: What makes messages memorable?
Photo COURTESY THE HEATH FAMILY
Everyone “knows” that strangers have tampered with children’s candy on Halloween. But actual examples of this are hard to come by. It is, however, an idea that sticks, as Dan Heath (MBA ’04) and his brother Chip demonstrate in their book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Random House, 2007). They chronicle not only urban legends but real-life success stories, explaining how six principles of stickiness (simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and story) can make a message memorable. Dan spoke from his home in North Carolina.
How did you get the idea to write a book about sticky ideas?
We were puzzled and a little disturbed by the fact that a lot of “junk” ideas succeed in the world, while a lot of important ideas fail. Everyone is familiar with urban legends, which circulate with no resources whatsoever behind them. What we thought we’d do is to investigate these classes of naturally sticky ideas, steal their playbook, and put it to use for people who have important ideas to share.
What’s an example of a business idea that’s stuck?
Subway’s Jared featured a campaign touting seven sandwiches under six grams of fat. Why is the story of one very fat man who lost weight stickier than other weight-loss stories? We respond instinctively to this aspirational story of a guy who overcame big odds.
Why do people have trouble expressing their ideas clearly?
We’ve been trained to believe that the more abstract and sweeping our statements are, the more intelligent we’ll seem. It sounds more profound to talk about improving customer service than about what people working at the counter should do. But we demonstrate a greater understanding of the underlying situation if we talk about concrete details and specific actions and stories.
You write that too much knowledge can be a bad thing.
Think about the stereotypical IT guy in your office. He knows a ton about computers and software, but you call him over to help with a simple problem, and you can’t make any sense of what he said. We are all the IT guy in our fields of expertise. The smarter we get, the more problematic it is to communicate that knowledge to other people. Our six principles of stickiness are the antidote to the curse of knowledge.
Do you find yourself trying to predict what ideas will stick?
It’s become my filter for looking at the world. I read a New York Times op-ed piece about animal training. The writer tried to apply the same lessons to her husband. The instant I read that story, I knew her idea was going to stick.
— Lewis I. Rice
