On Stickiness
This is an idea success story. Even better, it’s a truthful idea success story. The people at CSPI knew something about the world that they needed to share. They figured out a way to communicate the idea so that people would listen and care. And the idea stuck — just like the Kidney Heist tale.

And, let’s be honest, the odds were stacked against the CSPI. The “movie popcorn is fatty” story lacks the lurid appeal of an organthieving gang. No one woke up in an oil-filled bathtub. The story wasn’t sensational, and it wasn’t even particularly entertaining. Furthermore, there was no natural constituency for the news—few of us make an effort to “stay up to date with popcorn news.” There were no celebrities, models, or adorable pets involved.

In short, the popcorn idea was a lot like the ideas that most of us traffic in every day — ideas that are interesting but not sensational, truthful but not mind-blowing, important but not “life-or-death.” Unless you’re in advertising or public relations, you probably don’t have many resources to back your ideas. You don’t have a multimilliondollar ad budget or a team of professional spinners. Your ideas need to stand on their own merits.

We wrote this book to help you make your ideas stick. By “stick,” we mean that your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact — they change your audience’s opinions or behavior. At this point, it’s worth asking why you’d need to make your ideas stick. After all, the vast majority of our daily communication doesn’t require stickiness. “Pass the gravy” doesn’t have to be memorable. When we tell our friends about our relationship problems, we’re not trying to have a “lasting impact.”

So not every idea is stick-worthy. When we ask people how often they need to make an idea stick, they tell us that the need arises between once a month and once a week, twelve to fifty-two times per year. For managers, these are “big ideas” about new strategic directions and guidelines for behavior. Teachers try to convey themes and conflicts and trends to their students—the kinds of themes and ways of thinking that will endure long after the individual factoids have faded. Columnists try to change readers’ opinions on policy issues. Religious leaders try to share spiritual wisdom with their congregants. Nonprofit organizations try to persuade volunteers to contribute their time and donors to contribute their money to a worthy cause.

Given the importance of making ideas stick, it’s surprising how little attention is paid to the subject. When we get advice on communicating, it often concerns our delivery: “Stand up straight, make eye contact, use appropriate hand gestures. Practice, practice, practice (but don’t sound canned).” Sometimes we get advice about structure: “Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em. Tell ’em, then tell ’em what you told ’em.” Or “Start by getting their attention—tell a joke or a story.”

Another genre concerns knowing your audience: “Know what your listeners care about, so you can tailor your communication to them.” And, finally, there’s the most common refrain in the realm of communication advice: Use repetition, repetition, repetition.
All of this advice has obvious merit, except, perhaps, for the emphasis on repetition. (If you have to tell someone the same thing ten times, the idea probably wasn’t very well designed. No urban legend has to be repeated ten times.) But this set of advice has one glaring shortcoming: It doesn’t help Art Silverman as he tries to figure out the best way to explain that movie popcorn is really unhealthful.

Silverman no doubt knows that he should make eye contact and practice. But what message is he supposed to practice? He knows his audience — they’re people who like popcorn and don’t realize how unhealthy it is. So what message does he share with them? Complicating matters, Silverman knew that he wouldn’t have the luxury of repetition — he had only one shot to make the media care about his story.

Or think about an elementary-school teacher. She knows her goal: to teach the material mandated by the state curriculum committee. She knows her audience: third graders with a range of knowledge and skills. She knows how to speak effectively — she’s a virtuoso of posture and diction and eye contact. So the goal is clear, the audience is clear, and the format is clear. But the design of the message itself is far from clear. The biology students need to understand mitosisb — okay, now what? There are an infinite number of ways to teach mitosis. Which way will stick? And how do you know in advance?

Excerpted from "Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath. Copyright © 2006 by Chip and Dan Heath. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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