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Synopsis
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is a book by brothers Chip and Dan Heath published by Random House on January 2, 2007.
Who is this book for?
- Readers who are interested in persuasive and leadership oriented books.
- People who need to use persuasion to generate sales or inspire change.
- Anyone interested to learn how to use why to get desired results.
Meet the author
Chip Heath is an American academic. He is the Thrive Foundation for Youth Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of
Dan Heath is an American bestselling author, speaker
Made to Stick Summary
Each idea can present itself in a way that sticks.
Excessive ideas are not always helpful. Often even magnificent insights are not rewarded as well as end up accumulating dust in the archives.
At the same time, ideas less dignified, like rumors and urban legends, spread like fire.
Take, for example, terror in the United States over adulterated Halloween candy. More than millions of parents were bothered by the fact that unknown anti-heroes were giving their children candy with poison or razor blades.
What they did not know was that the story was a fake urban myth.
But why do similar stories spread so quickly? And why are they so hard to eliminate?
Quite simply, they share two main qualities: they are memorable, just as people are eager to pass them on.
By taking advantage of these two basic principles, any suggestion can be developed to make it more sticky and popular. A few years ago, in the United States, health groups needed to make people aware that film popcorn – at that time made with coconut oil – contained extremely high amounts of saturated fat, making it very unhealthy.
By simply telling customers that a bag of 37 g of saturated fat popcorn was unsuccessful – the number was too dry and academic to fit into people’s warnings.
Brilliant messages stick, spread, and eventually led to replacement.
A standard-sized butter popcorn in a typical neighborhood movie theater contains more extra fat that swallows the arteries than a piece bacon. As well as breakfast with eggs, a Big Mac, and chips for tasty lunch, or as a steak dinner with all the accompaniments – combined!
That brilliant message stuck, spread, and eventually led to the replacement of coconut oil with good alternatives across all major American film chains.
Keep it simple.
It’s enticing to try to explain an idea as systematically as possible. But, when it comes to stickiness, too much feature is counterproductive.
In its place, cut the idea down to just one very simple statement; any more detail will be promptly forgotten, along with the main idea behind it all. A modest statement makes an idea cooler to grasp plus understand.
That doesn’t simply mean an idea should be dumbed down needlessly – the art of simplifying is to encapsulate the core idea in terms that anyone can understand, without changing the meaning. Though this can be astonishingly tricky, it makes for sticky thoughts.
Reporters have to master this skill to come up with better headlines that grab readers’ attention as well as convey the meaning of a complete article in just a couple words. Reporters know a bad headline can avoid a great article from getting the devotion it justifies.
A great instance from the occupational world is Southwest Airlines’ regular slogan a very Low Fare Airline. An attractive statement similar to this will stick. A complex analogous breakdown of their prices would be promptly forgotten and fail to create an impression.
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“The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern.”
― Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
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