The introduction to “Made To Stick” offers advice on how to get people’s attention:
How do we get our audience to pay attention to our ideas, and how do we maintain their interest when we need time to get the ideas across? We need to violate people’s expectations. We need to be counterintuitive.
Why? The human brain is wired to perceive patterns and is drawn to aberrations. For example, the book discusses the success of Subway’s Jared ads and says the surprise factor — “I can lose weight by eating fast food!?” — was one reason for the campaign’s stickiness.
Check out Michael P. Maslanka’s review of Seth Godin’s Small Is the New Big for another example of the power of counterintuitive statements.
[5 stars] It is all counterintuitive
The world does not work the way we think it does. In his latest, Godin takes zest in letting us know this: the internet is really bad for us (it increases anonymity which decreases civility; competence is bad (it breeds complacency and clinging to the status quo); success is unhealthy (it seduces companies to gravitate to the mean, and lose the edge that got them to success in the first place).
More excerpts from the Made To Stick intro
Business communication often goes awry when it gets too ambiguous…
We must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information. This is where so much business communication goes awry. Mission statements, synergies, strategies, visions — they are often ambiguous to the point of being meaningless. Naturally sticky ideas are full of concrete images — ice-filled bathtubs, apples with razors — because our brains are wired to remember concrete data. In proverbs, abstract truths are often encoded in concrete language: “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.” Speaking concretely is the only way to ensure that our idea will mean the same thing to everyone in our audience.
The authors preach focusing on a single core selling point instead of a bunch of points…
A successful defense lawyer says, “If you argue ten points, even if each is a good point, when they get back to the jury room they won’t remember any.”
A “try before you buy” philosophy makes ideas more sellable…
When we’re trying to build a case for something, most of us instinctively grasp for hard numbers. But in many cases this is exactly the wrong approach. In the sole U.S. presidential debate in 1980 between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, Reagan could have cited innumerable statistics demonstrating the sluggishness of the economy. Instead, he asked a simple question that allowed voters to test for themselves: “Before you vote, ask yourself if you are better off today than you were four years ago.”
Related
Summary of “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” [The Practice of Leadership]
Audio interview with Chip Heath [Duct Tape Marketing]
warren
on 26 Jan 07what a buncha crap. if you intentionally make something work different from what you know i expect it to do, i will indeed take notice; namely i will notice how frustrating your product/service is and stay as far away from you as possible.
Brandon
on 26 Jan 07There is a difference between “different’ and “pain in the butt”. “Different”, executed well, can be successful.
When I switched from Windows to Mac, it was different from what I was familiar with and expected, but it was nice. When I recently switched shaving creme it was different and sucked.
Like most things, I think it comes down to execution.
ML
on 26 Jan 07Warren: Fwiw, the authors are discussing counterintuitive ideas, not products/services.
August
on 26 Jan 07I like the notion of tying your communication to concrete terms, but it’s basically just a rehash of Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, which is arguably the most famous essay on writing ever written in English, so I’m not really giving them a whole lot of credit for that one.
Dan Boland
on 26 Jan 07Surprise factor? Hardly, I’d consider the Jared ads to be successful because of the believability factor.
Stacy
on 26 Jan 07Look at the web apps that come solely from developers. The first thing you see is their favorite screen shot, a moment of disconnect for most visitors. That needs to be replaced with something that’s an instant connect. The book is a great tool to assist in figuring that out.
Separately, I have no idea what “Work Well” means on 37s home page. Sometimes you can be so brief that it’s meaningless to new visitors. Disconnect.
JF
on 26 Jan 07The first thing you see is their favorite screen shot, a moment of disconnect for most visitors.
I don’t agree with that. We’ve found that people love pictures of software. It’s they best way for them to start to form a connection between what it is and what it does.
benny daon
on 26 Jan 07It’s so true: “We need to violate people’s expectations”, but please don’t to it to me. When I watch the TV and just when thing are finally interesting, you stick your stupid ad in my face I’m busy swearing at this whole new ad-driven economy we live in. I expect all ads to be shallow and stupid. So go ahead, violate my expectation and make me think or better yet make me laugh. I’d be surprised as 95% of ads fail at that.
Why not just deliver a great product that performs better than expected and stop harassing me?
JF
on 26 Jan 07When I watch the TV and just when thing are finally interesting, you stick your stupid ad in my face I’m busy swearing at this whole new ad-driven economy we live in.
It sounds like you’re the one that needs help if you are swearing at the TV.
Anonymous Coward
on 27 Jan 07the internet is really bad for us (it increases anonymity which decreases civility;
Fuck you!
Stacy
on 27 Jan 07I think the point the book makes is that you don’t start with “what it is” but rather with “here’s the sticky cool idea I have for you” ,(as in “I can lose weight by eating fast food!”). That way you hook all comers. Then go into what it is and what it does, as you say. Use pictures wherever to leverage your points.
If the ad read, “I can lose weight by eating at Subway,” possibly the word “Subway” might be an early disconnect.
Obviously this stuff is more art than science.
Nick D
on 28 Jan 07A lot of the aspects of Made To Stick remind me of the things Kathy Sierra says, about how to get people’s attention with odd pictures and things like that. This violates people’s expectations.
This discussion is closed.