Made to Stick: ‘The Sinatra Test’ and other effective ways to communicate your ideas
What do foot soldiers, Mother Theresa and Frank Sinatra, have in common? They’ve got lessons to share about communication, according to the authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
In the field of marketing, there’s a lot of talk about ‘stickiness’ without a great deal of supporting context. This is why Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, comes so highly recommended. The term ‘stickiness’ has lost much of its meaning in the world of marketing due to overuse, misuse and bad habit.
In their 300-page guide to good communication, the brothers Heath seek to restore the substance of ‘stickiness.’ And, while readers won’t remember the bulk of the books content (as predicted by its authors), many key concepts will endure.
Why? The authors use the self-prescribed elements of stickiness: Simple. Unexpected. Concrete. Credible. Emotional. Story.
Those familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference will enjoy the Heaths’ deeper exploration into the Stickiness Factor — which uses a (similar to Gladwell) case study-driven approach.
Here are three notable insights from the book to answer the questions posed in the first paragraph:
Lesson in Simplicity: Combat Training
The Army provides the basic of a Made to Stick case study in simplicity, with its rule of Commander’s Intent (CI). CI is a simple, plainly-worded statement that summarizes every military order to ensure that everyone understands the underlying tactic to be accomplished.
“The CI never specifies so much detail that it risks being rendered obsolete by unpredictable events,” according to Heaths’.
Lesson in Emotion: The Saint of Calcutta
The ‘Mother Theresa Affect’ is a communication phenomenon based on Mother Theresa’s observation that “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” It demonstrates the power of emotion. According to this principle, its ALWAYS more effective to tell a compelling story about an individual than to describe larger, more impactful trends — It’s easier to collect donations for a single, starving child than it is collect donations to end starvation.
“Charities have learned how to arouse sympathy and compassion in donors — and thank goodness they’re good at it because their skills ease a lot of suffering,” said the authors. “But ‘making people care’ isn’t something that only charities need to do.”
On the negative side, this affect also describes why people who watch the nightly news, or read the daily paper, believe that rates of violent crime, shark attacks and natural disaster are much more common than reality. The individual stories they see or read skews their beliefs and influences them more than the underlying statistical reality.
Lesson in Credibility: Old Blue Eyes
The chairman of the board, Frank Sinatra, popularized the lyrics from the song New York, New York: “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere…” The Sinatra Test, a principle of credibility, embodies this phrase. It implies that if you have one HUGE example, your audience will assume that you can take care of their needs without question.
Here’s a real-life example of the Sinatra Test in practice: BizFilings.com, the online do-it-yourself incorporation service I worked for had the priviledge of incorporating Facebook for Mark Zuckerberg. As the company’s Sales & Marketing Director, I used this example to demonstrate the company’s ability to other entrepreneurs. Even though Zuckerberg’s selection of BizFilings was as a college student, it demonstrated our ability to help entrepreneurs accomplish their dreams.
Made to Stick is a good resource for writers, marketers and managers. It provides a wealth of examples for each of the six elements associated with Stickiness. Given the topic, a few powerful and enduring examples are likely to creep into the subconscious of every reader. The hard cover edition, touting ‘extra sticky’ added material, is a good investment for any marketing professional (less than $18).
The brothers’ blog at madetostick.com is less compelling. Blog entries are infrequent and less tacky, tenacious and sticky than pages of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
Coming Soon: Reviews of The Whuffie Factor, by Tara Hunt, and Free: The Future of a Radical Price, by Chris Anderson. Read them now and compare your assessment of these books with mine.
Where’s the Beef?
Statistics should always be viewed as input, rather than output, according to Heath & Heath. They point to Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” campaign as a great example of using a ‘dramatic example’ to replace ordinary statistics. According to polls taken by Wendy’s, the number of customers who believed that Wendy’s single burger was larger than the Whopper or Big Mac increased by 47 percent in two months.
Made to Stick is truly tops in terms of business books with stuff people can easily use and understand. One of the “stickiest” lessons for me from the book was the study of the Tappers and Listeners showing the Curse of Knowledge. For the last couple of years I’ve been using that as a part of marketing seminars I do for groups of small biz owners. I do it interactively by playing the tapper and letting them listen to try to guess a seemingly obvious song – which they seldom do. It’s a powerful way to demonstrate how false their own assumptions can be about their market b/c of their own curse of inside knowledge. I have to say that it has become one of the most memorable and most often referenced parts of my seminars!
I even did a blog post on it a couple of months ago:
http://www.marketingexposed.net/2009/05/18/cursed-by-your-own-knowledge/
Anyway, nice post on an outstanding book.