Made to Stick: A Ridiculously Low Cost Investment That Will Make You a More Effective Communicator

A question: How much of what you "created" last week, i.e., documents, messages, presentations, pitches, scripts, sales letters, ad copy...will anyone remember a week, a month, a year from now? What about an important conversation you had with your kid, your spouse, a volunteer group, a team of employees, etc.?

By necessity, we're great at filtering and deleting most of the content we're exposed to every day. For example, yesterday morning I had CNBC playing in the background as I got ready for work. I can only remember one 30 second TV ad for GE Aircraft Engines out of a 30 minute period during which I had to be exposed to 30 different commercials. I remember it because it was funny, which is an unusual ad approach for GE. But I don't remember any of the 'take-aways' from the ad. And I really can't remember any of the other ads.

Now, if you're 'in business,' there is a good chance you've heard of the book "Made to Stick" from Chip and Dan Heath. The question is: have you bought and read it? Trust me: I was more than skeptical about this book. "Oh here we go...ANOTHER tome on building the perfect message or story." And yes, a lot of what you'll find in this book is common sense. But it's presented in a very logical way with oodles of detail and interesting (and memorable) stories that back up the construct of the book.

What is that construct? It's the "six principles" of "Made to Stick" messaging: the SUCCESs Model, which stands for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. Is it possible to build messages, presentations, stories, etc., that contain all of these elements? Theoretically, but I'd say if you're hitting three or four of these elements, you're way ahead of the game.

Now you might ask, what IS this construct? Think of it as a system for making content sticky. Early on in the book, the Heath brothers describe a project conducted by an Israeli research team. Their research concluded that the elements which made particular ads memorable could be bucketed and systematized (oh, I'm sure that's not a word, but...) into several categories. The narrative then goes on to describe how this research team tested whether it could take three teams of complete novices: one that received no training on building creative ads, one that received a traditional methodology, and one that received training based on the six specific elements that this wide range of creative ads contained. After a two hour training, the third group created ads that were deemed 50 percent more creative and produced a 55 percent more positive attitude toward the products being advertised. The book states that its aim is to do the same for "your ideas" as the Israeli research team did for advertisements.

As I write this post, Amazon is selling "Made to Stick" for $15.21. This is one of these "loco crazy" values. You can take this book as far as you want to. For example, if you work on a team, you can buy it for your team and go through it chapter by chapter, book club style, over a six week period. We did just that on the product marketing team I'm a part of. I highly doubt any of us will look at messaging and storytelling the same way. A bonus: while I can't say there is any laugh-out-loud funny narrative in this book, the Heath brothers write with a light and conversational tone with some occasional dry wit. This isn't to say this book isn't serious stuff -- it is. I just have to imagine the purpose is to make the content more....you guessed it.