2. Principles of Made to Stick
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories
3. SIMPLE
Find the core
Share the core
Use generative analogies
“If you say three
things, you don’t
say anything.”
- James Carville, political advisor to Bill Clinton
6. CREDIBLE
How do we Get People to Believe in our Ideas?
External Validation
Statistics (Input)
Vivid Details + Persuasive
Internal Sources (Textile Company)
Anti-Authority (Anti-Smoking Campaign)
Audience (Testable Credential)
Story from the past (Sinatra Test)
Don’t Trust Intuition (Availability Bias)
7. EMOTIONAL
How to Make People Care About our Messages?
Empathy (Focus on One)
Core (Curse of Knowledge)
Piggyback (Association with Existing Emotions or Ideas)
Appeal to Self-Interest (Emphasize THEIR Benefits WIIFY)
Positioning (Incentives Organizations Maslow vs. Own Perception)
Higher Purpose (Iraq – “Don’t Mess with Texas”)
Empathy
8. STORIES
The Challenge Plot
The Connection Plot
The Creativity Plot
“A story is powerful
because it provides the
context missing from
abstract.”
9. Made to Stick vs. Switched
Psychology of the audience
Theoretical vs. Actionable
Playing to emotions
Similar presentation of
content
10. EVALUATION
Ideas are more memorable if you communicate 6 principles
Tell you why they are important and ten apply it through success stories and
case studies
Creating curiosity, simplicity, curse of knowledge
Easy to read
well written
Relatable
Acronym SUCCES
Too many examples