Picture this common scenario: You’re giving a presentation, perhaps to a prospective client, and while you click through slides or mention data points, you hear a yawn, or perhaps see someone answering an e-mail on their phone. You know that you’ve lost some of your audience and are hoping that when you conclude your presentation, someone, anyone, will remember what you’ve said.
If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. According to research by Dr. Gloria Mark, professor of Informatics at the University of California Irvine, attention spans are shrinking – and quickly.
“In 2004, we measured the attention span to be about 2 1/2 minutes,” Mark told CNN. “Some years later, we found attention spans to be about 75 seconds. Now we find people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds.”
In the attention economy, demand is high, while supply is ever dwindling. People are inundated with notifications and have become conditioned to seek out small dopamine hits in the form of scrolling, and they like to avoid moments of discomfort and boredom.
In the face of this attention onslaught, you still need to share your ideas, whether in an auditorium, a boardroom, or your next performance review. So, what are you going to do about it?
Well, to start, you can learn how to make your ideas sticky.
Chances are you’re already familiar with several sticky ideas. Perhaps old proverbs like “one in the hand is worth two in the bush” and “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” come to mind. Well, according to Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick, sticky ideas are “understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact – they change your audience’s opinions or behavior.”
But what’s behind a sticky idea? And why are they memorable?
In this article we’ll explore brothers Chip and Dan Heath’s principles of sticky ideas so you can learn how to become a more impactful public speaker.
Six Principles of Sticky Ideas
What do sticky ideas have in common? According to research by the Heath brothers, ideas that stick “draw from a common set of traits, which make them more likely to succeed.” These principles include simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. Or SUCCESs for short.
Here’s how you can use them to your benefit:
1. Simplicity
Being concise is perhaps one of the most understated skills. If you’ve ever found yourself trying to force more text onto a powerpoint slide, had to go back and edit the length of your e-mail, or sent someone a painfully long voice note, you could probably use a lesson in simplicity.
But simplicity doesn’t always mean short. It means being your own editor.
“[T]o strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion,” write Heath and Heath. “We must relentlessly prioritize.”
In this sense, simplicity isn’t about stripping all the color and detail from an idea, but rather crafting something profound.
One example of simplicity is the National Highways Safety Administration’s annual public service campaign, “Click it or Ticket.” The idea is remarkably simple, but the beauty is in what it’s not.
Let’s paraphrase the original idea: “If you want to avoid receiving a traffic violation, or worse, get injured, fasten your seatbelt while in a moving vehicle.”
Bit of a mouthful, right?
Click it, or Ticket follows the Heath brother’s ultimate model of simplicity: a “one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.
Cheat guide for creating simple, sticky ideas:
- Keep it short. If it doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker, it’s probably too long.
- Communicate the essence, exclude the details.
- Aspire to be profound.
2. Unexpectedness
Previously, we discussed one of the hurdles faced when communicating ideas: dwindling attention spans. So, how do you get your audience’s attention and keep them engaged? By communicating your idea in an unexpected way.
That’s what speaker Drew Dudley did in the viral TedxToronto presentation, “Everyday Leadership.” In just six minutes, Dudley communicates his idea for everyday leadership by using a very simple, and very unexpected communication device – ‘lollipop moments.’
If you’ve never heard of a lollipop moment, you’re not the only one. Dudley uses a personal anecdote to illustrate an idea. In the story, Dudley is approached by a stranger who thanks him for a brief but impactful action that Dudley took that changed the course of the stranger’s life. Many years previously, on a university move-in day, Dudley, a then-student, hands a random male student a lollipop and says, “Give it to the beautiful woman next to you,” a movement that eventually leads to the two strangers’ marriage. The lollipop, in this instance, is an unexpected device that reminds us that ‘everyday’ leadership doesn’t only occur in boardrooms but in the actions, we take in seemingly insignificant moments.
Based on Heath’s brother’s principle, unexpected ideas use emotion to increase alertness and cause focus. But unexpected ideas don’t just shock; they “generate interest and curiosity.”
Cheat guide for creating unexpected ideas:
- Violate people’s expectations.
- Be counterintuitive (lollipops aren’t normally associated with leadership).
- Open up gaps in knowledge and fill those gaps with unexpected ideas to engage curiosity over a long period of time.
3. Concreteness
The third principle of sticky ideas is concreteness, which is often missing in most business pitches, mission, vision, and value statements. Concreteness refers to the act of making ideas clear and easy to understand. It does not mean using buzzwords or business jargon to inflate an idea with manufactured grandiosity.
So, what makes something concrete? According to the Heath brothers, concrete ideas are those the senses can examine. They write, “A V8 engine is concrete. High performance is abstract.”
If you want to communicate memorable or sticky ideas, look to some of the literary masters for inspiration. Epic poems like The Iliad or The Odyssey survived because of oral storytelling traditions. How? Simple: They utilized nouns and verbs.
Consider this well-known passage from The Odyssey, Book 14:
“And wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.”
Here, several nouns (wine, wits, wise, safe, serious) are punctuated by actions (can, beguile, frolic, smile).
Though classicists likely had plenty of abstract ideas to share, through the centuries, the “concrete details survived and the abstractions evaporated.”
Cheat guide for creating concrete ideas:
- Concrete ideas are clear and direct
- If you can’t see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it, you’re probably using abstract language.
- Concrete ideas use nouns and actions.
- Concrete ideas don’t assume expertise in a subject, which makes them easier to understand.
4. Credibility
Many professionals use the abstract language we discussed above to attempt to build credibility with their audience. However, this often has the opposite effect. Instead, one way professionals can try to build credibility is by citing data. Although data can be a powerful way to measure and contextualize performance (for example), it’s frequently presented in a boring way that fails to build trust or even interest.
So, how do you build credibility without boring your audience? It’s all in the (vivid) details.
“Statistics will, and should almost always be used to illustrate a relationship,” write the Heath brothers. “It’s more important for people to remember the relationship than the number.”
For inspiration, let’s look at one famous 1984 ad from the fast-food chain Wendy’s.
The ad’s original intent was to establish Wendy’s credibility as a fast-food restaurant chain by using larger quantities of beef in hamburgers than its competitors. But rather than simply stating a data point like, “Now with 25% more beef than other fast food chains,” Wendy’s illustrated the idea in vivid detail with its famous “Where’s the beef?” ad.
The ad, which shows an exaggeratedly large hamburger bun, visually demonstrates the relationship between the small amount of ground beef and the rest of the hamburger. The effect, enunciated by the famous quip, “Where’s the beef?” builds credibility by vividly illustrating a data relationship that is still memorable forty years later.
Cheat guide for creating credible ideas:
- Credible ideas have authority, often using data.
- The relationship between data is more important than the numbers themselves.
- Vivid details and storytelling make data more memorable than data by itself.
5. Emotions
One challenge that professionals often face is getting people to care about their ideas. And it’s easy to understand why. In a business setting, we’re often faced with energy takers, people who want to take our time, our attention, and often, take our money. Brilliant ideas can be buried in dry, boring pitches.
If you want your idea to stick, you’ve got to make your audience feel something. For example, research demonstrates that people are more likely to make a charitable donation to an individual rather than an impoverished region (source).
Let’s look at an organization like Children International, that ask its donors to sponsor a child living in poverty for just a few dollars a day. The possibility of helping an individual, especially a child, often evokes an emotional response like compassion or concern, which in turn makes one care about the cause.
Now, we’re not suggesting you need to exploit impoverished children to make people care about your idea, but you do need to get them to feel something.
How can you accomplish this? Let’s look at Children International a little bit more deeply. First, Children International associates its cause with something people already care about (ending childhood hunger). Then, it caters to its donors’ self-interest (I’m doing my part by sponsoring a child in need). Finally, Child International appeals to its donors’ identity (I’m a good person).
Cheat guide for creating emotional ideas:
- Associate your idea with a cause that people already care about.
- Cater to your audience’s self-interest.
- Appeal to your audience’s identity.
6. Storytelling
The sixth principle of sticky ideas is storytelling, a powerful tool often absent from most business pitches, presentations, and communication strategies. Storytelling goes beyond presenting facts; it frames ideas within memorable, relatable scenarios. The Heath brothers emphasize that stories engage us by creating a mental simulation, helping audiences visualize situations that make the ideas come alive.
So, what makes a story sticky? According to the Heath brothers, stories present a problem-solution structure that listeners can empathize with. They write, “Mental simulation is not as good as actually doing something, but it’s the next best thing.”
If you want to communicate ideas that stick, consider the power of parables, fables, and legends that have been passed down through generations. They’ve endured because they illustrate universal human experiences in specific, memorable ways.
Consider the parable of the Good Samaritan. This tale doesn’t merely preach kindness in abstract terms; instead, it presents a vivid example of compassion in action. Through characters, actions, and outcomes, it invites the audience to imagine themselves in similar situations, fostering empathy and understanding that words alone cannot convey.
Cheat guide for creating sticky stories:
- Stories show a concrete situation. The scenario should illustrate the point without abstract preaching.
- Stories have a problem-solution structure that makes concepts easy to grasp and remember.
- Stories create a mental simulation that engages the listener’s mind, allowing them to “experience” the idea.
- Stories resonate emotionally, which helps make ideas more memorable and impactful.
Make Your Ideas ‘Stick’
In today’s attention-scarce world, sharing ideas that resonate and remain memorable is more challenging than ever. Chip and Dan Heath’s principles of sticky ideas provide a powerful roadmap for overcoming this challenge. By embracing simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and storytelling, you can make your presentations, pitches, and communications not only more engaging but also unforgettable.
These principles aren’t about adding complexity or volume but about distilling ideas to their essence, making them clear, compelling, and emotionally resonant. In every interaction, whether you’re in a meeting room or speaking to an audience, these six principles can transform your message from something easily forgotten into an idea that truly sticks, influencing thoughts, inspiring actions, and, ultimately, creating lasting impact.
