Lecture 5 – “Made To Stick”

1. Lecture 5 – “Made To Stick” Steve Montgomery

2. Introduction To The Business Environment • What to do when someone’s not telling you what to do • Topics covered: • Course introduction and Overview of corporate structure (1 session) • Fundamentals of business strategy (2 sessions) • Introduction to Marketing (2 sessions) • Overview of Accounting and Finance (2 sessions) • Project Valuation and ROI (2 sessions) • Putting it all together + how to identify and influence stakeholders (1 session)

3. Marketing • Purpose of Marketing: • “Create, communicate and deliver unique value to customers so that the organization can capture a portion back” – D.J. Turner, UW Assoc. Dean • Why you should care: • Good marketing = people buy what you have to sell • Bad marketing = people don’t buy what you have to sell • An effective market strategy is synergistic with your company’s global strategy - and a way to create a lasting mental link • Marketing is the design of a psychological construct • You are creating positive associations in buyer’s minds. How do you do that? • End goal: • Understanding your business and how you reach customers allows you to pick smart projects and sell them to management

4. Lecture 5: Marketing II • Heath and Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Die and Why Others Survive • What gets a person’s attention? Why do people respond to certain stimuli in a certain way? • And how can this be used to your advantage? • The SUCCES approach to communicating with an audience: • Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories • Works in ad campaigns, presentations, elevator pitches, interviews

5. Two Types of Technical Communication • Bad • Good

6. In a Project Sense… • Your goal: Get your project into your company’s product suite • Selling it to management requires an elevator pitch • Elevator pitches are in essence, marketing taglines • How are taglines created? How do you make them memorable? Successful elevator pitches appeal to certain basic psychological schema.

7. Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas…

8. A Guy Walks Into A Bar… • A friend of a friend of mine knew this guy who went to a bar on a business trip. After a couple of drinks, he met this really attractive woman who offered to buy him a couple of more drinks…and that’s the last thing he remembered. • Later on he wakes up in his hotel room in an ice-filled bathtub with a tube in his back and a note that read, “Don’t move. Call 911”. • “Sir, don’t panic, but organ thieves have stolen one of your kidneys. Please be calm, paramedics are on the way…”

9. But It Came From Bill! Hello everybody, My name is Bill Gates. I have just written up an e-mail tracing program that traces everyone to whom this message is forwarded to. I am experimenting with this and I need your help. Forward this to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on the list will receive $1000 at my expense. Enjoy. Your friend, Bill Gates

10. Nooo! Not The Children! IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN BORN BETWEEN 1985 and 1997 INCLUSIVE: GERBER BABY FOOD company lost a class action. Gerber has been marketing their baby food as "all natural". The baby food was found to contain preservatives. Under this settlement, Gerber is now responsible for giving every child born between 1985 and 1997 a $500 savings bond. However, Gerber is not responsible for advertising this settlement in any way. To obtain the bond, send a copy of your child's birth certificate and social security card to: GERBER FOOD Settlement Administration Infant Litigation, PO Box 1602, Minneapolis, MN 55480

11. Why Do People Remember This Stuff? • What about these things is there that makes them particularly memorable? • Is there any set of features we can identify (and exploit) to make messages we send out more memorable, i.e. “Sticky”?

12. Marketing: Part Design, Part Psychology • Marketing is part design and part psychology • Or, more accurately, it’s the design of a psychological construct • You’re trying to create positive or negative mental associations in the minds of your targets • What you want to do = good • Not doing what you want to do = bad • Note: The Best Idea In The World is irrelevant if no one remembers it/understands what you’re saying

13. The Trap: The Curse of Knowledge • The Curse of Knowledge: You know all this stuff, why isn’t anyone else getting it? • Once you learn something, it’s very difficult to imagine what it was like to not know the material • Pollutes your ability to re-create the target’s state of mind • Also tends to overcomplicate your messaging in an attempt to explain it to others • “Tappers and Listeners”

14. Taking Advantage of Target Mindsets • Class exercise: Take 15 seconds and memorize the following letters: AL CRSF OIIB NINA FUFA C

15. Taking Advantage Of Target Mindsets, cont. • What were the letters?

16. Taking Advantage Of Target Mindsets, cont. • Now repeat the exercise: NFL NCAA FBI CIA IRS UFO • What changed between the two tests? • Remember, we want to design a psychological construct – • Take advantage of associations already present in people’s minds

17. Another Example: Movie Popcorn • Fact: Movie popcorn (back then) contained nearly 2 days’ worth of saturated fats (37 grams) • How to communicate this to people on a visceral level? • How can you make an audience translate data (37 grams of saturated fat) into behavior-changing actions?

18. Another Way To Think About It • What concepts survive competition in “The Marketplace of Ideas?” • And why?

19. Emotional Selection • Emotional Selection: Some concepts are selected over others due to common psychology: • Transcends culture • The same emotions are tapped across a wide-cross section of individuals • Truth doesn’t always matter

20. SUCCES – How to Spell Success • Heath and Heath noted that research showed that successful pitches/sticky ideas seemed to follow a set pattern • In brief: Stickiness is achieved with SUCCES: • S – Simple • U – Unexpected • C – Concrete • C – Credible • E – Emotional • S – Stories

21. Simple • (Deceptively) Easiest one of the group • Complex ideas are hard to understand and invoke too much mental processing • Simple ideas, on the other hand, are easily retained • Analogies and equivalencies work well • (Bag full of popcorn = Big Mac + Fries + Steak + All the Trimmings) • Don’t overwhelm with information – boil the message down to the barebones • Find the core of the message. Everything else is superfluous detail

22. Simple, cont. • Key concept: Find the core of the idea • Eliminate tangential and superfluous data • “If you say 10 things, your audience won’t remember any of them” • “If you say three things, you don’t say anything” • Be elegant and prioritize, don’t dumb the message down! • Use metaphors and analogies to take advantage of existing mental associations

23. Simple, cont. • The technical term for an existing mental association is schema: • Schema are a collection of generic properties of a concept or a category • A stand-in concept already in one’s mind that can be translated through analogy to other things • Think of existing schemas as “starting points” for painting an image • Nearly everyone’s imagination will conjure up images upon hearing words with schema attached to them – “tree”, “ball point pen”, “sports car”, “computer”, etc.

24. Simple: The Pomelo • Consider this description: • “A pomelo is a large citrus fruit. The rind is very thick but soft and easy to peel away. The resulting fruit has a light yellow to coral pink flesh and can vary from juicy to slightly dry and from seductively spicy-sweet to tangy and tart.” • What are the good points and bad points about this description? • Will you remember it? • An hour from now? • A day from now?

25. Simple: The Pomelo, cont. • Now consider this description: • “A pomelo is basically a supersized grapefruit with a very thick and soft rind.” • Notice the brevity! • This message takes advantage of an existing association • The mental imagery was already there; this description merely linked to it • Concept is similar to “A picture is worth a thousand words” (that you don’t have to say) • Corollary here: “An existing mental association is a thousand descriptions you don’t have to make” Bottom line on Simple: Pack as much information as possible into as little space as possible!

26. Unexpected • As human beings in the information age, we’re bombarded with data: • Listen to the surroundings. What do you hear? • Were you consciously aware of hearing it before? • ‘Tuning out’ is a common joke, but your mind does it thousands of times per day • How do you get past the “information filter”?

27. Unexpected, cont. • How do you grab (and hold) someone’s attention? • Unexpected inputs tend to get past psychological defenses (“surprise reflex”) • Violate people’s expectations • Key is to generate lasting interest and curiosity – else the window of interest will close (‘losing the audience’)

28. Unexpected, cont. • Human brains detect changes: • Eyes are best at detecting movement, ears are best at detecting changes in sound • And the conscious mind will pay more attention to the unexpected than the ordinary (“Familiarity breeds contempt…”) • Therefore, the ordinary will be rejected or ignored. Don’t be ordinary: • That woman is going to steal your kidneys! • There’s a razor blade in your kid’s Halloween candy!

29. Unexpected, cont. • Too often, existing schemas act as filters, blocking new content • For example, elevator music is boring. Brain says, “Tune it out”: • Surprise happens when schemas are broken • Brain goes into record mode, taking in the new information • So timing is critical. Don’t put the critical bits before the surprise • Don’t waste the surprise. Don’t spend time on gimmicks. • Once you get their attention…hold it • Human beings are naturally curious. Tell a story. • Make them ask, “What happens next?” “How will this turn out?” • “Gap” theory of curiosity: Unexpected ideas stimulate the brain into asking, “What happens next?”

30. Unexpected: Align The Surprise • The surprise has to be linked to the message you’re delivering: • Outpost.com ad: Memorable, but what do the wolves have to do with buying online? • Enclave ad: Memorable, and the crash has everything to do with the message • This is It – Onion had nothing to do with furniture, but the stick breaking does • Tricky to do – you want to create a new schema in your favor, not one that’s irrelevant • Wolves attacking a marching band may be funny, but who’ll remember Outpost.com? • Example of aligned unexpectedness: Nordstrom’s

31. Unexpected, summarized • The gap theory hinges on being able to teach people what they don’t know • You’ve caught they’re attention. Now create a new mental association (schema) for recall later • One way to look at it is moving from “What info do I need to convey?” to “What questions do I want my audience to ask?” • Once you’ve reached this point, your audience is much more engaged • Set the context and give enough details to almost fill a knowledge gap – then let curiosity take over: The idea of the Unexpected Idea • Roone Arledge at ABC Sports Unexpected: Deliver a calculated surprise to hold the viewers attention, then insert a new schema with the association you want

32. Concrete • Ideas should be explained in terms of quantifiable facts • Avoid ambiguity • ‘Quantifiable facts’ has multiple meanings: • Hard data (37 grams of saturated fat!) • Or, easily conjured imagery (The bathtub full of ice, Bill Gates on a pile of money) • If you can inject either a factoid or let the target’s imagination create a picture, the odds of stickiness climb

33. Concrete, cont. • Concrete means that the target can examine something with their senses • Nordstrom: “World Class Customer Service” – what does this mean? • Clerks ironing people’s shirts while they shop? Oh, that’s what it means. • Experiments show that people better remember concrete, easily visualized nouns (“tree, bicycle”) rather than abstract ones (“justice”, “personality”) • Too much abstract uproots the idea – to stick, concepts must have some kind of tangible reference • The ice-filled bathtub and missing kidney • Example: Mounting an aircraft engine to a 787 wing (Read: better get it right the first time…) • “Adjust main attachment housing bolt until fairly tight” versus • “Adjust main attachment housing bolt torque to 150 N-m.”

34. Concrete Velcro! • Our brains aren’t digital registers. Information is stored with a number of ‘tags’ that are conjured with each trigger • For example: Think of your favorite food • Do you just remember what it looks like, or do you recall shape, color, smell, taste, etc? • Give your ideas lots of Velcro – tap into memories, experiences, schema • The more hooks your idea has, the more sticky it will be • Relates back to using existing schema – existing associations are a thousand concepts you don’t have to teach

35. Concrete Adds Focus • Brain trick: Take 15 seconds and think of as many ‘white’ things you can • Then take 15 more seconds and think of as many ‘white’ things in your refrigerator as you can • Studies have shown that the lists tend to be similar in length? Why is that? • Narrowing the search “universe” to just the fridge focused the brain • When the brain is focused, more resources, memories, etc. are brought to bear • How can we use this in practice?

36. Concrete: Go Computers • The situation: Jerry Kaplan is pitching a new computer type – small, lightweight, pen-type interface – to Kleiner Perkins (Sun, Google, Genentech, Amazon.com) • Slides? Doesn’t have any • Business plan? Doesn’t have one • Prototype? Nope. • What did he do? • He threw his leather notebook on the table and said, “Gentlemen, here is a model of the next step in the computer revolution.” • A few days later, Kaplan got a call and his money: $4.5 million for his new idea. • Why did this work?

37. Go Computers, cont. • The notebook transformed the meeting into a brainstorming session • How much could this thing store? Which components would shrink? • Kaplan created a central point of focus for the attendees – instead of questioning him, they engaged their imaginations Concrete ideas create a “shared ‘turf’ on which people can collaborate”

38. Concrete, Summarized • People remember concepts that are firmly defined: • Firm, fixed numbers and concepts • Or nouns that conjure mental images • Concrete helps focus the brain into relevant subsets of the world – more resources are activated • Remember the Curse of Knowledge – it’s easy to forget that people don’t know what we know Concrete ideas create a “shared ‘turf’ on which people can collaborate”

39. Credibility • People are naturally skeptical • People also respond naturally to figures of authority or recognized expertise • Ideas need to establish their own credentials

40. Credibility, cont. • What makes people believe ideas? • Most people naturally trust authority • What’s authority? • Either a definitive source or the appearance of one • “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” • Can be from authoritative figures, or people/things that have been imbued with lots of trust: • Oprah on whatever • Michael Jordan on shoes • Or antiauthorities – people who’ve experienced x or y • Credibility can arise from appearances – think about the Gerber baby formula message. Does it look like a lawyer wrote it?

41. Credibility, cont. • Personal experience is a powerful cultivator of credibility: • Getting a burglar to advertise a lock • Having a doctor describe a drug or a diet • Demonstrations are powerful examples of credibility: • MasterLock Ad • Data, experiments  Other sources • Vivid details fire the imagination: • Why do people remember the kidney story? • Lot of imagery can help the target visualize the message • Beyond War and the BBs • Dropped BBs into a metal bucket to illustrate the number of nuclear warheads in the world • Credibility attained by linking a sound to the concept. What stuck wasn’t the number, but rather the magnitude of the number.

42. Creating Credibility • Marshall and Warren (medical researchers in Perth) had a theory: Ulcers are caused by a particular strain of bacteria • Medical practice had previously thought that excess stomach acid caused ulcers • Treatment was mitigating spicy foods, and alcohol…and it didn’t work too well • When they published their findings, few in the medical community believed them • Wouldn’t the acid in the stomach kill the bacteria? • Plus, what do Aussies know about medicine? • How could the authors get some stickiness for their idea?

43. Creating Credibility, cont. • Marshall decided to take some action • One morning, he skipped breakfast and asked his colleagues to meet him in the lab • As they looked on, Marshall grabbed a beaker full of H. pylori (the suspect bacteria)…and drank it • Within a few days, he began experiencing ulcer-like symptoms. He then cured himself with a course of antibiotics

44. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall Creating Credibility, cont. • While not completely proving his theory (he didn’t develop a full-blown ulcer) people paid attention • In 1994 the NIH endorsed their theory • In 2005, Marshall and Warren received the Nobel Prize for Medicine

45. Credibility, Summarized • Summary: • Credibility can be created through a number of pathways: Statistics, personal experience (antiauthorities), authority figures, testimonials of trusted people • The key idea is to pass the believability test. Is the authority trustworthy? • Vivid details can really help • Draw on multiple sources for credibility Credibility comes from tangibility, and relating this to your target. Think of credibility as “try before you buy”

46. Emotional • Certain emotional responses are common to large swaths of human beings • Negative emotional examples: disgust, fear, greed • Positive emotional examples: family moments, love, excitement • Human beings are wired for emotions, not abstract concepts like numbers • Connect data to emotional imagery • People relate well to stories about people, or objects that trigger an emotional response • A starving child, a lost puppy, etc.

47. Emotional, cont. • You can generate belief in an idea, but you need more than that • People need to care so they’ll act on your suggestion • One way is to appeal to self-interest • Remember that people respond to incentives! • The Truth ad campaign • If you smoke, you could end up like this • Ads worked so well, tobacco companies sued to get them off the air

48. Self-Interest • Self-interest doesn’t have to be so jarring • For example: Mail-order ads almost always contain some self-interest: • “30 days to a better body, now!” • You can laugh at money worries if you follow my simple plan • Give me 5 days and I’ll give you a magnetic personality…Let me prove it – Free! • Retire at 55 • Disavowing statement – Heath and Heath don’t like these kinds of ads • All of these headlines are designed to make the target care enough to act • Find a way to convey What’s In It For You

49. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs • As human beings, we’re a needy bunch • Maslow in 1954 compiled a list of motivating factors for human beings: • Transcendence – help others realize their potential • Self-actualization – realize our own potential • Aesthetic – symmetry, order, beauty, balance • Learning – know, understand, mentally connect • Esteem – Achieve, be competent, gain approval, independence, status • Belonging – love, family, friends, affection • Security – Protection, safety, stability • Physical – Hunger, thirst, bodily comfort • Any of these can be used as a well of emotional energy to draw upon • Maslow’s theory held that the above was a hierarchy, and that people always started from the bottom and moved up sequentially • Later research shows us that this isn’t the case. People move up or down for various reasons Maslow’s Basement

50. Don’t Mess With Texas • The state of Texas had a problem – litter • They were spending $25 million/year on litter cleanup… • …and using traditional ad campaigns beseeching Texans to “Pleaaasse don’t litter” • But who’s the target audience? • Anti-authority types (don’t confuse with antiauthority from Credibility). Texans pride themselves on being stubborn and independent • Is this campaign likely to work? No – designing a program based on self interest won’t work. • Which one of the emotional categories could be used? • The light came on when they realized, Real Texans Don’t Litter. • The resulting campaign was called, “Don’t mess with Texas”, a play on a common theme