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)
3/17/2020

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?
Show examples of what works and doesn’t work
What comes first, product or the idea? You can design a product around the market conditions
Sometimes you can seed requirements in people’s minds – “Shaping the market”
End goal:
Understanding your business and how you reach customers allows you to pick smart projects and sell them to management
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

5. Two Types of Technical Communication
Bad
Good
3/17/2020

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.
3/17/2020

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…”
3/17/2020

9. But It Came From Bill! Hello everybody,
My name is Bill Gates. I have just written up an 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
Source: scambusters.org.
3/17/2020

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
Source: scambusters.org.
3/17/2020

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”?
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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”
1990 – Elizabeth Newton’s Ph.D thesis – only 3 out of 120 were able to guess the song being tapped out
3/17/2020

14. Taking Advantage of Target Mindsets
Class exercise: Take 15 seconds and memorize the following letters:
AL CRSF OIIB NINA FUFA C
3/17/2020

15. Taking Advantage Of Target Mindsets, cont.
What were the letters?
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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?
*Note that one of the hardest things to do in product marketing is to get people to change their behavior
*People have habits for a reason: they involve very little active thinking
3/17/2020

18. Another Way To Think About It
What concepts survive competition in “The Marketplace of Ideas?”
And why?
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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.
3/17/2020

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?
3/17/2020

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”
*The technical term for an existing mental association is schema. A psychological schema is a collection of generic properties of a concept or a category – it’s basically 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.
Bottom line on Simple: Pack as much information as possible into as little space as possible!
3/17/2020

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”?
3/17/2020

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’)
3/17/2020

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!
3/17/2020

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?”
3/17/2020

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
Nordstrom’s has several of its own “urban legends”, many of them happening to be true. As part of their corporate culture, they encourage their employees to go above and beyond for customer service. Their entire brand is built around being better than everyone else in the industry in that space.
Thus, an unexpected story of a Nordstrom’s employee refunding money for tire chains is an aligned surprise because it’s consistent with their core corporate messaging.
3/17/2020

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
Arledge revolutionized NCAA football broadcasts. Back then, a lot of viewers knew nothing about any teams other than their own. Arledge would show them the campus, the fans, the atmosphere and fill in details on the rivalry before the game started. He took an audience that maybe knew nothing about Georgia-Florida and painted in enough detail (but not too much) to make the audience care.
Unexpected: Deliver a calculated surprise to hold the viewers attention, then insert a new schema with the association you want
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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.”
3/17/2020

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
Blue eyes vs. Brown eyes.
Students weren’t taught about abstract concepts like prejudice - they experienced it in a profoundly concrete way. Each was forced to confront numerous feelings, memories and inputs around the exercise. This turned the abstract concept of “prejudice” from a nebulous concept to a real experience with lots of ‘hooks’.
“Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet”
3/17/2020

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?
3/17/2020

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?
3/17/2020

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”
3/17/2020

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”
3/17/2020

39. Credibility People are naturally skeptical
People also respond naturally to figures of authority or recognized expertise
Ideas need to establish their own credentials
3/17/2020

40. Credibility, cont. What makes people believe ideas? What’s authority?
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?
3/17/2020

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.
Beyond War would go into a room with a can of BB’s and a bucket. The first BB would go in and the presenter would say, “This represents the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima”. Then 10 BB’s would go into the bucket – “These represent the atomic yield of one US nuclear submarine”, say. Then he would have his audience close their eyes as he poured 5,000 BBs in the bucket. Audience members described it as “terrifying” – “the sound just went on and on”. By doing this he was able to give an abstract number – 5,000 warheads – internal credibility (and concreteness, for that matter) by connecting the number and the sound with the target’s imagination.
3/17/2020

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?
One audience member at the conference where Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were presenting noted that Marshall “simply didn’t have the demeanor of a scientist”.
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

44. 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
Robin Warren and Barry Marshall
3/17/2020

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”
3/17/2020

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.
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

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
3/17/2020

51. Don’t Mess With Texas, cont.
The ad:
JONES: You see the guy who threw this out the window, you tell him I got a message for him.
WHITE: (picks up a beer can): I got a message for him too.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: What’s that?
WHITE: (Crushes the beer can with one fist). Well, I kinda need to see him to deliver it.
JONES: Don’t mess with Texas.
The ad campaign plugged into the entire Texas schema – big burly guys
After 1 year, 73% of survey respondents recalled the message and its meaning
Litter decreased 29%
The don’t mess with Texas litter ads can be found at
3/17/2020

52. Emotion - Summary
Emotional appeals won’t work when people are thinking analytically –
Studies show that when people are confronted with statistics and numbers, their thinking is driven by analytics rather than emotions
Make your target care:
If they don’t care, they won’t act
Appeal to self-interest, but also to identities
Create empathy for individuals and/or associations that people already care about/have a connection to
Emotional appeals need to make people care – appeal to more than Maslow’s Basement (Because everyone else always goes there first)
3/17/2020

53. Stories
Stories allow for the information to be placed in an experiential context
Heath and Heath: “Like a test drive for the brain”
The listener will almost always overlay internal imagery/analogy to supplement and interesting story
In other words, the translation will happen automatically as their minds generate relevant context
Stories provide knowledge and inspiration at the same time
3/17/2020

54. Stories, cont. Stories are mental simulation:
Studies show that imagination activities light up different areas of the brain –
Brain scans indicate that people imagining flashing lights activate the visual cortex
When asked to imagine someone tapping their arm, the tactile centers of the brain activate
What does this mean for messaging?
A simulation is the next best thing to actually doing the activity
Stickiness flows from the sensation that the target is in part of the story (via associations or schema)
Stories laced with emotional and vivid details provide more Velcro (more memory hooks)
3/17/2020

55. Stories, cont.
Stories are used to convey messaging and norms of behavior:
The story about the Nordstrom’s employee who refunded money for a bad tire chain purchase reinforces the company’s commitment to customer service
Stories can be used to put abstract ideas into a lifelike context –
All the better if the target can relate his/her everyday existence to the story
3/17/2020

56. Stories, cont. Stories create curiosity in the audience –
All human beings have an internal program to wonder, “What happens next?”
H&H define 3 plot types for stories:
The Challenge Plot: Overcoming the odds
David v. Goliath, Miracle on Ice, Rags to Riches, etc.
The Connection Plot: Making a relationship that bridges a gap
Mean Joe Greene and the Coke
The Creativity Plot: Solving a puzzle or making a mental breakthrough
Ingersoll-Rand and the Drag Test
Use the above not to create, but to spot good stories
The Drag Test: An employee at IR noted that the US won WWII in less time than it took IR to get something to market. Management agreed. The design team was told to design a new grinder in a year, ¼ the normal time.
Metal or plastic? Plastic is lighter and cheaper, but would it hold up? Normally they’d conduct exhaustive tests of toughness, fatigue and tensile strength, but they didn’t have the time. What to do?
On a customer visit, they decided to tie the plastic to the bumper of their rental car and drag it around the parking lot, same as with the metal. They kept this up until the cops showed up and asked them to stop. But the plastic held up just fine; it had done as well as the metal. Problem solved, and they went with the plastic.
This story reinforces the team’s quick product turn culture: “We need the right data to make decisions. We just need to do it quicker.”
3/17/2020

57. Stories, summarized
Stories are mental simulation – the target brain will activate more sections that they story itself would suggest
Use this simulation time to evoke emotion – give the story plenty of velcro in the form of vivid details
Stories tend to contain a lot of SUCCES all on their own, and given enough detail, can really touch on unexpected and concrete
Make sure the story you’re telling is reflective of your agenda – in other words, get to the point!
Stories are like mental flight simulators. Your audience gets to fly along with you.
3/17/2020

58. Made To Stick, Summarized
Remember SUCCES
Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories
In engineering, can we always tell an emotional story?
No, but we can ‘talk shop’ and create new schemas that didn’t exist before – like Ingersoll Rand
3/17/2020

59. Jared From Subway
Jared Fogle, a pre-med student from Indiana University, weighed 425 lbs:
60” waist and size 6XL pants
Essentially, he’d had zero exercise since he was 8 years old
His lifestyle revolved around his weight:
He picked his classes based on how big the chairs were
He parked in spots well away from other cars, so he could exit his vehicle
Jared’s roommate noticed one day that his ankles were swollen –
Early warning sign of diabetes, heart problems
Jared’s dad (an MD) told him that patients in his condition have issues living past 35
So Jared, who’d heard about Subway “7 for 6” (7 subs with <6 grams of fat), went on a diet
3/17/2020

60. Jared From Subway, cont. After 3 months, he’d lost ~100 pounds
He started walking more, taking stairs, etc.
At one point, he was losing ~1lb/day!
One of his dormmates worked for the IU student paper and wrote the first media account of Jared’s story
The article was spotted by a Subway franchise owner, who recognized it for what it was – A Challenge Story
They sent an intern down from Chicago to verify the story
Unfortunately, Subway’s Marketing Director said:
“Fast food can’t do healthy”
Subway’s ad agency decided to do a free ad and run it in regionally
The next day after running the ads, USA Today, ABC and Fox News called
Two days later, Orpah wanted the story
Somewhat sheepishly, the national office asked if they could run the ad nationwide
3/17/2020

61. How Did It Do And Why? 1999: Subway’s sales = flat
2000: Sales up 18%; 2001: sales up 16%
Other chains growing at 7%
How does the Jared story rate on the Made to Stick checklist?
Simple: Eat Subway, lose weight (eating the right subs, of course)
Unexpected: Jared lost 245lbs eating fast food. Big schema violation.
Concrete: Compare the 6XL pants to what he looks like now.
Credible: The guy who lost 245 pounds is giving us advice (an antiauthority)
Emotional: Hits the upper end of Maslow’s hierarchy (Subway helped him reach his potential).
Story: Jared overcame his weight issues to become healthy. Resonates as the Challenge Plot of one person’s struggle
3/17/2020

62. Overall, What Sticks? Remember that the audience gets a vote:
Sometimes the core of your idea may change due to how the target interprets the data
Be mindful of “idea pride”
People marry their ideas…and never want to change them
After the message morphs, is the core of the idea still there?
Spotting great stories is just as good as writing them yourself
The world tends to produce a lot of great stuff on its own
There’s no correlation between being a tremendous public speaker and Making It Stick
Stress 1 point rather than ten. Tell a story. Tap into emotion. But keep it simple, concrete and credible.
3/17/2020

63. What Sticks, cont. Getting action from your target requires that they:
Pay attention: UNEXPECTED
Understand and remember it: SIMPLE/CONCRETE
Agree/believe it: CREDIBILITY
Care: EMOTIONAL
Be able to act on it: SIMPLE/STORY
3/17/2020

64. Homework Design a Sticky campaign for Springfield Baseball
Write up a brief discussion (use PPT):
Is the your campaign sticky? Describe how
Outline the SUCCES acronym and explain how the campaign meets the criteria
Due prior to lecture 7
3/17/2020

65. Next Time
Intro to Accounting Concepts – Balance Sheets and Income Statements
Read:
Stickney and Weil, Ch. 1
Higgins, Ch. 1-2
3/17/2020