Template Creativity
In a 1999 Israeli experiment, researchers wanted to see if a creative template/checklist could be used to make people more creative.
The Israeli Researchers found three groups of people with no advertising experience and gave them background information on three existing products: a bottle of shampoo, a diet-food item, and a pair of sneakers.
Each group was tasked with making print advertisements for the three products. All ads were going to be rated by real customers.
The first group was given no creative training. After a few hours of work, they designed 15 ads.
The second group was taught a series of creative brainstorming techniques for two hours. After the training, they designed 15 ads.
The final group was given six templates of successful advertisements and taught how to use the templates for two hours. After the training, they also designed 15 ads.
When researchers gathered customer feedback, they saw that the first group’s advertisements were rated “annoying.”
The second group’s advertisements were rated “slightly less annoying.”
But the third group’s advertisements, the advertisements made using a simple template, were rated 50% more creative than any other advertisements and received 55% more positive comments.
Lesson #1: You can systematically boost your creativity by using a simple template (like the SUCCES checklist detailed in my 1-page summary of Made to Stick).
Identity Persuasion
In the 1980’s the state of Texas was spending $25 million a year cleaning up trash on the side of the road. The state put out “Please don’t litter” signs but they weren’t working. So, Texas hired Dan Syrek, the nation’s leading expert on littering.
Syrek knew that you don’t convince people to change their littering habit by asking nicely or threatening them with fines. You get people to stop littering by appealing to their identity.
Syrek knew Texans prided themselves on being tough. He also knew that Texans were proud of their football. So Syrek made a commercial with Dallas Cowboy football player picking up trash on the side of the road.
In the commercial, the giant football player steps toward the camera and says, “You see the guy who threw this out the window … you tell him I got a message for him.”
An off-camera voice asks, “What’s that?”
The football player crushes an aluminum can with his fist and says, “Don’t mess with Texas.”
“The campaign was an instant success. Within a few months of the launch, an astonishing 73 percent of Texans polled could recall the message and identify it as an antilitter message. Within one year, litter had declined 29 percent.” – Made to Stick
Lesson #2: If you want to move someone, appeal to their identity.
Human Scale Statistics
In the 1980s an organization called Beyond War was started to teach the public about the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Leaders at Beyond War were having a hard time explaining how out-of-control the nuclear arms race was getting. When they told someone that the combined Soviet and American nuclear arsenals were large enough to destroy the world multiple times over, no one seems to be concerned. The fact seemed intangible and invisible.
After months of struggling with their message, Beyond War leader Geoff Ainscow came up with a way to explain the scale of the American and Soviet arsenal in a way that everyone would understand.
In front of a large audience, Ainscow dropped one steel BB on the floor and told the audience that the single BB represented the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War 2. The BB made a slight ‘clang’ and rolled across the floor.
Then Ainscow filled up a large bucket of steel BBs, and said, “This is the world’s current arsenal of nuclear weapons.”
Ainscow poured 5,000 BBs on the floor (one for every nuclear warhead in the world). The noise was startling. The audience fell silent.
Lesson #3: Explain statistics using visceral analogies your listeners can see, hear, or feel.
Story, Not Style
During one of author Chip Heath’s Stanford undergraduate classes, he gave students data on crime patterns in the United States and asked each student to deliver a one-minute speech to the class.
After each speech, the listeners rated the speaker on his/her delivery.
Naturally, the composed, charismatic, and motivational native English-speaking students were rated highest.
When the exercise appeared to be over, Chip plays a brief Monty Python clip to distract the students for 10 minutes.
After the video, Chip abruptly asked the students to pull out a piece of paper and write down every single idea they remember from the one-minute speeches.
“The students are flabbergasted at how little they remember. Keep in mind that only ten minutes have elapsed since the speeches were given.” – Made to Stick
Students only remembered 5% of the statistics. But they remembered 63% of the stories.
And most surprisingly, students were just as likely to remember a story from foreign students with less polished English and weak speaking skills as polished and charismatic native speakers.
Lesson #4: Spend less time on perfecting your delivery message and more time developing a clear story to tell your message.
The Three Story Plots
Authors Chip and Dan Heath discovered that 80% of ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ stories (a critical claimed book of uplifting short stories) fall into three categories:
Challenge Plot: Guy or Girl struggles with a daunting challenge and succeeds. Think David and Goliath.
Creativity Plot: Guy or Girl struggles with a complex problem and discovers a breakthrough. Think of the apple falling on Newton’s head that inspired his theory of gravity.
Connection Plot: Guy or Girl struggles as an outsider and finds a way to bridge a long-standing social gap (racial, religious, class, etc.). Think Romeo and Juliet.
Lesson #5: Turn your message into one of these story plots to get your listeners interested and engaged.
To learn more lessons from Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath: Amazon Book Link