Mike
Carruthers:
Every
good idea has a core and you have to find it and identify it.
Chip Heath:
So, if you remember the Jared's Subway sandwich campaign
- the core of their message is "we have really healthy fast
food".
Chip Heath, author
of the book Made
to Stick Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die…
The campaign
before Jared, the story about this guy who diets down from 425
lbs to 190 lbs, was a slogan - "seven sandwiches under
six grams of fat". And the story of Jared with that concrete
image of this guy holding out these enormous pants, that stuck
with people. The "seven sandwiches under six grams of fat"
didn't stick with anyone.
"Sandwiches
under six grams of fat" is an abstract concept; the story
of Jared was a concrete and visual idea and helped drive an
increase in sales.
When we're doing
our presentations at work, very often we're more in the "seven
sandwiches under six grams of fat" arena - we marshal our
facts, we get lots of details together, when what's really going
to stick with our audience and lead them to take action is a
story or a concrete example like the one with Jared.
In getting your
ideas across and making them stick, stories are magical.
You can tell
your kids: truth-telling is really important; but if you tell
them the story of the boy who cried wolf, they are living through
and seeing that they themselves are learning to distrust this
boy who's repeatedly crying wolf - so, which is better?
You can link
to Chip's website from
ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net
- I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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