I was all set to write a review of the updated version of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, when I got sidetracked by the Jon Stewart v. Jim Cramer battle last week. Next thing I know, I’m wanting to write blog posts titled: “I’ve Got a Crush on Jon Stewart” and “Jon Stewart: Made to Stick it to the Man.” Fortunately for my readers, I decided to approach this in a straightforward manner because that’s what Stewart did on Thursday night’s Stewart vs. Cramer smackdown.
Why did Stewart’s takedown resonate? Because it was one of those stories that was “made to stick.” For those of you who haven’t read Made to Stick, I would suggest you make some time for it, especially entrepreneurs. We, of all people, need ideas that stick.
In a nutshell, the Heaths’ theory is that a message will stick if it follows their SUCCESs rule. This is why I thought I would apply it to Stewart’s performance last Thursday night. (Previously, I did something similar for Colin Powell’s Obama endorsement).
If you haven’t seen it, visit: www.comedycentral.com.
Here’s my take on how it fits the Made to Stick formula:
- Simple. Stewart’s goal was to ask: “How dare Jim Cramer and the rest of CNBC blame the mortgage holders when it was the bankers, egged on by financial reporters, who burned the house down?” He conveyed this message through simple language and simple imagery.
- Unexpected. The voice of financial reason is on the Comedy Channel?
- Concrete. Stewart kept his attack on Cramer on point. “You weren’t the watchdogs. You were the cheerleaders.”
- Credible. Even if he’s a comedian, he is also a journalist. We had one journalist taking on another. In addition, Stewart’s incredible research team should be leased out to the Justice Department. Its work is impeccable and worthy of a Pulitzer.
- Emotional. Stewart was clearly emotional and was able to stir up our own emotions.
- Storytelling. Stewart told the story of a failed system. This was why a squabble between two cable TV front men captured everyone’s attention. It had that “stickiness” factor.
More about the book below, but I have to make one last non sequitur comment on Stewart vs. Cramer: While clearly it was Stewart’s day in the spotlight, I have to give a pat on the back to Jim Cramer. He took it like a real gentleman. Sure, he threw out a few lame excuses; but for the most part, he let Stewart do his thing, took his lumps and said his mea culpas. I actually kind of like the guy for it.
As for the book. I reread the updated version and, like watching the Stewart/Cramer interview again online, it was even better the second time around. I wasn’t too clear which parts were new, as last time I listened to the audio version, so some of what I picked up may have been there the first time, but I wasn’t as focused because I might have been navigating traffic at the time.
Here are a few points that stuck out in my mind this time around.
The importance of the big picture. Early on in the book, the Heaths talk about how armies often fail because they put all their emphasis into creating a plan that becomes useless 10 minutes into the battle. It would be better if they focused on the commander’s intent rather than a set plan, i.e., “My intent is to capture the XYZ battalion.”
I think using a commander’s intent strategy for business today is a must, especially due to the different generations currently in the workplace. Telling a Gen Y’er that you want a marketing plan that utilizes print advertising might not have the same effect as telling a Gen Y’er that you want a marketing plan that will reach x number of people in the x demographic. Who knows? She might find a better, cheaper way to accomplish the same goal.
Speak the same language. The Heaths make a point about how one of the tricks to making ideas concrete (as opposed to abstract) is not to dumb things down, but instead to find a universal language that everyone speaks fluently. This is something I ascribe to heavily as I often find myself talking about technology to audiences who still think abstractly about computers. When I teach workshops about social media (especially to boomers), I’ve learned to rely on good analogies.
Semantics matters. I liked the example of how giving good sportsmanship awards didn’t encourage people to become better sports. However, when people were asked to “Honor the game,” they were more likely to exhibit good sportsmanship. We found out how semantics matters at the Downtown Women’s Club when we had trouble finding people to serve on committees and help with events. However, when we asked them to be DWC ambassadors and represent the DWC by helping plan and execute events, we found volunteers. So sometimes before you totally shake things up, try renaming them first.
What’s in it for me? The Heaths focused on some successful ads over the years that worked self-interest into the headlines and advised against burying that self-interest if it’s an advantage. This is something we also discovered this year when we changed our tagline/marketing line to “Professional networking that’s affordable, effective and fun.” We were listing our benefits/differentiators late one night to try to come up with a new tagline. So I finally said, “I don’t care anymore; let’s just go with that for now. Well, clicks on our Google ad went up, membership is up, and I’ve been asked fewer times why we’re different.
Interestingly, we almost went with “professional networking that’s affordable, effortless and fun.” But I felt funny about the “effortless” part. I don’t believe that networking is effortless, but I do believe that if done right, it can FEEL effortless. Yet that required too much explanation. However, according to Made to Stick, I should at least test it out someday. I’ll let you know how that goes.
There’s so much more in here, but I’ll let you discover that yourself.
Top Shelf bottom line: A must-read for entrepreneurs and marketers who want their ideas to stick. And even worth picking up for a reread. There, that’s simple (read this book), unexpected (from an article that starts out talking about Jon Stewart), concrete and credible (I hope), emotional (we’re all attached to our ideas) and, ideally,I told a few stories that will make it memorable. Let’s see if you can do the same with your own ideas.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.6 Responses to “Jon Stewart Made to Stick”
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March 17th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Interesting book. I am not sure I agree with your analysis of Stewart’s credibility. Stewart’s team is great at selecting clips that have emotional appeal, but they certainly do not represent everything that Cramer has done in his career. I think Stewart’s credibility comes from his references to his lack of credibility. We respect his opinion because he frames his ideas as a comedian, thus whenever his ideas are questioned, he hides behind the comedian label. Stewart does a great job shielding himself from critics by pulling the comedian card.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Stewart’s ideas about CNBS stuck because they crystallize what a lot of people are already thinking, even if it hasn’t been articulated by anyone before. The “financial experts” that we see on TV had no inkling that there was a problem with the markets before the meltdown? As Stewart himself has said, what if the weatherpeople on TV had no clue (or wouldn’t tell us) that a hurricane was coming? Would we still regard them as experts?
The business press needs to suck this one up and promise to do a better job in the future. Their credibility is at stake.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
What does it say when the hardest-hitting questions in journalism come from comedy shows? Where are the hard-news organizations? As Stewart said when he was on Tucker Carlson’s show (remember that?), he doesn’t pretend to be a serious journalist — his lead-in show [was] a sock-puppet making crank phone calls. Too many thumb-suckers and not enough hard-news journalists.
March 18th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Stewart’s barbs are landing in large part because he is able to expose the contradiction between what Cramer, CNBC, et. al. are claiming (we are financial journalists) and the reality (we are financial cheerleaders).
The other thing that makes him stick out (U – unexpected) is that his is about the only show on television that is critiquing television.
He does hide a bit behind the comedian label, but he doesn’t have that much to hide – he isn’t saying he has the answer, just that these other people claiming to have the answer are wrong.
Stewart can probably stay behind that label for a while – Limbaugh has been doing it for decades.
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