There's a new book about why some ideas survive and others die, by Chip and Dan Heath. I've been reading the excerpts... pretty interesting. Did you know that no children were ever harmed by tampered-with Halloween candy, or razor blades in apples, etc.? There were two incidents involving Halloween candy where children were harmed, but they harmed by their own parents, not by strangers. Yet this urban legend is changing how Halloween as celebrated in USA, and caused laws about tampering to be passed. (Hmm... did this start before or after the Tylenol scare of 1982? Apparently before.)
Six Principles of Sticky Ideas
... unexpected danger in a common activity...
Both stories called for simple action...
Both made use of vivid, concrete images...
... tapped into emotion: fear ... disgust...
PRINCIPLE 1: SIMPLICITY...
PRINCIPLE 2: UNEXPECTEDNESS...
PRINCIPLE 3: CONCRETENESS...
PRINCIPLE 4: CREDIBILITY...
PRINCIPLE 5: EMOTIONS... it's difficult to get teenagers to quit smoking by instilling in them a fear of the consequences, but it's easier to get them to quit by tapping into their resentment of the duplicity of Big Tobacco.
PRINCIPLE 6: STORIES...
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