Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

In an age of information overload, why do some ideas thrive—spreading effortlessly and enduring for years—while others fade into immediate obscurity? Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick dissects this fundamental question of communication, moving beyond folk wisdom to isolate the architecture of contagious ideas. The book posits that "stickiness" is not a mysterious, innate quality but a set of attributes that can be systematically engineered. Through a blend of cognitive psychology, sociology, and compelling case studies, the Heaths argue that sticky ideas share a common, replicable pattern, one they crystallize into the mnemonic SUCCESS: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories.

The analysis begins by diagnosing the primary obstacle to clear communication: the Curse of Knowledge. Once we understand something, we lose the ability to imagine what it's like not to understand it, leading to abstract, expert-level communication that fails to connect. To combat this, the book's framework provides a practical toolkit. "Simple" is about finding the core and expressing it with profound clarity. "Unexpected" leverages surprise to break mental schemas and hold attention. "Concrete" grounds ideas in sensory language and tangible imagery to ensure shared understanding. "Credible" explores how to endow ideas with the aura of truth, using vivid details or testable credentials.

The latter principles shift from comprehension to persuasion. "Emotional" moves people to care by connecting to their self-interest, identity, or core values, making the idea personally relevant. Finally, "Stories" are revealed not as mere decoration but as powerful simulation tools that provide mental models for action and inspire behavior change. The book illustrates each principle with a rich tapestry of examples, from the enduring "Don't mess with Texas" anti-litter campaign to the effective structuring of journalism lessons, demonstrating that the framework applies equally to boardrooms, classrooms, and non-profit messaging.

Made to Stick occupies a critical space at the intersection of popular science, business strategy, and practical rhetoric. Its primary audience includes leaders, educators, marketers, entrepreneurs, and anyone whose success depends on conveying ideas effectively. The book's enduring legacy is its demystification of influence, transforming the art of messaging into a disciplined craft. It provides not just theory but a generative checklist—a set of levers any communicator can pull to design ideas that are understood, remembered, and capable of changing minds or sparking action.

The consensus positions the book as an essential, practical field manual rather than a theoretical treatise. Practitioners—writers, speakers, marketers, and educators—consistently praise its actionable SUCCESS framework, noting it organizes and names intuitive techniques they already used piecemeal. The concept of the "Curse of Knowledge" is repeatedly highlighted as a transformative, career-changing insight that diagnoses a common failure mode. Criticisms are mild, occasionally noting the business-centric examples or a desire for even more diverse case studies, but these are far outweighed by reports of direct, successful application in professional work.