We've talked about how to make ideas simple, unexpected, concrete, and credible. Now to fill out the rest of the success framework, we'll talk about how to create emotional stories. With emotion, the key is, how can we get people to care? Not only listen to what we're saying, but really care what we're saying. The more they care what we're saying, the more they personally involve themselves in the message, the more we evoke emotions, the more likely they'll be to remember what we said. Let me show you a famous old example of a message that got people to care about a presidential election. It's an oldie, but goodie, but check it out. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 6, 8, 9. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go. These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die. Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. Pretty shocking stuff. Today in today's day and age, I don't think we'd use something so emotional as a presidential candidate. But at the time when we were worried about nuclear war, it was something that was on everyone's mind. By playing on emotion and linking that terrible thing; nuclear war to our children, it got people to care more about the election and to turn out and vote. Here's a more recent example, a more positive example about getting people excited. Hey, I'm not a lumberjack or a fur trader, and I don't live in an igloo, or eat blubber, or own a dog sled. I don't know Jimmy, Sally, or Suzy from Canada, although I'm certain they're really, really nice. I have a Prime Minister, not a President. I speak English and French, not American. I pronounce it about, not a boot. I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack. I believe in peacekeeping, not policing. Diversity, not assimilation, and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal. A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch, and it is pronounced zed not zee, zed. Canada is the second largest landmass, the first nation of hockey and the best part of North America. My name is Joe and I am Canadian. Thank you. Also pretty engaging. I don't know what you want to do next, but I want to do something Canadian. Maybe I want to reach for a Molson beer or go out and do something else to participate in that emotion. We all feel that swell of positive emotion as we watch that message. We hear the music build and because of that we become more engaged in the content. We pay more attention to it, we engage in more processing, and we're more likely to remember it later on. When thinking about building emotion, we need to think about how to be concrete, as we talked about before, rather than abstract. Think about the IRS for example. In the United States, the IRS collects taxes. They often say something like, well, the IRS collects money to help our nation accomplish the things it wants to accomplish, where it needs to accomplish. Now that's true, but it's not very emotional. It doesn't make us care about the IRS. What about instead I said the following message. The IRS collects money to build roads, preserve national parks, feed the poor, and defend our nation. Now it doesn't make you want to probably give up all your money to the IRS, but it makes you care a little bit more about what they're doing. Or imagine a brand like Marriott. Marriott in their mission statement says, we deliver the highest quality service to our guests. Again, that's true, but it's neither very concrete nor emotional. What if instead we said the following. At Marriott, our duty is to help people away from home feel like they're among friends and really wanted. Now think about that. Again, it tugs on your heart string a little bit more. If you think about the last viral video you shared or last story you passed on, it's likely it had an emotional component. The more it pulls us in and plays at our heartstrings, the more likely we are to care and remember what they had to say. As we apply that idea of emotion, think first about which emotion you want to get people to feel. Do you want them to feel angry, anxious, surprised, excited? Think about how you play on that emotion when you're designing your story or your message. To help you do that, there's a useful tool called the Three Whys. Very simply, ask why again and again and again till you hit something core. Sometimes we come up with a message or idea. You might say, well, why do people use Google Search? The answer might be because people want to find information. Now imagine you just stopped there, because people want to find information. That's true, that's accurate, but it's not very emotional. To get to an emotional core, ask why again. Why do they want to find emotion? Well, because they want to accomplish something. We'll ask why a third time. Why do they want to accomplish that thing? Well, they want to connect with others, make their lives better, and be with their friends and family members more easily and more often. Suddenly now we've gotten to something much more emotional. Sure, it's not the most emotional thing ever. We only spent a couple of seconds thinking about it. But by asking those Three Whys, we begin to think about a more emotional way to convey a message. If you want someone to remember what you have to say, don't just communicate information, pull on their heartstrings. Evoke motion, use those Three Whys, get them to care, and they'll be more likely to remember. We've talked about the six key principles to making messages and ideas stick or success as the framework goes. How you can use simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories to get people to remember your message. In case you want to learn more about the framework or how to apply it, check out the grade book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.
