Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, is a book on how to promote your ideas so they “stick” on people’s heads. The authors analyse why some ideas are catchy while others quickly forgotten, and present the key features an idea must have to be “sticky”. Those features, coined under the acronym SUCCESs, are:

Simple
Find the core of your message and focus on transmitting only the really important part.

Unexpected
Break patterns to get attention and use teasers to hold attention.

Concrete
Real examples triumph over abstract concepts, if you want to spread an idea.

Credible
Use life examples. Take advantage of both authorities and anti-authorities.

Emotional
Make people care: switch their brains from the analytical side to the emotional side.

Stories
Stories can inspire, get people to act, and stay much longer in everyones heads.

The best value from the book comes from the concrete suggestions on how to solve specific problems like “Everyone nods their heads when I’m speaking, but I can’t get them to act on it.” An important resource for anyone doing marketing or trying to change to world.