Chip and Dan Heath: Marketing Made Sticky

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The companies you've mentioned are consumer marketers. How does your checklist apply to business-to-business marketing?

Dan: Business-to-business marketers do a notoriously bad job when it comes to the emotional element of marketing. It's as if the marketing world believes that consumers buying something for themselves are totally emotional, but the minute they go to work and buy something as part of their job, all they care about is optimization and efficiency. There's an interesting story about a Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) campaign in the United Kingdom for a software development product. It came about because the marketing people one day realized that software developers thought of themselves as creative people. Prior to that, my guess is the marketers thought that they were creative and developers were something different--they were technical. So the marketers decided to design a brochure unlike all the brochures out there that described a product feature by feature. Instead, Microsoft made an emotional appeal to developers as creative people. The message was, the next time you have a creative breakthrough, our development tools will help you turn that idea into reality. As a result of that campaign, sales of that product improved.

How can you diagnose whether your business has an unsticky core message?

Chip: You'll know it when the founder of the company is the ultimate arbiter for every question. The typical answer to any major question is, "Let's ask Barry"--that is, let's ask the boss. With the really sticky ideas, a company has told a story to people throughout the company and beyond, so that employees can make the right decisions on their own.

Dan: I would add that if your competitors think that your core statement is also true of them, then it's not good enough.

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