Made to Stick

What you remembered and what spoke to you was not

accidental. Your brain flagged some of the points as
important and credible while it did not do that for others.
Today we are going to learn how to create things that the
brain flags as important.
 PATHOS, ETHOS, LOGOS
• The Greek philosopher
Aristotle made the
study of what influences
people one of the
central questions of his
life, and he came up
with three answers:
pathos, ethos, and logos.
 LOGOS

• Logos is an appeal to logic

• It uses reasoning as the basis of argumentation

that has evidence to support it.

• Testable and repeatable

 PATHOS

• Pathos, n., a quality that evokes emotion

• Tends to work best when not a direct tactic

• Considered by many the strongest of the three

appeals.
 ETHOS
• Ethos, n., an appeal to ethics
or character.

• In an Ethos based rhetorical

argument, character counts.

• What characteristics are

important for a person in
an argument?
 SUCCES
An acronym used to help marketers remember what commonly persuades:

Simple

Unexpected

Concrete

Credible

Emotional

Story
 SIMPLE
Often times writers will try to give as
many ideas/arguments as possible, but
often keeping it simple is the best
approach.

A famous defensive attorney once said: “If

you argue ten points, even if each is a
good point, when [the jury] get back to
the jury room, they won’t remember any.”
 UNEXPECTED
Surprise is an emotion that is designed to automatically
increase alertness and focus. Further, when we aren’t
sure about something, we are compelled to find
answers.

This is why unexpectedness is such a potent way to

persuade.

Let’s see this in action…

 CONCRETE
Concreteness works because we connect to the
world through concrete images…
 CREDIBLE
We only open up to ideas if they seem credible.
Ideas can be credible in two ways:

They can be delivered by a credible source.

Or they can be credible on their own.

Let’s see this…

 EMOTIONAL

Our feelings often overwhelm our reason. This is why

emotion is such a powerful way to stand out and
persuade others.

Let’s see this…

 STORY
Story or Anedote is an incredibly powerful
persuasion tool. Research has found that stories are
twice as like to persuade than an argument alone.

Further, we remember 22x more from stories than

from informational text.

Let’s see that…