Made to Stick

Every few years the media go frothy over shark at-
tacks. Shark attacks, however, remain extremely rare and do not vary
much from one year to the next. So why do they consume so much
media and public attention? The answer is that shark attacks spawn
terrifying, dream-haunting stories like the following, from The Oprah
Winfrey Show:
O
PRAH
: Bethany Hamilton loved to ride the waves. Surfing daily
since she was 8 years old, Bethany was such a phenom, people
said she had salt water running through her veins. At the young
age of 13, Bethany was a rising star on the surfing circuit and had
become a local celebrity, but what happened next landed
Bethany in headlines around the world.
It was early morning. Bethany was in the ocean lying on her
board with her arm dangling in the water. Suddenly, a deadly fif-
teen-foot tiger shark seized her arm. Violently, he jerked and
yanked it until her arm was ripped right off of her small body. Sec-
onds later the shark and her entire arm were gone, and Bethany
was left alone on her board surrounded by bloody water.
Imagine that you are forced to combat these vivid stories. Maybe
you’re the publicity director of the Save the Sharks Foundation, or
maybe you’re trying to convince your junior high school daughter
that it’s okay to go to the beach. How do you do it? You’ve got the
truth on your side—attacks are very rare—but that’s no guarantee
that people will believe you. So what source of credibility do you
tap to get people to believe you?
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M A D E   T O   S T I C K

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• • •
M E S S AG E   1 :  
We based this message on statistics published by the
Florida Museum of Natural History:
You’re more likely to drown on a beach in an area protected by 
a lifeguard than you are to be attacked by a shark, much less killed
by one. In the United States in 2000, twelve people died in lifeguard-
protected areas. There were no fatalities from sharks. (In a typical
year there are only 0.4 fatalities.)
C O M M E N T S   O N   M E S S AG E   1 :  
This is okay but not great. This message
taps internal credibility—the credibility of hard statistics. We have two
comments: First, drowning does not seem like the right comparison
to make, because many people may think drowning is a common
cause of death. “Drowning is more common than shark attacks”
does not feel particularly unexpected. (And maybe we’re too skepti-
cal, but the presence of the college-student lifeguard never struck us
as an ironclad guarantee of safety.) Second, the statistical compari-
son—12 deaths versus 0.4—is good, but it isn’t particularly vivid or
meaningful on a human scale. It’s unlikely that anyone would re-
member these numbers a week later.
• • •
M E S S AG E   2 :  
This message is also based on statistics published by the
Florida Museum of Natural History:
Which of these animals is more likely to kill you?
A SHARK
A DEER
A N S W E R :
The deer is more likely to kill you. In fact, it’s 300
times more likely to kill you (via a collision with your car).
C R E D I B L E
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C O M M E N T S   O N   M E S S AG E   2 :  
We like the unexpected idea that Bambi is
more dangerous than the evil shark, followed by the doubly unex-
pected statistic that Bambi is wildly more dangerous (300 times more
deadly!). It’s absurd to the point of being funny, and humor is a nice
antidote to the fear generated by shark-attack stories. In a sense, we’re
fighting emotional associations with emotional associations (see the
next chapter).
This message taps internal credibility with the statistic, but it also
taps into the audience as a source of credibility. People in the audience
know how much they fear deer when they’re driving around—i.e., not
much. Few of us are afraid to go out in the evening on account of lurk-
ing deer. We know that we don’t fear deer, so why should we fear
sharks? (This is more effective than comparing shark attacks with
drowning—after all, most of us have at least a mild fear of drowning.)
S C O R E C A R D