As an American, Daniel sees 3,000 ads a day. Why did he remember this one? What made it stick? And how can we replicate what made it successful in conveying our ideas to potential investors, mentors, board members, partners, and to the press?

Brothers Chip and Dan Heath wrote an entire book on the subject, titled Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (highly recommended). Their breakdown of conveying an idea unforgettably is the best I’ve seen. In fact, it’s even organized in a way that makes it hard to forget. The book is dedicated to explaining how to make use of the following 6 principles to convey an idea unforgettably. Here’s a rundown:

Principle 1: Simplicity. “A successful defense lawyers says, ‘If you argue ten points, even if each is a good point, when they get to the jury room they won’t remember any.’ To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion” (Made to Stick, p. 16). Focus on communicating one, core message. In the case of the “Got Milk?” ad above, it’s summarized in two words, clearly displayed at the end: “got milk?”

Principle 2: Unexpectedness. You hop on a plane, stow away your bags, and sit back. As you pull out of the gate, you hear the flight attendant’s voice on the intercom. This is  your cue to zone out. You’ve heard this speech a gazillion times before, so you pick up a magazine you don’t even care to read and start leafing through it. The flight attendant starts explaining the safety instructions:

If I could have your attention for a few moment, we sure would love to point out these safety features. If you haven’t been in an automobile since 1965, the proper way to fasten your seat belt is to slide the flat end into the buckle. To unfasten, lift up on the buckle and it will release. And as the song goes, there might be fifty ways to leave your lover, but there are only 6 ways to leave this aircraft: two forward exit doors, two over-wing removable window exists, and two aft exit doors. The location of each exit is clearly marked with signs over-head, as well as red and white disco lights along the floor of the aisle. Made ya look! (Made to Stick, pp. 64-65).

The flight attendant, Karen Wood in this case, grabs your attention simply because she breaks a pattern. The “Got Milk?” ad does the same thing when Mr. Miller loses his arms. Bottom line: make your pitch something your audience isn’t expecting.

Principle 3: Concreteness. Ideas need to be communicated with concrete images and with actionable statements. When I asked Daniel to describe a memorable advertisement, he said “the ad for milk where that old man’s arms get pulled out when he lifts a wheelbarrow.” That’s an image you’ll remember. What images can you paint in the mind of your audience that they can see clearly? The best example from the book: a jury is presented testimony that a mother takes good care of her son. The attorney defending the mother explains “She makes sure that her son brushes his teeth every night with his Darth Vader toothbrush.” The image of a kid using a Darth Vader toothbrush to clean his choppers resonates much more vividly with the jury than the image of conveyed by “She makes sure her son brushes his teeth every night.” And the jurors don’t forget this detail when they make their decision about the verdict.

Principle 4: Credibility. People have to believe your ideas. To gain credibility, you want your audience to be able to test your idea and see if it stands up to challenge. You can present statistics and charts, undoubtedly. But with limited time and the reputation hard numbers have for being dull, this might not always be the best approach. Dan and Chip Heath offer an excellent example of a simple statement that enabled the American public to test an idea without the use of figures. During the 1980 presidential race, Ronald Reagan could have used innumberable statistics to demonstrate that the incumbent President Carter’s economic policies had made things worse. He allowed voters to test his point for themselves by saying, “Before you vote, ask yourself if you are better off today than you were four years ago” (Made to Stick, p. 16).

Principle 5: Emotions. You want people to care about your ideas. If they care about you and care about what you’re trying to do, they won’t forget. In order to get them to care, you need to make them feel something. Statistics don’t do a good job of evoking actionable emotions. Usually, it’s one person’s story that does. One speech I will never forget from The Feast Conference a week and a half ago was delivered by Brian Bordainick, who concluded his relentlessly energetic speech with this sentiment: “I promise you one thing. We’ll either cross the finish line or I will collapse on the floor damn near trying.” People felt inspired. He got a standing ovation.

Principle 6: Stories. Back in Homer’s day, when there were no written scripts, knowledge was handed down from generation to generation in the form of stories. Why? Because they’re unbelievably memorable. Tell a story, particularly a personal one, and people will have a hard time forgetting. Even the “Got Milk?” ad above tells a short story with a memorable plot that drives home the core message. When was the last time you heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood? Probably not nearly as recently as you read the New York Times. Which do you remember better?

SUCCESs! Incidentally, the 6 principles outlined above fit the simple acronym “SUCCESs.” You won’t forget these 6 principles and if you use them, your audience won’t soon be forgetting you.

Each week, the amount a donor can give to any single entrepreneur on the marketplace is capped. The first week, this cap is $10, the second week it’s $50, the third week it’s $100, and so on (until the last two weeks, when there is no maximum contribution limit). This means entrepreneurs will have to galvanize the support of hundreds of people from around the world to raise the full amount and earn a seat at the Unreasonable Institute.

So this post includes our 5 tips for reaching hundreds of people and enlisting their support, based on our experience attracting applicants (almost 700 young entrepreneurs from 50 countries began applications before we ran our first Institute).

1) Maximize Your Strengths. Galvanizing the support of hundreds require you take full advantage of all the assets at your disposal. Let’s consider, as an example, a compelling concern one of our finalists raised on the phone with me this morning. She’d just run a fundraising campaign over the holidays and asked hundreds of donors for financial contributions. She understandably feels it’s inappropriate to ask them for funding yet again to raise $6,500. I totally agree. However, this donor base is not only a source of money, but also an incredible marketing base! Instead of emailing these donors to ask for contributions, this finalist should do the exact opposite. She might email them saying “Please do NOT make a contribution. Instead, tell five people you know about the opportunity to sponsor our venture on the Unreasonable Finalist Marketplace.” This strategy makes sense considering that an entrepreneur on Kickstarter (the online fundraising marketplace that inspired our marketplcae) receives the majority of her funding from contacts of her contacts. You might be surprised how many ways you can leverage your assets!

2) Find the Hubs. As a young startup, the Unreasonable Institute lacks a number of important assets including a credible brand and a proven track record. But in the 6 weeks our applications were open, nearly 700 young social entrepreneurs from countries like Mauritania, Benin, and Serbia, began applications to attend our ten-week summer institute. As much as we’d like to, we can’t take credit for getting the word out to so many applicants. Instead, all the recognition goes to our partners, organizations and individuals around the world that are trusted hubs for young social entrepreneurs (i.e. places social entrepreneurs already go to). These organizations, including Ashoka Changemakers, SocialEdge, and Change.org, helped us to market to their networks by tweeting, blogging, and emailing on our behalf. In total, our 28 partners spread information about our applications to well over 100,000 people. Targeting individuals with vast networks, organizations like the ones we mentioned above, local websites, meet-up groups, communities and blogs where the people you want to attract already go will lay the foundation for your viral call to arms!

3) Give Them the Tools to Market For You. To make it easy for our partners to spread the word about our applications, we did all the hard work for them. We sent them short blurbs they could email their networks word-for-word, 120-character tweets they could post on their accounts, materials (e.g. our logo, video, and diagrams) they could use to blog, and banners they could embed in their websites. By simplifying outreach for our partners, we also opened the door for their networks to spread the word. In fact, 42% of our applicants heard about us from organizations and people we’d never directly contacted (further evidence for Kickstarter’s observation that friends of friends provide the most support). The easier your message is to spread, the more it will.

4) Create a Sense of Urgency. According to John Kotter, author of the aptly titled A Sense of Urgency, any effort to create change is doomed without getting people to see and feel a need for change. Why should people sponsor you to attend the Unreasonable Institute? Because if you are one of the first 25 Finalists to raise $6,500 you receive rigorous entrepreneurial skill training, seed capital, mentorship from 50 seasoned entrepreneurs and investors, legal advice, prototype consulting, web development, a global support network, and the chance to pitch your venture to over 200 investors and philanthropists. No big deal. Oh, and you only have 50 days to edge out the competition!  Including specific goals and deadlines for action also incentivizes your supporters to move quickly (e.g. “Help us reach our goal of raising $500 by Friday by being one of 10 donors to give us $50!”).

5) Make the Ask. According to Dan Zarrella’s blog post 5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter, the tweets that are most often re-tweeted (shared by other twitter users with their networks) include a request to be retweeted. Similarly, your contacts are more likely to help if you make a request of them that is (1) easily actionable and (2) “sticky.” (1) An actionable request includes specifics. For example, instead of asking people to spread the word about Unreasonable Institute applications, we asked them to get one person they know to apply. (2) In order for people to act, they have to remember your request. According to the book Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath, making your request memorable, or “sticky,” is best done through a Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional Story (SUCCESs). Check out our blog post on the subject for more details on how to nail these six principles.

So What? Catalyzing collective action is a vital skill for any successful entrepreneur, Unreasonable Institute Finalist or not. These five key strategies enabled us at the Unreasonable Institute to find our amazing 42 Finalists! We hope you find them useful as well! We’d love to hear other suggestions for rallying support in the comments section below!

One Actionable Request - Go back to the top of this blog post and retweet it. Not only do we advise you on what to do to mobilize hundreds of people, we also offer an example of what not to do. Never ever write a blog post this long. Do, however, communicate its core message in 140 characters or less by retweeting it!

Oh, and always say “Thank You”…thank you!