While reading 『Stick!』, which means ‘messages that stick’, I got the impression that the authors themselves strictly adhered to the principles they emphasized when writing. The six core elements of a sticky message—Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional, and Stories—ultimately converge into one core principle: “Deliver an easy, interesting, and moving story in a believable way.” Each chapter of this book illustrates memorable, rich examples, explaining how anyone can craft messages that “stick.” Aesop’s fables or McDonald’s worm burger urban legend endure because their stories are simple, concrete, and described in a way that facilitates visualization.

Applying this principle to corporate sales pitches would be highly effective. Complex solution features or benchmark figures are often forgotten after a meeting, but concrete app scenarios or user cases, being visualizable, linger in the mind. For example, describing it as “a solution enabling multiple users to sing along in unison to music accompaniment in real-time.” Marketing campaigns would also be far more engaging if they unfolded stories from unexpected angles. I thought an advertising campaign capturing the developer’s struggles in implementing real-time communication technology in vlog format could simultaneously build technical credibility and entertain.

Among the points emphasized in this book, the term **‘curse of knowledge’** particularly resonated. This refers to the error experts make when they forget that others don’t know what they know. The analogy of the design team only modifying hard-to-understand blueprints in response to the facilities team’s questions, or the American tourist speaking more slowly to a local who doesn’t understand English, was truly a knee-slapper.

Parents frantically searching only for information about famous academies to improve their children’s grades might also be a facet of the ‘curse of knowledge’. Instead of searching for cram school information, spending that time personally editing your child’s book reports or tackling math problems together would be far more concrete and direct help. That’s why I keep writing blog posts to edit my kids’ writing and continue studying Chinese on the Duolingo app to keep pace with my son learning a foreign language. Stick!