Sticking out: Giving Your Messages a Chance to Be Heard in the Age of Information Overload

Background:  One of the hardest jobs any health department faces is getting people to listen to and act on advice that will improve their health.   People will seek treatment when they start to feel sick, but typically zone out preventive health messaging. We need to adapt and understand that the public is consuming information differently now than they were ten years ago. In a society that relies less on radio, television, and print and is now bombarded with nearly instant information via flashy new media –  the key question facing public health leaders is: how do you get your messages to stick?

Program background:  The concept of “sticky” communication was introduced in the bestselling book, Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath. The book describes highly successful communication campaigns and analyzes what made them memorable and actionable.  Communications, as it turns out, is more likely to stick if it is simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and a story – in other words, a SUCCESs. From routine press releases, to PSAs, to major campaigns, the Gaston County Health Department doesn’t issue messages unless they are “sticky.” So instead of listing behaviors that are good for Gaston County residents, they tell stories about people who are healthy – or unhealthy – through certain behaviors. Instead of listing reasons for teens to take the H1N1 flu vaccine, they produced a PSA that told a funny story about a kid who lost his girlfriend when he refused to get the shot. Instead of droning on about obesity data , community members hear an engaging story about a rampant epidemic infecting 2/3 of U.S. adults that is only later identified as obesity. In this session, Gaston County Health Director Colleen Bridger, PhD, MPH, will discuss her health department’s early success in adopting and applying “sticky” communications, and how it has changed their approach to public communication.  Bridger will explain the core concepts behind the book Made to Stick and explore "sticky" public health-related examples. To test their comprehension and get a feel for the process, session attendees will participate in some hands-on exercises to help them design “stickier” messages and will leave with a toolkit to help them apply this framework back in the office.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The Gaston County Health Department and a communications professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte recently conducted an experimental design study to determine whether a “sticky” message would be a more effective call to action than a routine, traditional message. Preliminary results show promise that the “sticky” message was more effective.

Conclusions:  The application of sticky communication in this setting holds great promise. Some of the most successful and well-known communications campaigns of all time have been “sticky” messages. The messages of public health are important enough to make “sticky” communications the way we do business.

Implications for research and/or practice: This session will present a process for state and local health departments to adopt the SUCCESs model in their everyday work, to make their important messages “sticky.”