All comparisonsVS
Made to Stick
Chip Heath, Dan Heath
Contagious
Jonah Berger
Made to Stick
Chip Heath, Dan Heath
- Pages
- 291
- Focus
- Why some ideas survive and others die, distilled into six principles β Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories β that make any message memorable.
- Best for
- Anyone who needs to communicate ideas that people actually remember β teachers, marketers, executives, founders pitching investors.
- Style
- Practical
Contagious
Jonah Berger
- Pages
- 256
- Focus
- Why things go viral, broken into six drivers of sharing β Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, Stories β backed by academic research.
- Best for
- Marketers and product builders who want to understand why people share certain things and engineer word-of-mouth into their products.
- Style
- Scientific
Similarities
- Both identify exactly six principles of what makes ideas spread, and both use the acronym approach β SUCCESs for Heath, STEPPS for Berger β as a memorable framework
- Both emphasize emotion and storytelling as core drivers, arguing that facts alone never move people to act or share
- Both are filled with vivid case studies β from urban legends to viral YouTube videos β that practice what they preach about making ideas stick
Differences
- Made to Stick is about making ideas memorable inside someone's head β comprehension and retention; Contagious is about making ideas spread between people β sharing and word-of-mouth
- The Heaths draw from cognitive psychology and education research; Berger draws from social psychology and marketing experiments he ran at Wharton
- Made to Stick spends significant time on the Curse of Knowledge β why experts can't communicate simply β which is absent from Contagious; Berger focuses on triggers and social currency, concepts Made to Stick doesn't cover
Our Verdict
Read Made to Stick first. If people don't remember your idea, it doesn't matter whether they share it. The SUCCESs framework is more foundational and applies to everything from presentations to product messaging. Then read Contagious when you're ready to engineer virality. They complement each other perfectly.
Read both: 9 hours