Gladwell talks a lot about how things become popular and successful, while others do not. One thing he brings up is called the "stickiness factor." The stickiness factor is what makes something stick with people and makes it memorable. When something sticks with the public, it becomes more successful because it is memorable. People will know what it is- if they don't or don't remember what your product is, they won't feel compelled to buy your product. Gladwell also says that an element of this "stickiness" is that it is often different than the conventional. This makes sense because when something is different, it will most likely be remembered more than something that is the same as everything else. People want things that haven't been done before or that are different in some way than the conventional product. Gladwell proves this point further by exploring TV for children over a few decades.
One major example Gladwell used was Sesame Street. This children's show does an excellent job at improving a child's literacy and the way they do this is that they held the attention of children. If a show is able to do that, they will keep the child engaged and actually help them learn. Because children get distracted easily, they also tried to incorporate things into the show to help a child not get distracted. This can be seen by the many different characters and constant changing scenes to keep the kid engaged in the show. Gladwell also points out that Blues Clues later used many of the same techniques as Sesame Street, which resulted in studies of how TV shows can significantly improve a child's literacy.
It is important to have this "stickiness factor" because without it, nothing would be different and products wouldn't become successful. Sesame Street has been successful for so many years and that's because not only did it keep the child engaged, but it also taught the child, making it a win win situation. In order to make your product successful, you need to propose something different that allows the public to remember it.
Do you think that this is an obvious point or an insightful one? I'm not sure. Lots of books have been written about stickiness recently, and I'm not sure if they are saying anything new or if they are really on to something. Perhaps the focus on strategies for making things stick is what's new and important.
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