The Tipping Point Chapter Summary & Analysis - Chapter Three: The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, and the Educational Virus Summary

Chapter Three: The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, and the Educational Virus Summary and Analysis

According to Gladwell, stickiness measures the degree to which a product or idea stays with the audience. To illustrate this concept, the author uses Sesame Street.

Early in television's history, few people believed TV held any educational value. By its nature, viewers remain passive while watching TV. Joan Gantz Cooney, though, enlisted the help of several technology experts and child psychologists to create an educational television series that would "stick." Her motivation lay in the increasing gap in literacy levels between upper and lower class children. To that end, they slotted the hour-long show on public television stations. Stickiness, however, directly correlates with the impact of small, calculated changes. Wunderman, advertising agent for Columbia Record Club, increased the stickiness of his ads simply by drawing a link between televised and print ads when he encourages viewers to look for a treasure box in the magazine ads.

A second example of...
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