Chapter 3. The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue’s Clues, and the Educational Virus
1.What is “the stickiness factor”? "The stickiness factor" is to make something presented, memorable.
2.What makes something “sticky”? What makes something sticky is the simple changes in a presentation and structuring of information which will make a big difference in how much of an inpact it makes.
3.What is direct marketing? What makes for a successful campaign? Direct marketing is an interactive system of marketing which uses one or more advertising media to effect a measurable response and/or transaction at any location.
A successful campaign is getting consumers to stop, read the advertisement, remember it, and then act on it.
4.What is the “gold box” that Lester Wunderman used so effectively? The "gold box" that Lester Wunderman used so effectively was a kind of trigger. It gave viewers a reason to look for the ads in TV Guide and Parade. Wunderman, with the gold box, made the reader/viewer part of an interactive advertising system. With the gold box every magazine on the schedule made a profit.
5.What changes did she and her team make in order for the show to work? In order for the show to work she used live animation as well as celebrities and they used techniques from catchy commercials.
6.Compare and contrast Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues. Compare: Both shows elicit a lot of interaction from kids. Another thing Blue's Clues took from Sesame Street was the idea of repetition. They both are a medium for education.
Contrast: Every episode of Blue's Clues is constructed the same way. Blue's Clues is 1/2 hour long while Sesame Street is 1 hour long. Sesame Street has an ensemble cast while Blue's Clues has just one live actor.
7.What is the Distracter? The Distracter was Palmer's innovation. He would play an episode of Sesame Street on a television monitor, and then run a slide show on a screen next to it, showing a new slide every seven and a half seconds. Preschoolers would be told to watch the television show and Palmer and his assistants quietly noting when the kids were watching Sesame Street and when they lost interest and looked instead at the slide show. By the end of the show they had an account of what parts of the episode managed to hold the viewers atention and what parts did now. The Distracter was a stickiness machine.
8.What is The James Earl Jones Effect? The James Earl Jones effect is the idea of learning through repetition.
