Making your idea emotional simply means that it needs to tap into something people care about.
A frequently used technique is to talk about the consequences of ideas for individuals. When 18-month-old Jessica McClure fell into an old well in her aunt’s back yard in 1987, there was around the clock coverage. The world could not get enough of the story. It even spawned a TV movie called “Everybody’s Baby.” However, when 301 people died in a mine explosion in 2014, nobody even remembered it a year later. The reason the first story was so sensational is Jessica was a single individual that we could care about. In the second story, the miners were just a statistic.
To make people care, you can use the power of association. For example, many ads associate products with status or sex appeal which everyone cases about. White Diamonds perfume by Elizabeth Taylor associates a perfume with both riches and sex appeal. Diamonds are clearly associated with wealth (status) and Elizabeth Taylor is a seductive and alluring character to men (sex appeal) because she had been married to so many powerful and influential husbands.
Another common way to make people care is to appeal to their self-interest by telling them what’s in it for them.
How can you make your idea sticky by making it more emotional?
