The idea behind the “Made to Stick” chapter called “Credibility” is that readers are trained to be skeptical about where there information comes from, and we as writers must find ways to give our writing more authority. The Heaths talk about a few different techniques for giving your message more credibility: external validation, statistics, testable credentials and using examples that pass the “Sinatra Test.” An example passes the Sinatra Test when one example alone is enough to establish credibility in a given domain.

External validation is a nice way of adding credibility to your message; especially if that person giving the validation is an antiauthority. An antiauthority is a person who you would not expect to serve as a spokes person; for example, a woman dying of lung cancer doing an anti-smoking ad instead of a traditional authority like a doctor or nurse.

Statistics are also a good way to increase the credibility of your ideas. Statistics are concrete and easy to understand (e.g. you are 25 percent more likely to eat a hot dog today than a corn dog). People like statistics because they add authority to the message, and no matter who did the study, most people take the numbers to be true.

As public relations professionals we must be able to add effectively add credibility to our message so that people will not assume every press release or media advisory is just a cheap sales ploy in disguise.