The Concreteness Effect
Translate abstract benefits into vivid, picturable language
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 88%
Ian Begg's 1972 study read students lists of concrete phrases (square door, white horse) and abstract ones (subtle truth, basic fact). Students recalled 36 percent of concrete phrases but only 9 percent of abstract ones, a fourfold difference, because, as Begg argued, vision is our most powerful sense and a picturable phrase pops into mind almost unbidden. The application for communicators is to take the abstract benefit you want to convey and translate it into concrete, visualizable language. Apple's a thousand songs in your pocket beat rivals' 215 megabytes of memory by rendering the same benefit as something you can see. A related strand from Ryan Elder shows that making a product easier to imagine using, even placing a fork on the eater's dominant side, raises purchase intent.
Origin
From Ian Begg's 1972 University of Western Ontario memory experiment on concrete versus abstract phrases, applied to marketing by Richard Shotton.
Core principles
- 01Concrete, picturable phrases are far more memorable than abstract ones
- 02Vision is the most powerful sense, so imageable language sticks
- 03Abstract benefits must be translated, not merely stated
- 04Ease of imagining the product raises purchase intent
How to run it
- 1
Name the abstract benefit
Write down the benefit you want to land, even if it is inherently abstract like capacity, speed or safety.
- 2
Find the concrete image
Ask what vivid, picturable scene captures that benefit for the customer.
Pro tip A thousand songs in your pocket makes memory visible; 215 megabytes does not.
- 3
Rewrite in visualizable language
Replace abstractions and specs with concrete nouns and scenes people can instantly picture.
Watch out Numbers and jargon read as abstract and are forgotten fast.
- 4
Ease the mental simulation
Help people imagine using and enjoying the product, since easier imagining raises purchase intent.
Pro tip Elder found a fork placed on the diner's dominant side lifted purchase intent about 30%.
- 5
Test recall and intent
Check whether the concrete version is remembered and preferred over the abstract baseline.
In the wild
Rival MP3 players advertised memory abstractly as 215 megabytes, forgettable and meaningless to shoppers. Apple conveyed the identical benefit concretely as a thousand songs in your pocket, an image people could instantly picture. The concrete phrasing made the benefit sticky and memorable where the numeric spec vanished from memory.
→ Concrete framing made Apple's capacity benefit unforgettable.
Students who heard concrete phrases like square door recalled 36 percent of them, while those hearing abstract phrases like subtle truth recalled just 9 percent. The fourfold difference, unusually large for memory research, comes from the ease of forming a mental picture.
→ Concrete phrases were remembered four times as well as abstract ones.
Common mistakes
Communicating benefits in abstractions
Stating a benefit in abstract terms or raw specs leaves it forgettable; it must be translated into a picturable image.
Leading with numbers
Figures like megabytes feel precise but read as abstract and slip out of memory, unlike a vivid concrete scene.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product marketers and communicators translating features into memorable benefits.
Not ideal for
Technical audiences who specifically need precise numeric specifications.
From the transcript
“you have to translate that abstract benefit into very concrete visualizable language”
“A thousand songs in your pocket. You can picture a pocket, that makes it sticky, that makes it memorable”
From the episode
8 Fascinating Psychological Biases - Richard Shotton - #592
Richard Shotton