When it pays to be clear: the appeal of concrete communication under uncertainty

Abstract

This research demonstrates that the persuasiveness of concrete versus abstract communication in advertisers’ promotional messages depends on how (un)certain people feel. Three lab experiments and one study conducted in a natural setting provide converging evidence that uncertainty (versus certainty) increases the appeal of products advertised concretely (i.e. more specific, tangible, less open to interpretation) rather than abstractly, while keeping content similar. We demonstrate the effect across different types of uncertainty, product ads and slogans, three different languages, and a range of products, increasing the external validity of the findings. The results indicate that the effectiveness of concrete communication is critically determined by the level of (un)certainty people experience, which provides important insights for advertisers and communication officers.

Keywords:

• Uncertainty
• language concreteness
• persuasive communication
• advertising context

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Marijn Hollema and Elena Staneva for assistance in data collection, and Jiska Eelen and Peeter Verlegh for their constructive comments on a previous version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The crucial sentences inducing uncertainty versus certainty are presented. Full materials are available upon request. Translated from German.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Femke van Horen

Femke van Horen (Ph.D. Tilburg University, the Netherlands) is an associate professor of marketing at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her expertise is in the area of consumer psychology, and her research focuses on the effectiveness of product imitation and contextual influences on advertising and consumer behavior.

Michaela Wänke

Michaela Wänke (Ph.D. University of Mannheim) is full professor of consumer and economic psychology at University of Mannheim. Her research focuses on processes that influence human thinking, judgement and decision-making in the context of advertising and political psychology.

Thomas Mussweiler

Thomas Mussweiler, (Ph.D. University of Trier) is full professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. His interests include trust and cooperation, judgment and decision making, negotiation and social influence.