Hit Your Audience with a Ton of Bricks

Quick! What's the definition of "justice?"

Fine. Take your time, then.

Now, what was the jury's verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial?

Chances are, it was much easier for you to answer the second question than the first. That's because it requires different centers of your brain to process abstractions and to recall things that involved your senses.

They both deal with memory, but to paraphrase the way the authors of Made to Stick describe it,  remembering the definition of justice, unless you're a lawyer or judge, perhaps, is like trying to grasp a slippery fish, while remembering the jury's verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, to most people, is like the loops and hooks of Velcro. Your brain has the loops, and the event has the hooks.

Concreteness
Concreteness is a particularly useful principle for strategists, experience designers, or anyone charged with developing and presenting abstract information to a client, if they expect the client to remember the information later. Statistics are abstract, but necessary. How can you make your presentation of the statistics memorable and convincing?

When something can be touched, seen, tasted, or smelled, it meets the criteria for being concrete. "The size of a basketball to the size of a tennis ball" is concrete. The difference in sizes between Earth and its moon is not. A diameter of approximately 8,000 miles to a diameter of approximately 2,000 miles is not, either. At least, not without the previous comparison.

Concreteness is the principle that motivates breaking down abstractions to more tangible, relevant forms, which are typically easier to digest. Do it correctly on the front end, when you're presenting strategy for a campaign or website, and you're less likely to encounter objections about the principles on which the campaign or site are built when the time comes to present the final mechanicals, video, audio, and/or site creative. - Cam Beck