Specificity: One Way to Memorable Content

If bad weather were approaching, which words would you remember better in a few days? "The sky looks weird." Or: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” (William Gibson, Neuromancer). Or, which sentence would you remember more: "Ambition is the strong desire to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work" or "ambition is a ladder to the sky"? Specifics are memorable because they mobilize the brain. When carefully chosen, they attract attention and ignite our senses, which leads to stronger memories.

Specifics also help us provide credibility by anchoring our content into reality. For example, one of Brad Pitt's missions for his Make It Right foundation was to provide residents in the New Orleans area with "50 affordable, LEED Platinum rental units and community amenities, including an auditorium, gym, computer lab and gardens." Specificity also sets our message apart from hundreds of other messages that sound the same way; and distinction leads to better recall. Compare Pitt's message with a generic, "we want to build sustainable homes and communities for people in need."

Even though we intuitively know the importance of specifics to memory, as a culture, we've gotten so accustomed to using generic words. Are you noticing the same thing? Too tired to come up with something fresh, we revert to telegraphic language. Most things these days seem to be "great," "interesting," "mind-boggling," "amazing," or "awesome."

Why parrot lazy, generic language when we live life in non-generic terms?

So how do we move away from the generic? To learn, we must get Naked.

Naked is a juice brand that knows how to attract attention with specificity. When you read the details on the Naked Blue Machine, for example, you know that it contains exactly “27 blueberries, 3 blackberries, 3 and 1/3 apples, and 1 banana. […] No added sugar, no preservatives, no inhibitions.” This has the potential to impact memory better than simply advertising a “unique, delicious, refreshing” drink.  

Offering stats about your product may be a first natural step in stating specifics, especially for fields prone to stats, such as high tech, healthcare or finance. The best stats are those that help customers build mental pictures (we can see "3 blackberries" in the juice description above), and resonate with an audience. As I am writing this, an article popped on another screen, with the title, "If you want to be four years late, and $60 million over budget, outsourcing key IT projects is a good idea." I had to click because the specifics intrigued me. Someone in the tech industry might picture these stats easily, but maybe not someone who owns a small bakery.

Here are two other techniques I use when I consult with clients on how to move from generics to specifics, and impact an audience's memory.

Zoom into the value you offer. And zoom again.

For inspiration, pick up a menu at a local restaurant that takes business seriously. A menu writer knows how to combine the name of the dish, the ingredients, and the "sell" copy: "Chicken Pot Pie – Roast chicken, baby carrots, spring peas topped with grandma’s flakey pie crust." Most businesses stop at the "name of the dish" and the ingredients: "Statistical Analysis Software – Analyze customer data, monitor supply chain operations, and apply powerful statistical analysis to all your data."

To get to the "sell copy," find what is uniquely you and describe that in detail. For example, a restaurant that really wants to differentiate its pork chops may start with a large category and zoom a few times into something specific, tied to quality.

Pork Chops > Midwest Pork Chops > Iowa Pork Chops > Muscatine, Iowa, Pork Chops

Let's apply this progression to the visual analytics space – a hot field these days.

Visual Analytics > Data Discovery with Visual Analytics > Deeper Understanding in Data Discovery with Visual Analytics

This progression indicates that a good visual analytics program does not just give you pretty pictures, it enables you to explore data in a visual format and understand it better.

The value in the example above is zoomed in, but it is still abstract. How do we help an audience build a concrete mental picture of "deeper understanding in data discovery with visual analytics"? Imagine someone said, "We used TIBCO's visual analytics platform in the fashion industry to analyze 200 million customer transactions across 500 stores to find out how to boost merchandizing and improve store operations." In this case, the concept of visual analytics is made easier to remember because we can picture customers, stores, and merchandise, a lot better than abstract phrases such as "deep understanding."

Take an ordinary word and give it a fresh application

I remember hearing this writing advice once: "starve the adjectives and feed the verbs." This helps us add energy to our messages and make them punchier. Notice how using familiar words in unusual way leads to a stronger sensory experience and catches attention more than faded language.

“The company is hemorrhaging money.”

“We scissored the competition.”

“We cratered the deal.”

How do you know whether the language you’re using is specific and has good impact on an audience? “It’s like dating,” writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal says. “Some sentences, no matter how well-dressed or nice, just don’t do it for me. Others I click with instantly. It could be something as simple yet weirdly potent as a single word choice (tangerine). We’re meant to be, that sentence and me. And when it happens, you just know.” What specific words could you share with an audience in the beginning of a pitch–words that instill such good chemistry, they would want to take them on a date?

Carmen Simon, PhD, is the founder of Memzy and author of Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions. She works with business professionals to help them create memorable messages, and teaches workshops on brain science for business communication.