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AcademicJournal of the Association for Consumer Research, 10 Mar 2026

Concrete wording kept word-of-mouth topics going longer

Positioning & messaging

Reader Note:
Here, concrete means specific and easy to picture rather than abstract.
Evidence:
Observed behaviour
Vendor interest:
None
Sample:
Two conversation studies with people who already knew each other: study 1 had 192 participants in 96 pairs; study 2 had 222 participants and 125 conversations. Samples were mostly young adults and majority female.

Good for

Comparing yourself against a similar segment, and choosing what to test next.

Not for

  • Saying that one thing caused another, or predicting what you would get.
  • This was measured in one market. It may not hold where you are.
  • The source never says when this data was collected. It could be considerably older than the publication date suggests.

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Concrete wording kept word of mouth going | Stacy's Brain