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Copywriting
Tactic

Push Descriptive Words Closer to Their Referent

A chair seems softer when the words “chair” and “soft” are closer together.

Sentence says "Chair that is soft" with "that is" crossed out to signify the chair will seem softer if the word "chair" is closer to the word "soft"

Overview

You group objects that are close together:

Three equidistant rectangles are grouped as three objects, while two nearby rectangles and one far rectangles are groped as two objects

Same with words. While reading sentences, you don’t translate individual words into a mental image. You translate clusters of words.

For example, researchers tested language near a price: They placed “$199” near the phrase “high-performance.” In this arrangement, readers translated the collective entity ($199 and high) into a single image, which made the price seem higher (Coulter & Coulter, 2005).

Always consider the distance between words.

  • Customers find that the chair is comfortable.
  • Customers find the chair comfortable.

The chair seems more comfortable in the second version. Why? Because readers merge “chair” and “comfortable” into a cluster, and they translate this entity into a mental image. In the first version, these two words are separated from each other, so they generate distinct images.

  • Coulter, K. S., & Coulter, R. A. (2005). Size does matter: The effects of magnitude representation congruency on price perceptions and purchase likelihood. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(1), 64-76.