Ad Message Concreteness

Abstract

The Ad Message Concreteness scale is a specialized psychometric and experimental measurement instrument designed to assess the degree to which an advertising message is perceived as delineating specific, tangible, and functionally operative mechanisms of a product or service, as opposed to high-level, generalized, or abstract benefits. Methodologically refined by Yael Shani-Feinstein, Ellie J. Kyung, and Jacob Goldenberg (2022) in their investigation of how perceived physical and cognitive speed modulates mental representation and downstream decision-making, the measure is adapted from foundational low-construal advertising metrics developed by DaHee Han, Adam Duhachek, and Nidhi Agrawal (2016). Grounded in Construal Level Theory (CLT) and Action Identification Theory, the instrument operationalizes the continuum spanning concrete (subordinate, feasibility-oriented, context-rich) to abstract (superordinate, desirability-focused, context-independent) semantic framing. Typically deployed as a multi-item semantic differential or tightly focused Likert-type scale, it assesses dimensions including subordinate means versus superordinate ends, explicit usage execution versus broad aspirational claims, and contextual specificity versus generalized categorization. Across consumer psychology, marketing communications, and behavioral decision research, the scale exhibits high internal consistency (with reported Cronbach’s α coefficients regularly exceeding .85 to .91) and robust construct validity, functioning as a vital manipulation check and diagnostic indicator. This article provides a comprehensive academic analysis of the scale’s theoretical foundations, structural dimensions, psychometric properties, experimental applications, and administrative protocols.

Keywords

Ad Message Concreteness, Construal Level Theory, Psychological Distance, Action Identification Theory, Message Framing, Low-Construal Advertising, Feasibility vs Desirability, Consumer Psychology, Manipulation Check, Mental Representation, Behavioral Decision Making, Semantic Differential Scale

Authors

The contemporary operationalization of the Ad Message Concreteness scale in consumer research was established by:

• Yael Shani-Feinstein — Department of Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel; Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Her research focuses on consumer judgment, sensory perception, and the cognitive consequences of physical and perceptual dynamics.
• Ellie J. Kyung — Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA; formerly Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA. Her scholarship examines mental representation, temporal cognition, survey design, and consumer decision processes.
• Jacob Goldenberg — Arison School of Business, Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel; Visiting Professor of Marketing, Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. He is widely recognized for his work on creativity templates, viral marketing, social network dynamics, and consumer innovation.

The instrument directly adapts and builds upon the low-level construal and message-framing paradigms formalized by:

• DaHee Han — Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
• Adam Duhachek — Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA; Department of Marketing, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
• Nidhi Agrawal — Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Ad Message Concreteness scale is to quantify receiver perceptions of the specificity, tangibility, and procedural focus embedded within commercial, public health, or organizational communications. In contemporary marketing communication and applied behavioral science, promotional appeals are rarely homogeneous in their semantic architecture; rather, they vary widely in whether they highlight the granular, functional “how” of product utilization or the expansive, value-expressive “why” of ultimate consumption. The scale provides an objective psychometric index to determine where along this abstract-concrete continuum a given communication falls.

In empirical research, the scale fulfills two indispensable functions: serving as a rigorous manipulation check in experimental designs and acting as an independent or mediating variable in field investigations of consumer response. When experimental researchers manipulate message construal (e.g., contrasting advertisements detailing specific operational protocols with those championing broad identity-enhancing values), the Ad Message Concreteness scale verifies that participants perceive the stimuli according to the intended theoretical variation without introducing unintended confounds such as message clarity, aesthetic appeal, or informational credibility. Shani-Feinstein et al. (2022), for instance, deployed the scale across pretests to verify that manipulated ad stimuli differed exclusively in descriptive concreteness while controlling for perceived quality and valence.

Beyond experimental calibration, the scale serves critical theoretical and applied functions across organizational communication, public health messaging, and clinical behavior change interventions:

• Preventative Health Interventions: Quantifying whether intervention materials articulate granular, concrete behavioral steps (e.g., specific dietary tracking procedures or tangible vaccination logistics) versus overarching wellness ideals, enabling researchers to predict adherence based on temporal and psychological proximity.
• Marketing Communications Diagnostics: Assessing how the alignment between advertising concreteness and consumer mindsets (e.g., near vs. distant temporal horizons, rapid vs. deliberate cognitive pacing) optimizes consumer engagement, brand recall, and purchase intent.
• Financial Decision-Making and Risk Communication: Disentangling how concrete descriptions of fiscal strategies influence risk perception compared to abstract projections of wealth accumulation.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the Ad Message Concreteness scale resides at the intersection of cognitive representation, linguistics, and information processing. Within cognitive psychology, message concreteness is defined as the extent to which verbal or visual stimuli evoke tangible, sensory-based mental representations that depict explicit exemplars, mechanisms, and localized contexts, rather than decontextualized, schematic, or superordinate concepts. The scale evaluates three primary sub-dimensions that characterize concrete versus abstract mental representations:

1. Contextual Specificity vs. Decontextualized Generalization

This dimension evaluates the degree to which an advertisement anchors its claims in localized, temporally and spatially defined contexts. A highly concrete ad delineates precisely where, when, and under what environmental conditions an offering is deployed (e.g., “Apply this gel to your wrists and temples thirty minutes before bed in a darkened room”). Conversely, an abstract message presents decontextualized propositions that transcend situational boundaries (e.g., “Achieve serene relaxation and restorative wellness”). Concrete representations are characterized by rich contextual detail that restricts cognitive elaboration to bounded, realistic scenarios, minimizing subjective ambiguity.

2. Subordinate Means (Mechanisms) vs. Superordinate Ends (Goals)

Rooted in hierarchical models of human action, this facet distinguishes between the procedural operationalization of an act (“how”) and its overarching purpose or teleological value (“why”). Concrete ad messaging illuminates the subordinate means—the specific functional attributes, physiological mechanics, or algorithmic features that execute a task. For example, describing an automobile in terms of its “radar-guided autonomous emergency braking system with dual pedestrian detection cameras” represents a subordinate operationalization. In contrast, an abstract appeal emphasizes superordinate ends, such as “complete peace of mind and protection for your loved ones.” The scale captures the cognitive salience of functional feasibility over aspirational desirability.

3. Tangible Feature Delineation vs. Value-Expressive Ambiguity

This sub-dimension reflects the linguistic and semantic tangibility of the assertions. Tangible messaging employs precise nouns, quantifiable benchmarks, and sensory-motor imagery (e.g., “constructed from 100% recycled aerospace-grade aluminum, weighing 142 grams”). Value-expressive messaging relies on subjective, evaluative adjectives and holistic conceptual categories (e.g., “crafted for revolutionary elegance and sustainability”). Tangible features stimulate direct perceptual simulations, whereas value-expressive language requires higher-order cognitive processing and inferential abstraction.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical foundation of the Ad Message Concreteness scale is primarily anchored in Construal Level Theory (CLT), pioneered by Nira Liberman and Yaacov Trope (1998, 2003, 2010), alongside the classic principles of Action Identification Theory formulated by Robin R. Vallacher and Daniel M. Wegner (1987).

Construal Level Theory posits that psychological distance—traversing temporal, spatial, social, and hypothetical dimensions—systematically dictates how individuals mentally represent objects, events, and communications. When psychological distance is high (e.g., events occurring in the distant future, in remote geographies, involving dissimilar outgroup members, or characterized by low probability), individuals rely on high-level construals. High-level construals are abstract, schematic, decontextualized, and organized around superordinate goals, focusing on the “why” of an action and its primary desirability. Conversely, when psychological distance is low (e.g., events taking place immediately, locally, involving the self, or characterized by high certainty), individuals deploy low-level construals. Low-level construals are concrete, unstructured, highly contextualized, and focused on subordinate means, elucidating the “how” of an action and its operational feasibility.

Within this architecture, advertising messages do not merely transmit factual claims; they actively prime or align with specific mental construal levels. An ad that describes concrete usage mechanisms naturally aligns with low-level construals. Research by Han, Duhachek, and Agrawal (2016) demonstrated that matching the construal level of an ad message (concrete vs. abstract) to the consumer’s emotional state (e.g., guilt vs. shame, which embody differing psychological distances) enhances processing fluency and persuasive efficacy.

Extending this framework, Shani-Feinstein, Kyung, and Goldenberg (2022) introduced the concept of cognitive velocity and perceptual speed. They demonstrated that perceived physical or mental speed alters an individual’s psychological distance: fast perceived movement causes individuals to focus on broader, high-level patterns (abstract construals), whereas slow movement promotes meticulous attention to local, granular details (concrete construals). Consequently, the Ad Message Concreteness scale was employed to ensure that the ad stimuli precisely targeted the low-level construal baseline, allowing the authors to isolate the interaction between perceived speed, message framing, and consumer willingness to pay.

Validity

The Ad Message Concreteness scale exhibits robust construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity across diverse empirical investigations in marketing and applied psychology.

Construct and Content Validity

Content validity was established through rigorous theoretical derivation from CLT literature. Items were designed to directly map onto the low-level construal characteristics identified by Trope and Liberman (2010), specifically focusing on whether the message details concrete operational steps versus abstract conceptual outcomes. In pretests conducted by Han et al. (2016) and subsequent adaptations by Shani-Feinstein et al. (2022), expert evaluations and cognitive debriefing confirmed that respondents interpreted the continuum precisely as a delineation between explicit functional mechanics and high-level thematic values.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been repeatedly demonstrated through significant correlations with established construal metrics. Scores on the Ad Message Concreteness scale correlate positively and significantly with:

• The Behavioral Identification Form (BIF; Vallacher & Wegner, 1989) when applied to message evaluation tasks, where respondents rating an ad as high in concreteness also categorize consumer behaviors using lower-level, mechanistic descriptions (mean r values ranging from .48 to .62, p < .001).
• Measures of perceived product feasibility (as opposed to desirability), exhibiting strong positive associations (r > .55).
• Objective linguistic counts of concrete nouns and sensory descriptors calculated via automated text analysis tools such as the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) concreteness dictionary (r > .60).

Discriminant Validity

The scale effectively discriminates perceived concreteness from conceptually distinct communicative attributes. In empirical pretests (e.g., Shani-Feinstein et al., 2022; Han et al., 2016), concrete and abstract ad stimuli were deliberately held constant on several potential confounding variables:

• Message Clarity / Comprehensibility: While concrete and abstract ads differed markedly on the concreteness scale (e.g., M_concrete = 5.82 vs. M_abstract = 2.41, t > 12.0, p < .001), they exhibited no significant difference in perceived clarity, comprehensibility, or cognitive difficulty (ps > .25).
• Affective Valence and Liking: The scale demonstrates minimal correlation with general ad liking, aesthetic appeal, or message pleasantness (average r < .12, non-significant), demonstrating that message concreteness operates independently of hedonic evaluation.
• Perceived Brand Quality: Cross-loadings and average variance extracted (AVE) analyses consistently satisfy the Fornell-Larcker criterion, confirming that ad concreteness is statistically distinct from brand competence or product luxury perceptions.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Predictive validity is evidenced by the scale’s sensitivity to situational framing effects and its ability to forecast consumer decision outcomes. In alignment with CLT predictions, ads scoring high on the concreteness scale generate higher purchase intentions, willingness to pay, and brand attitudes when consumers operate under near temporal horizons (e.g., immediate consumption), low psychological distance, or slow perceptual speed conditions (Shani-Feinstein et al., 2022). Conversely, when individuals are oriented toward distant future horizons or high speeds, ads scoring lower on concreteness (i.e., higher on abstraction) reliably outperform concrete appeals.

Reliability

The Ad Message Concreteness scale exhibits high internal consistency and measurement reliability across varied experimental samples, product categories (e.g., durable goods, consumer packaged goods, digital software services), and demographic groups.

Internal Consistency

Across the experimental pretests and main studies reported by Shani-Feinstein et al. (2022), the multi-item scale adapted from Han et al. (2016) demonstrated uniformly strong Cronbach’s alpha (α) coefficients:

• Pretest 1 (Consumer Tech Stimuli): Cronbach’s α = .88
• Pretest 2 (Health & Wellness Services): Cronbach’s α = .91
• Baseline Calibration Samples: Composite reliability (ρ_c) = .89; McDonald’s omega (ω) = .89

In the foundational investigations by Han, Duhachek, and Agrawal (2016), the original item sets measuring low-construal message attributes consistently yielded internal reliability coefficients ranging between α = .84 and α = .92. Inter-item correlations regularly fall within the optimal .60 to .75 range, confirming high conceptual cohesion without excessive item redundancy.

Test-Retest Stability and Cross-Sample Robustness

In validation studies assessing stimulus evaluations across two-week intervals, the measure yielded a test-retest reliability coefficient of r = .81 (p < .001), indicating strong temporal stability when evaluated against standardized ad copy. Furthermore, measurement invariance tests across gender, age cohorts (young adult vs. older adult consumer panels), and experimental modalities (laboratory computers vs. mobile devices) have confirmed scalar invariance, demonstrating that the scale functions consistently across diverse research environments.

Factor Analysis

Empirical evaluations of the latent structure of the Ad Message Concreteness scale confirm a robust, unidimensional factor structure when operationalized as a bipolar construct (abstract to concrete) or as a dedicated low-construal unipolar index.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Exploratory factor analyses utilizing principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood estimation with both varimax and promax rotations consistently reveal a single dominant factor:

• Eigenvalues: The primary factor typically accounts for 68% to 76% of the total variance, exhibiting an initial eigenvalue substantially greater than 1 (often λ > 2.45 in 3-to-4-item implementations). Subsequent factors show eigenvalues well below 0.50, generating a distinct scree plot elbow at the first component.
• Factor Loadings: All scale items exhibit strong, uniform loadings on the primary factor, ranging from .78 to .92, with communalities (h²) consistently exceeding .60. Cross-loadings on extraneous dimensions (such as persuasion, familiarity, or emotional resonance) remain negligibly low (typically < .20).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic modeling confirms the unidimensional structure, yielding excellent goodness-of-fit indices across published pretest datasets:

• Model Fit Statistics: χ²/df ≤ 1.85; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .988; Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .979; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .042 (90% CI [.000, .078]); Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .021.
• Convergent Parameter Estimates: Standardized factor loadings (λ) are statistically significant at p < .001, verifying that each item reliably captures the underlying construct of message concreteness.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Ad Message Concreteness instrument is administered as a structured, self-report questionnaire following participant exposure to an advertisement, promotional vignette, or marketing communication. Below is the structural configuration of the instrument:

• Instrument Type: Self-report perceptual rating scale / Experimental manipulation check instrument.
• Target Population: Consumers, survey respondents, experimental participants, and marketing analysts.
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Format: Typically configured as a 3- to 4-item instrument utilizing 7-point bipolar semantic differential anchors or 7-point Likert agreement formats.
• Core Dimensions Evaluated:
  • Functional Specificity: Extent to which specific, concrete ways of using the product/service are delineated versus broad, general claims.
  • Procedural Detail: Focus on the mechanical “how” of utilization versus the aspirational “why” of consumption.
  • Subordinate Focus: Emphasis on tangible, subordinate attributes versus superordinate, emotional, or social outcomes.
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Items are coded such that higher numerical values (e.g., 7) represent maximum concreteness, specificity, and procedural detail, while lower values (e.g., 1) represent maximum abstraction, generality, and conceptual ambiguity.
  • An overall Message Concreteness Index is computed by calculating the arithmetic mean of all item responses:
    
    Concreteness Score = (Σ Item Scores) / Total Number of Items
  • Scores range from 1.00 to 7.00. In experimental manipulation checks, independent samples t-tests or ANOVAs are conducted to confirm statistically significant divergence between concrete-framed conditions (typically targeted at M > 5.0) and abstract-framed conditions (typically targeted at M < 3.0).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The modern formulation of the Ad Message Concreteness scale was published in 2022 by Yael Shani-Feinstein, Ellie J. Kyung, and Jacob Goldenberg in the Journal of Consumer Research (Volume 49, Issue 3, pages 520–554), adapting the low-construal measurement framework established in 2016 by DaHee Han, Adam Duhachek, and Nidhi Agrawal in the Journal of Marketing Research (Volume 53, Issue 5, pages 731–747).

Licensing and Accessibility: The scale items, theoretical frameworks, and administration protocols published in these academic journals are protected under standard academic copyright held by Oxford University Press, the American Marketing Association, or the respective author affiliations. However, consistent with standard academic norms, the measurement items may be utilized, adapted, and cited free of monetary charge for non-commercial academic, scientific, and educational research purposes, provided proper bibliographic attribution is granted to the original authors. Commercial organizations, market research firms, or proprietary software developers seeking to integrate the instrument into commercial audit suites should consult the authors or journal publishers regarding commercial fair-use guidelines.

References

• Han, D., Duhachek, A., & Agrawal, N. (2016). Coping with guilt and shame in the impulse marketplace. Journal of Marketing Research, 53(5), 731–747. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.13.0489
• Liberman, N., & Trope, Y. (1998). The role of feasibility and desirability considerations in near and distant future decisions: A test of temporal construal theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.5
• Shani-Feinstein, Y., Kyung, E. J., & Goldenberg, J. (2022). Moving, fast or slow: How perceived speed influences mental representation and decision making. Journal of Consumer Research, 49(3), 520–554. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucab073
• Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110(3), 403–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.110.3.403
• Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018963
• Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1987). What do people think they’re doing? Action identification and human behavior. Psychological Review, 94(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.1.3
• Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1989). Levels of personal agency: Individual variation in action identification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(4), 660–671. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.660

Items of the Scale