1. Are Adjectives Persuasive?
Prepared by J. Scott Armstrong (details on him at jscottarmstrong.com).
Please inform Scott about errors and also make suggestions (armstrong@wharton.upenn.edu)
Scott has taken these slides from adprin.com, a site that he founded. That site contains interactive versions of these
slides, along with linked references, videos, and webcasts, all in PPT and PPTX format that you can download.

2. Experiment with food menus
Entrees at a restaurant were varied with some having
more descriptive adjective, such as
____ a) Grilled Chicken or
____ b) Tender Grilled Chicken
Assume 100 units of “a” were sold. How many of “b”
do you think were sold?
Click for the answer.
Adapted from AdPrin.com 2

3. 127 for “b”
In the 15th century, barkers around St. Paul’s
Cathedral in London used “elegant language and
plenty of adjectives” (Persuasive Advertising p
195)
Evidence
• Diners rated the meals with more descriptive adjectives as better quality
and better value, and they reported that they would be more likely to
order them in the future (Wansink, Painter, and van Ittersum 2001)
• When asked for their preferences for paint colors, 193 subjects showed a
strong preference for fancy names (e.g., Dark coffee) versus generic names
(e.g., Brown) (Skorinko et al. 2006)
• For more information see AdPrin.com

4. Based on this exercise, write a small application step for yourself,
and set a deadline, preferably within one week. If you are
working with someone else, share your application plan and the
results of your application.
• For example, looking at recent ads for your organization, are
there opportunities for adding adjectives?
Adapted from AdPrin.com