We don’t make models. We make powerful communication tools.

A properly designed model can deliver complicated information instantaneously to your audience, all while generating a level of excitement that words and images simply can’t match.

Have you ever wondered exactly how these models activate us so powerfully? Let’s dive deeper into the specific mechanics of how models affect the way we receive, process, and remember the ideas they represent.

Communicating with Space

When I say communication, the first thing that might come to mind is language and vocabulary. Speech, writing, signing, etc… But language is only one aspect of how we communicate. Every day, we interact with one another using different methods across a variety of dimensions, including space.

Physical space offers a huge potential of communication tools. Have you ever found yourself pacing, gesturing, or even physically acting out a scenario to help get your point across?

Models offer a full representation of our ideas directly installed in the space of our audience, relieving them of the need to have to imagine what we’re talking about.

Cognitive Offloading

Our minds are always looking for efficiencies. We’re constantly scanning our environment for resources we can recruit to ease our mental workload. This process is called cognitive offloading.

By presenting with a physical model, you offer a clear and continuous representation of your idea in the physical dimension that your audience can refer back to at any time. This frees up a large portion of your audience’s working memory, allowing them to process the more abstract aspects of your mission and connect with it on a deeper level.

Symbolic vs. Direct Representation

Why can’t you just put up a big picture? Wouldn’t that be the same? Not quite.

Images are great, but they are symbolic representations, meaning they require a level of translation before they are understood by your audience. 2D images still require our brains to convert the object into a 3D visualization, increasing cognitive strain.

Symbolic representations not only tax our audience’s working memory, they can lead to deep misunderstandings. Even a shared picture can be translated in a myriad of different ways by unique individuals.

A physical 3D model is known as a direct representation. It requires minimal or no translation, drastically reducing your audience’s cognitive load and any potential for misunderstanding. A model creates shared physical language that allows you and your audience to move forward together.

Psychological Ownership & Endowment Effects

Let’s take it a bit further. What happens when you can actually touch the model?

Research conducted at UCLA in by two assistant professors of marketing (Joann Peck, Suzanne B. Shu – 2009) showed that touching an object bypasses the thinking mind and creates an experience of psychological ownership.

Let’s say you’re engaged with a potential customer for a high-value business jet. Getting your customer to touch a model of the jet can create an experience of what it’s like to own the aircraft and everything it represents. With this experience, you are no longer pitching, you are now speaking with someone who sees themself as as future client and business jet owner.

Even better, this psychological ownership is compounded by an ensuing endowment effect, when we experience favoritism towards things that we own. This is the driving force behind haptic marketing campaigns, in which brands like Apple and Sephora invite customers to come into their store for special classes and events. These brands know that when customers actually touch their products, they will feel like they already own it. This leads to a feeling of favoritism, which will inevitably lead to increased sales.

Remembering

Ever heard of the memory palace? Not only is using space a highly effective way to cognitively offload in the present moment, but tying ideas to a physical layout helps encode them into our long term memory.

By pairing your ideas with a model, your audience was able to tie them to your model’s physical dimensions, increasing the chance that they will be able to recall your message in the future. This effect is amplified if they are able to take a model home with them. Your original message will be packed into that model and remain in their personal space, ready to be accessed at a moment’s notice.

Models are an incredibly impactful way to engage with your audience. By providing a physical tool to convey your ideas, you open up the doors to generate deeper engagement and make a lasting impression.

By Max Ouweleen

Marketing Coordinator at Pacmin Studios and The Model Shop

About Pacmin Studios

Pacmin Studios has been serving the aviation and transportation industries with creative physical and digital models and exhibits since 1946. 

Known for producing high quality custom aircraft models, Pacmin Studios has evolved to provide a suite of additional services, including graphic design, CAD, CGI rendering and animation, livery design, and other transportation marketing solutions.

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