The 70% rule

Great quiz shows follow the 70% rule. The ideal quiz is one where the viewer knows about 70% of the answers — or at least feels like they should have known them. The sweet spot lies in familiarity: enough recognition to stay engaged, enough challenge to stay interested.

Think of a family-friendly primetime quiz on a commercial network. Questions you’ve heard before. Topics you half-remember from school. The kind of show you watch with others, shouting answers at the screen, nodding when you get them right.

Now think of that other kind of quiz. The one airing at 11PM on public television. A single spotlight, a serious host, and contestants who can list — in order — the events of the third through seventh week of the Hundred Years’ War. Fascinating, yes. Impressive, absolutely. But also… alienating. You don’t play along. You sit in awe.

The same 70% rule applies far beyond quiz shows. In creative briefs. In presentations. In concepts. In campaigns.

Strong ideas give people the feeling they almost get it. They trigger recognition. Not everything needs to be spelled out. People naturally fill in what’s left unsaid. And when you make space for that — when you intend it — you create engagement.

Still, the instinct is often to say too much. To overexplain. To close every gap, underline every nuance. Especially in a briefing. But the truth is: people absorb about 70%. The rest fades — or gets filled in anyway.

So why not choose what you say — and what you deliberately leave open? Because meaning happens in the 30% you don’t explain. That’s where interpretation lives. That’s where people make it their own.

Giving 70% isn’t lazy. It’s smart. And it’s enough.