Measuring the organisational impact on creativity

A creative code of perceived qualities about acceptable creativity within advertising agencies has been shown to affect creative practitioners’ boundaries of creative expression. This multi stage, qualitative and quantitative study developed a tool to measure the intensity of this creative code. After development of a model based on qualitative research, expert evaluations and exploratory factor analysis, three dimensions - predictability, agency creative identity and social influence - were supported through confirmatory factor analysis. The ability to measure the intensity of the creative code offers researchers a way to study its effects on other variables in the creative process within advertising agencies.     

Towards an Organizational Theory of Advertising: Agency—Client Relationships in South Africa

There has been a recent spate of advertising research drawing upon aspects of organization theory. To date, however, much of this work remains highly fragmented in nature. This article develops a tripartite organizational theory model that attempts to explain the relationship between advertiser and advertising agency. The model examines this relationship prior to, during and subsequent to the contracting process. In the empirical section of the article two facets of the model are tested: (1) the extent to which agencies use creative awards as signalling devices, and (2) the effect that the accreditation system has had upon industry concentration. The article concludes with a discussion of the results and suggestions for further research.     

Understanding Programmatic Creative: The Role of AI

In this article, we expand the concept of programmatic advertising to include programmatic creative as a vital component. While artificial intelligence (AI) has already automated the media buying process, the advertising creative process still requires extensive human efforts. Such discrepancy calls for AI to transform the advertising creative process. We provide a framework for understanding and investigating programmatic creative by drawing evidence from the advertising industry in China. We specifically discuss how big data and machine learning algorithms underpin programmatic advertising. We argue that AI will integrate programmatic buying and programmatic creative in the future. We also discuss the technological, regulatory, and legal challenges faced by programmatic creative. We argue that new theories and methods are needed to conduct research in this area and provide guidance for the advertising industry.     

Directing Advertising Copy Creativity through Benefit Segmentation

While much attention has been paid in the marketing and advertising literature to the more quantitative aspects of advertising such as the setting of advertising budgets, media selection, advertising scheduling and effectiveness measurement, relatively little attention has been paid to the generation of effective advertising copy and messages. This area of advertising decision-making, in many ways the most crucial element of any advertising campaign, is an essentially creative element. It is an area, however, where effective marketing research can guide the creative process more efficiently. This article describes the use of conjoint measurement techniques to conduct benefit segmentation which can, in turn, be used to direct advertising copy thinking. The approach is illustrated with reference to a small-scale study of the United Kingdom king-size cigarette market.     

Altered states: The effects of media and technology on the creative process in advertising agencies

The media environment has changed dramatically due to the explosion of new channels and technological innovations, which has had important ramifications not only for advertising, but also for advertising agencies and their creative processes. Using a series of interviews with agency creative directors and digital strategists, this study investigated how agencies have addressed these challenges and taken advantage of the opportunities. Its two key contributions are an updated model of the creative process and the identification of four alternative structures agencies use to create the core concept. The study also found a paradigm shift from framing technology in terms of its production value, to framing technology in terms of its strategic and creative value, as technology specialists have become involved in the strategic and creative stages of campaign development.     

The advertising creative process: A study of UK agencies

Advertising agencies are hired to develop creative advertising for their clients. This paper explores the advertising creative process used by agencies when developing new creative work. Using in-depth interviews with 21 agency practitioners in the UK this study examines the stages that take place within the advertising creative process. Findings suggest the process is made up of a series of sequentially linked stages and illustrate how agencies validate advertising creative during development. The study provides insight into how agencies customise the process and identifies that agencies have different approaches to the level of client involvement. Implications for practitioners are discussed and areas for future research identified.     

Children and the Changing World of Advertising

Concerns about children's ability to fully comprehend and evaluate advertising messages has stimulated substantial research and heated debate among scholars, business leaders, consumer advocates, and public policy makers for more than three decades. During that time, some very fundamental questions about the fairness of marketing to children have been raised, yet many remain unresolved today. With the emergence of increasingly sophisticated advertising media, promotional offers and creative appeals in recent years, new issues have also developed. This paper provides a basis for further examination of some the key questions in this area, and suggests how children's advertising research can be employed to illuminate them.     

Effects of outdoor advertising: Does location matter?

The growth and success of outdoor advertising is in large part due to the medium's ability to reach an increasingly elusive and mobile consumer. However, this success has come with a price. Public pressure and regulation have begun to eliminate or curtail many outdoor advertising locations, leading practitioners to question the effectiveness of the remaining outdoor advertising sites. Using associative learning techniques, these studies investigate what effect, if any, the environment in which outdoor advertising appears has on the attitudes, beliefs, and purchase intent of the advertised brand. The results of four experiments presented here suggest that the background environment does not impact advertising effectiveness, and practitioner concern of such may be unfounded. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Utility of advertising for creativity education: an experimental study targeting school children

This study investigated whether the Advertising-In-Education (hereafter AIE) program would influence the growth of creativity in elementary school students. AIE has been discussed by advertising scholars and used in some schools in South Korea since its inception approximately 10 years ago; yet, empirical research to prove its effect on education is rare. A field experiment using a pilot AIE program was implemented with third and fourth graders at two local elementary schools for 12 weeks. To measure the degree and significance of improvement in students' creative ability and creative personality, a series of pretests and posttests were administered using creativity measuring instruments. Results indicate that the AIE program has been effective in enhancing both creative ability and creative personality of elementary school students. Based on these results, several important implications were discussed and some directions for further research were suggested.     

Is there gender bias when creative directors judge advertising? Name cue effect in ad evaluation

A lack of women in creative departments has been documented in previous research. These departments are seen as a male fraternity subculture in advertising agencies, where women experience many difficulties in their career progress. One of these drawbacks is gender bias in the selection of ideas' process. Male creative directors are believed to promote ideas created by men within a homosocial environment. This female perception emerged from previous qualitative research is studied experimentally for the first time. Almost 90 advertising creative directors and higher level positions assessed ads created by students in an advertising university course. In the current study, we explore the effects of ad gender authorship. Results revealed an absence of gender bias based on ad name cues, neither the gender of the ad creators nor the creatives affected the evaluations. The findings are discussed and future research is proposed.     

Toward a Bakhtinian typology of ambient advertising

Ambient advertising represents a growing sector of creative advertising practice, but has garnered little academic research. This paper aims to provide a theoretical foundation for the examination of ambient advertising's place within the marketing communication mix. The author presents a typology of ambient advertising based on the theory of the chronotope by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), the creative expression of the intersection between temporal and spatial dimensions, arguing that this represents the most fecund model for exploring the way in which ambient advertising seeks to harness the matrix of time and place. The typology offers a rationale for comparing different ambient campaigns on the basis of the degree to which they clearly express a particular chronotope and goes on to link this to a consideration of rhetorical persuasiveness.     

Vanishing acts

This exploratory cross-cultural study examines the experiences of women in advertising creative departments in Spain and the United States. The study, an exploration of the creative environment and its impact on female creatives, is framed by Hofstede’s dimensional model of national culture (Hofstede 2001; de Mooij & Hofstede 2010) and signalling theory (Spence 1974). Interviews with 35 top female creatives suggest that the challenges women face are rooted in the ‘fraternity culture’ or ‘territorio de chicos’ of creative departments in both countries. The data further suggest that the gender-bound cultural environment of advertising creative departments may be a global phenomenon, one that may adversely affect the creative process and impact women’s upward mobility.     

Internet advertising effectiveness

Online advertising has experienced phenomenal growth since its inception in 1994. This empirical study investigates the impact of seven creative characteristics of banner ads on the effectiveness of online advertising using a multiple regression model. A random sample of 209 banner ads was drawn from a sampling frame of advertisers, provided by an advertising agency specialising in internet advertising for the gaming industry. The findings of this study are broadly consistent with past research into online advertising efficiency, indicating that the creative characteristics of effective banner ads in the online gaming arena include: a larger size, absence of promotional incentives and the presence of information about casino games. In contrast, banner features such as animation, action phrase and presence of company brand or logo were ineffective in generating clickthroughs. Contrary to expectations, long messages on banners were associated with higher click-through rates.     

Dispelling the Myth

This paper investigates attempts to test the proposition that advertising is an important factor influencing total consumption. It surveys prior work in the area and discusses a more useful definition of the expression ‘changes in advertising cause changes in consumption’ than has been implied in most past tests of the relationship. The criteria for testing causality involve comparing the forecasting ability of a univariate consumption model with a bivariate model of consumption and advertising. These models are built using the powerful Box-Jenkins techniques of time series analysis. A study of the relationship in the United Kingdom is reported covering the period 1969 to 1980. The results do not support the hypothesis that total advertising expenditures alter aggregate consumer behaviour.     

Consumer processing of foreign advertisements: roles of country-of-origin perceptions,consumer ethnocentrism,and country attitude

This paper reports the findings of a study that examined the impact of consumers’ three cross-national individual difference variables — country-of-origin perceptions, consumer ethnocentrism, and country attitudes — on their responses and attitudes toward foreign advertisements and advertised products. A model of consumer processing of international advertising has been proposed that consolidates a dual-element thesis comprising research on consumer processing of advertising, and several streams of research on cross-national individual difference variables. Empirical analysis of the hypothetical model through structural equation modeling yields supportive results: positive effects of consumers’ country attitudes on their responses to the creative presentation of international advertising, and positive effects of consumers’ country-of-origin perceptions on their responses to the buying proposal of international advertising. However, the hypothesized negative effects of consumer ethnocentrism on their responses to international advertising was not confirmed. The study contributes to our understanding of cross-national individual difference variables that precede and determine consumers’ attitudes toward foreign advertisements. It has practical implications for standardization versus localization of international advertising strategy.     

The Creative Search for an Insight in Account Planning: An Absorptive Capacity Approach

In advertising agencies, insight is frequently sought to solve advertising problems. However, the ideation process of the account planner is not well understood. Viewing account planning through a lens of absorptive capacity suggests that planning is about identifying and assimilating external information about consumers for use in the creative process. Account planners thus need to search deliberately for insight and work hard to express it to the creatives, who then exploit it to develop powerful creative ideas. The study adopts an in-depth grounded theory investigation of the insight phenomenon among 20 Sydney-based account planners. The findings reveal that identifying and applying insight is a highly creative process. The account planner uses research, personal knowledge domains, challenging conventions, borrowed sources, and central narrative extension to search for insights. However, because not all insights are equal, this study also uncovered what account planners consider quality insight. These include attributes of originality, relatability, usability, and vision. These findings provide guidelines for marketers and account planners who seek insight in framing an advertising message.     

企业环保主张对消费者绿色购买意愿的影响机制研究

在广告设计中如何使用环保主张是影响广告效果和公司声誉的一项重要决策。基于此，文章引入归因理论和精细加工可能性模型对企业环保主张的效果和发生机制进行分析。结果表明：相较于关联型环保主张，消费者面对实质型环保主张时的绿色购买意愿更高；消费者环境关注调节了环保主张对绿色购买意愿的影响，即相较于关联型（实质型）环保主张，高环境关注（低环境关注）的消费者面对实质型（关联型）环保主张时绿色购买意愿更强；同时消费者的CSR内部动机感知在环保主张对消费者绿色购买意愿的影响中起中介作用。文章丰富了绿色广告理论体系，为增强企业环保主张的说服效果提供了理论依据。     

Understanding creative service: a qualitative study of the advertising problem delineation,communication and response (APDCR) process

The nature of advertising creativity is explored as a professional, applied creative service product, within a business-to-business context. Findings are reported from a series of extensive in-depth interviews with advertising managers in major client organisations. Analysis of these interviews generated a detailed conceptualisation of the advertising problem delineation, communication and response (APDCR) process, expressed in a flowchart. The data also suggest two variations in the pattern of agency-client relationships within which the APDCR process operates, and factors that may be responsible for these variations. A better understanding of the nature and dynamic operation of creative service may enable both agency and advertiser stakeholders to achieve greater satisfaction.     

The making of self and world in advertising

In this paper I will criticize a common practice I call associative advertising. Briefly, associative advertising induces people to buy (or buy more of) a product by associating that market product with such deep-seated non-market goods as friendship, acceptance and esteem from others, excitement and power even though the market good seldom satisfies or has any connection with the non-market desire. The fault in associative advertising is not that it is deceptive or that it violates the autonomy of its audience — on this point I find Robert Arrington's arguments persuasive (Advertising and Behavior Control, Journal of Business Ethics 1 (1982), 3–12). Instead, I will argue against associative advertising by examining the virtues and vices at stake. In so doing, I will offer an alternative to Arrington's exclusive concern with autonomy and behavior control.My main criticism is two-fold: (a) Advertisers must surely desensitize themselves to the compassion, concern, and sympathy for others that are central emotions in a virtuous person, and (b) associative advertising influences its audience to neglect the nonmarket cultivation of our virtues and to substitute market goods instead, with the result that we become worse and, quite likely, less happy persons.John Waide is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Christian Brothers College.An earlier draft of this paper was presented to the Tennessee Philosophical Association, 10 November 1984. I am indebted to that group for many helpful comments.     

A comparative analysis of advertising characteristics,strategy, style and form in global and national brand advertising

This paper considers the differences and similarities between national brand and global brand advertising through the use of three analytical frameworks – creative strategies, advertising styles and advertising form. It seeks to identify any differences between national and global brand advertising in terms of creative strategy, advertising style and advertising form. The structural elements of advertisements, such as the length of a commercial, number of camera shots and number or type of characters present, are also examined for a total of 551 television advertisements. A number of significant differences between the advertising of global and national brands have been recorded. In addition, the study identifies a discriminant function, which successfully predicts the advertising strategies, styles and formats for global brands.