Necessary but not sufficient: Beyond novelty in advertising creativity

Novelty has been considered the bedrock of creative advertising. However, Ang, Lee, and Leong (2007, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 35: 220–232) proposed in their ad creativity cube that, to be effective, novel ads need to be both meaningful and connect to their audience as well. This study empirically tests whether the effects of novelty can be enhanced by meaningfulness and connectedness. Results generally showed that novelty, coupled with meaningfulness and connectedness, enhances consumer ad response. Such ads were evaluated as being more creative and were recalled and liked better than novel ads which lack either meaningfulness or connectedness, or both, as well as less novel ads of a similar nature. Implications are discussed and directions for future research suggested.