The anomaly of creativity.

The world of advertising can be as broad and confusing as it is innovative and exciting. Yet one reverberation that constantly bounces from one corner of this hugely diverse industry to the other is simply this: “Creativity is good”. To take this further in the words of Ogilvy & Mather Germany’s chief creative officer Stephen Vogel — “nothing is more efficient than creative advertising. Creative advertising is more memorable, longer lasting, works with less media spending, and builds a fan community… faster”. Herein lies the long held conventional wisdom that creativity, in the context of the advertising industry, matters. However, to leave our discussion at this all encompassing and satisfying affirmation, whilst not at all being incorrect, would leave un touched the multiple branches of discussion that sprout from the creative advertising tree.

The maiden step in exploring the place that creativity has in modern advertising practice, whilst also being one of the most difficult, is to define what creativity is. This reason for such difficulty stems from the subjective nature of creativity. It is one of those you know when you see it things yet, even when seen, manages to avoid any concrete definition. In a way this constitutes as both the annoying problem with creativity and its unique beauty, there is no single answer. This point is echoed by Alison Medina in her article ‘defining creativity’ in which she contends that ‘Creativity isn’t something that can be measured or forced. Creativity is a spirit, a gift, a pleasure and a pain. It is different for you than it is for me, and it catches us all in the most unexpected of places.’ This brings us to the individual component of creativity in advertising. Whilst there has always existed a necessary conflict between creativity and effectiveness in advertising, which will be elaborated on later, creativity also constitutes as the strongest way for one to set themselves apart from the large and growing crowed in the industry. There is a very low chance you will land yourself a creative directors job at Clemenger through showcasing a frame of mind that has already been seen. Furthermore, in a professional environment where collaboration is the status quo success will not be determined through an exercising of your own creativity but the way in which you are able to work with the creative ideas of others, compromise and kill your proverbial babies. In this way creativity is an excellent tool in distinguishing yourself individually as it is such an individual concept yet in an industry relevant setting you must also be able to let go of your creativity and let that of others in.

Whilst it is commonly held that creativity can be found in each and every one of us, the process of engineering it into something unique, tangible and universally understood is a whole new kettle of fish. This is made even more difficult from an industry point of view by the fact that creativity is still largely measurable only after the fact. So how do you measure creativity? A man named Robert Smith, a communications searcher from Indiana University did his best back in the year 2000 to provide a solution to this anomaly. Through adaptations of educational and social psychology he came up with a list of five dimensions into which creativity could be split, they were as follows: originality- the ad contains concepts that move away from the commonplace, flexibility- the ad links the subject to a range of different ideas, elaboration- the ad contains simple ideas that are extended to become more intricate, synthesis- the ad connects normally unrelated ideas or objects and finally artistic value- the ad contains aesthetically pleasing elements, the quality is high and the content is memorable. What these five dimensions allow is a more in depth analysis of the effectiveness of different varieties of creativity. Furthermore, they enable the construction of a creative framework that can then be applied to different brands. These dimensions were taken a step further by Werner Reinartz

Peter Saffert who used them in an extensive survey to determine perceived creativity effectiveness amongst consumers across 437 campaigns for 90 consumer goods. Their findings, whilst confirming the conventional wisdom that creativity matters, also showed that levels of creativity varied significantly across different product categories.

This finally brings us back to the infamous battle for advertising superiority between creativity and effectiveness and the way in which differing levels of creativity are more effective for different products as a result of consumer perceptions. When thought about rationally there is a sensible reason for such different levels of effectiveness. When we take into consideration a product such as Coca-Cola the consumer already has a sound idea of the product and its brand, it is a soft drink that tastes good, for this reason there is little to no reason for any factual or demonstrational evidence to back this up. Consumers of such brands as this therefore tend to favour higher levels of creativity that force them to view the product in a way that transcends the physical and moves into other territories. However, for products such as body care and makeup campaigns that actually show the product in use are more likely to e effective, the reason for this being that, with these brands there exists room for proof of product performance. With all this being said, there is no guarantee that any level of creativity will produce a certain rise in sales or consumer interaction, it will still greatly come down to an agency or companies ability to evaluate effectiveness with target audiences in mind. For example, in the luxury sector there will always exist a financial restriction on consumers regardless of any level of advertising creativity, the key is to evaluate the target audience in line with the creative dimensions to gain the most practical and effective outcome.

At the end of the day modern consumers are being bombarded and saturated with more and more content, both digital and in everyday life and a linear increase in creativity will be needed to cut through this saturation and portray a brands image in new and fresh light. Creativity is always a good thing, but it becomes a great thing only when the time is taken to view it as more than a single word and concept and to dissect it to be applied specifically to a specific problem.

Citations:

https://hbr.org/2013/06/creativity-in-advertising-when-it-works-and-when-it-doesnt

http://kelley.iu.edu/Faculty/Marketing/lbuchhol/publications/MS%20Modeling%20Creativity%202007.PDF

http://search.proquest.com/docview/1019444990?accountid=13552&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo