A Meta-Analysis of When and How Advertising Creativity Works

Abstract

Although creativity is often considered a key success factor in advertising, the marketing literature lacks a systematic empirical account of when and how advertising creativity works. The authors use a meta-analysis to synthesize the literature on advertising creativity and test different theoretical explanations for its effects. The analysis covers 93 data sets taken from 67 papers that provide 878 effect sizes. The results show robust positive effects but also highlight the importance of considering both originality and appropriateness when investing in advertising creativity. Moderation analyses show that the effects of advertising creativity are stronger for high- (vs. low-) involvement products, and that the effects on ad (but not brand) reactions are marginally stronger for unfamiliar brands. An empirical test of theoretical mechanisms shows that affect transfer, processing, and signaling jointly explain these effects, and that originality mainly leads to affect transfer, whereas appropriateness leads to signaling. The authors also call for further research connecting advertising creativity with sales and studying its effects in digital contexts.

Do kiosks outperform cashiers? An S-O-R framework of restaurant ordering experiences

“…PROCESS v3.3 macro was used to test mediation effects in H9 – H11 . Statistical significance was set at p < 0.1 as most marketing experimental studies use p < 0.1 as the statistical significance cutoff level (Rosengren et al , 2020).…”

The influence of advertising creativity on the effectiveness of commercial and public service advertisements: A dual‐task study

“…Among these advertisements, one‐half were rated as creative, and the other half were rated as noncreative or standard by another sample. Consistent with many studies, advertising creativity is considered a holistic perception of the creativity of an advertisement (especially performance creativity; e.g., Rosengren et al, 2013, 2020). Simultaneously, we controlled for several potential confounding factors, for example, the presence of text, by using only advertisements that included both text and images (all involving pictorial and textual elements), and beauty and novelty (or familiarity) were rated by an additional sample of 200 undergraduate participants on a five‐point Likert scale (for details, see Shen, Liu, et al, 2020).…”

“…Advertising creativity, a key tactic manifesting in one or more stages and even the entire process of advertising development, especially planning, designing and execution, has been widely used to maximize the potential marketing impact of advertisements, producing advertisements that can be categorized as creative or common/standard. According to prior studies, we define advertising creativity as advertising executions that are appropriate and novel (e.g., Rosengren et al, 2020) or the process of producing an advertisement that is novel and appropriate in appeal and/or performance (Shen, Wang, et al, 2020). Because original or unique output that likely carries no use or meaning is perceived as weird or bizarre (Rosengren et al, 2020), this bipartite definition of creativity (i.e., both novel and appropriate) is necessary and has already been used in numerous studies concerning marketing (Chen et al, 2016; Kilgour et al, 2013).…”

“…According to prior studies, we define advertising creativity as advertising executions that are appropriate and novel (e.g., Rosengren et al, 2020) or the process of producing an advertisement that is novel and appropriate in appeal and/or performance (Shen, Wang, et al, 2020). Because original or unique output that likely carries no use or meaning is perceived as weird or bizarre (Rosengren et al, 2020), this bipartite definition of creativity (i.e., both novel and appropriate) is necessary and has already been used in numerous studies concerning marketing (Chen et al, 2016; Kilgour et al, 2013). After reviewing the previous literature, four approaches were found to empirically assess advertising creativity.…”

Las competencias imprescindibles en la actualidad de la creatividad publicitaria

“…La publicidad definida como creativa impresiona al público gracias a la novedad del concepto y al diseño del mensaje (Shen et al, 2020). Por ello, al valorar la creatividad publicitaria, hay que considerar tanto la importancia de la originalidad como de la idoneidad (Rosengren et al, 2020). Además, el recurso a un lenguaje emocional positivo tiene un impacto en las decisiones del consumidor (Bhatia, 2019).…”