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ABSTRACT
This study explored the influence of dimensions of creativitynovelty (expectancy), meaningfulness (relevancy), and emotion (valence of feelings)-on attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention. The results indicate that unexpectedness enhanced ad effectiveness over expectedness when the ad has positive feelings. When the ad contains negative feelings, attitude toward the ad was diluted with unexpectedness vs. expectedness. Relevance was not critical in encouraging favorable responses when the ad is unexpected. With an unexpected-relevantpositive-feeling ad used as the baseline, a creative ad generated more favorable attitude toward the ad than other ad conditions. However, ad creativity resulted in more favorable brand attitude and purchase intention only against selected ad conditions. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed and directions for future research furnished. (c) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Amidst media clutter, creativity in advertising is gaining importance as a means for overcoming consumers' perceptual barrier to gain their attention. Its importance is underscored by the notions of "unique selling proposition" and the "big idea," commonly used in the advertising industry. Zinkhan (1993), for instance, suggested that the key feature of successful advertising involves dreaming up new ways to present selling propositions, while Ogilvy's (1983) "big idea" centers on creativity. These concepts call for advertisers to imagine and conjure new ways of communicating a product message to consumers, centering on creativity as the key for delivering the message. From the client's point of view, creativity has been used for evaluating satisfaction with ad agencies (Marra, 1990). For instance, Advertising Age's column "Agency Watch" uses creativity as a key variable in determining ad agency performance.
But what is creativity? The literature provides several definitions. It has been variously referred to as something novel, divergent from the norm, unique, original, meaningful, value added, and acceptable. Based on this myriad of definitions, this study explores some dimensions of creativity and their effects on ad effectiveness. With advertising used as the context, three dimensions of creativity are identified. They are novelty, meaningfulness, and emotional content. Novelty refers to the degree to which an ad is unexpected and deviates from the norm. Meaningfulness concerns whether the elements in an ad are relevant to the message conveyed. Finally, emotional content concerns the feelings generated by an ad....