Exploring influential factors on creative advertising : gaining insight from a practitioner’s point of view

Abstract

The overall objective of this dissertation is to examine the various factors that influence advertising practitioners’ creative output. The importance of creativity within several contexts has been emphasised by several researchers. However, despite consumers being exposed to an increasing amount of adverts on a daily basis (Smith & Yang, 2004; Smith, MacKenzie, Yang, Buchholz & Darley, 2007), the advertising field lacks extensive creativity research. Therefore, this study merged creativity and advertising as main topics of research. A revised version of Amabile’s componential model of creativity has been adopted as a major theoretical framework. This highlights internal and external components to the individual that influence his/her creativity. Furthermore, for an increasingly operational approach, creative advertising must be defined. Therefore, a revised version of the Creative Product Semantic Differential Scale (CPSS) was also adopted, as it illustrates the major attributes belonging to creative products, in this case, adverts. Five in-depth interviews with advertising practitioners working within local advertising agencies were conducted as the primary data collection method. The two frameworks discussed above were incorporated within. Each participating practitioner selected two adverts he/she worked on. One exemplified higher creativity, and another lower creativity from their perspective. They then rated them against the CPSS individually. This shed light on the defining factors of creative advertising from the professional’s perspective. Through the selection of the two adverts, the practitioners could discuss the factors belonging to the componential model that were influential on their creative output by referring to specific contexts, thereby directly tackling the main research goal. As a follow-up to the interviews, a focus group with seven independent reviewers was conducted. The participants rated the adverts selected by the practitioners against the CPSS, as well as discussed reasons for their ratings, in an attempt to validate results gathered during the initial data collection phase. The findings of this study provide details on the defining factors belonging to advertising creativity, whilst shedding light on the internal and external factors to the advertising practitioner that hinder or enable his/her creative output. Therefore, through this study, professionals in the field will gain an understanding on factors that influence a practitioner’s advertising creative output.