Summarize Articles Module 7

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I I
HBR.ORG

Werner Reinartz is a professor
and Peter Saffert is a research
associate at the University of
Cologne in Germany.

Creativity in
Advertising
when It Works
and When It Doesn’t
by Werner Reinartz and Peter Saffert

I
0

ASK A PROFESSIONAL in the business what the key to
success is in advertising, and you’ll most likely get
an answer that echoes the mantra of Stephan Vogel,
Ogiivy & Mather Germany’s chief creative officer:

“Nothing is more efficient than creative advertising.
Creative advertising is more memorable, longer last-
ing, works with less media spending, and builds a fan
community.. .faster.”

But are creative ads more effective in inspiring
people to products than ads that simply cata-
logue product attributes or benefits? Numerous
laboratory experiments have found that creative
messages get more attention and lead to positive
attitudes about the products being marketed, but
there’s no firm evidence that shows how those mes-
sages infiuence purchase behavior. Similarly, there is
remarkably little empirical research that ties creative
messaging to actual sales revenues. Because product

and brand managers—and the agencies pitching to
them—have lacked a systematic way to assess the
effectiveness of their ads, creative advertising has
been a crapshoot.

Drawing on research in communications psy-
chology, we have developed a consumer survey ap-
proach for measuring perceived creativity along five
dimensions. We applied this approach in a study of
437 TV advertising campaigns for 90 fast-moving
consumer goods brands in Germany from January
2005 to October 2010. We asked a panel of trained
consumer raters to assess the creativity of the ads,
and we examined the relationships between their
perceptions and sales figures for the products. All
the product categories we studied—body lotion,
chewing gum, coffee, cola and lemonade, deter-
gent, facial care, shampoo, shavers, and yogurt—are
highly competitive and invest heavily in advertising.

mill IIIII II11
June 2013 Harvard Business Review 107

CREATIViTY iN ADVERTISING

Our findings confirm the conventional wisdom
that creativity matters: Overall, more-creative cam-
paigns were more effective—considerably so. We
also found that certain dimensions of creativity are
more effective than others in infiuencing purchasing
behavior—and that many companies focus on the
wrong dimensions in their campaigns. Moreover, we
believe that by tailoring the survey model to refiect
the cultural preferences and triggers of consumers in
different geographic markets, companies the world
over can dramatically improve their ability to predict
the likely effectiveness of their creative ads and thus
make smarter investments.

What Is Creativity?
In coming up with dimensions along which to mea-
sure creativity, we drew on social and educational
psychology literature that defines creativity as di-
vergent thinking—namely, the ability to find un-
usual and nonobvious solutions to a problem. One
of the pioneers in the field was Ellis Paul Torrance,
an American psychologist, who developed the Tor-
rance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a battery
of measures used to assess individuals’ capacity
for divergent thinking in the business world and in
education. Torrance scored responses to test ques-
tions along five dimensions: fiuency, originality, and

Choosing the Right Model
I analyzing the relationship between creativity

and advertising effectiveness, companies typically

use sales response models that are based on

conventional regression analyses. We have found,

however, that such regression is problematic

because it assumes that the input variables (cre-

ativity and ad budget, say) are independent of

one another in their effect. In the real world, the

longer a creative ad is aired, tlie more impact

I the creativity has on sales.

That’s why we use a hierarchical sales

response model. Hierarchical models get

around the problem by nesting one regression

model within another. This allows us to see both

the direct impact of creativity on sales and the

amplifying effect of the budget, and thus arrive at

a more accurate overall estimate of the effect of

creativity on sales.

elaboration (borrowed from the work of Joy Paul
Guilford, another American psychologist) as well as
abstractness and what he called resistance to prema-
ture closure.

Fluency refers to the number of relevant ideas
proposed in response to a given question (such as

“list as many uses as you can for a paper chp”), and
originality measures how uncommon or unique the
responses are. Elaboration refers to the amount of de-
tail given in a response, and abstractness measures
the degree to which a slogan or a word moves beyond
being a label for something concrete. Resistance to
premature closure measures the ability to consider a
variety of factors when processing information.

In the early 2000s Torrance’s measures were
adapted for advertising by the Indiana University
communications researcher Robert Smith and his
colleagues. They adjusted the definition of creativity
to refer to “the extent to which an ad contains brand
or executional elements that are different, novel, un-
usual, original, unique, etc.” Their goal was to mea-
sure creativity using only those factors most relevant
to an advertising context. They came up with five di-
mensions of advertising creativity, which form the
basis for our survey.

Originality. An original ad comprises elements
that are rare or surprising, or that move away from
the obvious and commonplace. The focus is on the
uniqueness of the ideas or features contained in the
ad. An ad can diverge from norms or experiences
by applying unique visual or verbal solutions, for
instance. Many advertising campaigns are anything
but original. The prototypical detergent spot shows
a homemaker satisfied with an even whiter wash;
perfumes feature picture-perfect models; and cars
cruise through beautiful landscapes free of traffic.
One campaign we studied that excelled in the origi-
nality dimension was the surprising visualization
of the inside of a vending machine in the Coca-Cola
commercial “Happiness Factory.”

Flexibility. An ad scoring high on flexibility
smoothly links the product to a range of different
uses or ideas. For example, a commercial for the
Kraft Foods coffee brand Jacobs Krönung, which
aired in Germany in 2011 and 2012, showed a man
facing various domestic challenges (washing dishes,
sewing a button on a jacket, dicing an onion, and
making a bed) while a group of women enjoyed a cup
of coffee together.

Elaboration. Many ads contain unexpected
details or extend simple ideas so that they become

108 Harvard Business Review June 2013

HBR.ORG

Numerous lab experi-
ments have found that
creative advertisements
get attention and lead
to positive attitudes
about the products
being marketed. But
there’s no firm evidence
showing how those mes-
sages influence pur-
chase behavior.

A new consumer survey ap-

proach addresses that problem

by measuring perceived cre-

ativity along five dimensions:

originality, flexibility, elabora-

tion, synthesis, and artistic

value.

The authors applied their

model in a study of 437 TV

advertising campaigns for 90

fast-moving consumer goods

brands in Germany.

An analysis of the survey

assessments relative to sales

figures confirmed that more-

creative campaigns were, on

average, more effective. The re-

sults also showed that certain

dimensions of creativity are

more effective than others, and

that the dimensions often work

better in combination.

The findings suggest that

by focusing on the wrong

dimensions in their campaigns,

many companies are failing

to make the most of their ad

investments.

more intricate and complicated. One good example
is an ad for Ehrmann fruit yogurt—one of the lead-
ing brands in Germany—in which a woman eating
yogurt licks her lips to reveal that her tongue looks
just like a strawberry (Ehrmann made difFerent ver-
sions of the spot for different flavors), considerably
deepening the idea of fruitiness in yogurt. In another
example, an ad for Wrigley’s 5 gum, a man is sub-
merged in tiny metal balls that bounce ofFhis skin to
represent the tingle one feels while chewing the gum.

Synthesis. This dimension of creativity is about
blending or connecting normally unrelated objects
or ideas. For example, Wrigley aired a commercial
that featured rabbits corralled like cattle and fed ba-
nanas, berries, and melon, making their buckteeth
grow in as Juicy Fruit Squish chewing gum. The
commercial combines unrelated objects (rabbits and
chewing gum) to create a divergent story line.

Artistic value. Ads with a high level of artistic
creativity contain aesthetically appealing verbal, vi-
sual, or sound elements. Their production quality
is high, their dialogue is clever, their color palette
is original, or their music is memorable. As a result,
consumers often view the ads as almost a piece of art
rather than a blatant sales pitch. One ad we studied,
which scored among the highest in eutistic value, was
an animated commercial for Danone’s Fantasia yo-
gurt that aired at the end of 2009. It showed a woman
floating on a flower petal through a sea of Fantasia
yogurt, surrounded by flowers laden with fruits.

In our study, we asked a panel of trained con-
sumer raters to score the German TV ad campaigns
on each of these dimensions, on a scale of 1 to 7; the
campaign’s overall creativity rating was the average
of its scores. We then looked for relationships be-
tween each campaign’s score, its advertising budget,
and the campaign’s relative sales effectiveness. (For
a brief discussion of the statistical methods we used
in our study, see the sidebar “Choosing the Right
Model.”)

What We Found
Our study revealed dramatic variation in overall
creativity scores across the campaigns. The average
score for overall creativity was 2.98 (again, on a scale
of 1 to 7). The lowest score was l.O, and the highest
6.2. Only 11 of the 437 campaigns received an over-
all score above 5 (five of them were cola campaigns).
At the other end of the spectrum, 10 campaigns had
an overall score below 1.5. The scores mattered a lot,
we found. A euro invested in a highly creative ad
campaign had, on average, nearly double the sales
impact of a euro spent on a noncreative campaign.
The impact of creativity was initially relatively small
but typically gathered momentum as the campaign
rolled out.

We uncovered two interesting insights about how
creativity enhances sales numbers.

The dimensions have varying levels of influ-
ence on sales. Companies have plenty of room for

A euro invested in a highly creative
ad campaign had nearly double the
sales impact of a euro spent on a
noncreative campaign.

June 2013 Harvard Business Review 109

CREATIVITY IN ADVERTISING

What Creativity Combinations Work Best?

when used in combination, creativity dimensions had widely varying effects.
Relative effectiveness here shows the sales uplift a particular pairing enjoyed
relative to average effectiveness. Despite the disparities, however, companies
in our study used the l o combinations in roughly equal proportion (shown
here as a percentage of total usage), suggesting that many firms are not get-
ting the most out of their advertising investments.

The most-used pairing, flexibility plus
elaboration, is one of the least effective.
The most effective pairing, originality plus
elaboration, had almost double the impact.

Flexibility Flexibility Synthesis Flexibility

Artistic Value Elaboration Artistic Value Synthesis
LESS EFFECTIVE

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
– 9 9 %
USAGE
8 . 7 %

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
– 5 9 %
USAGE
1 1 . 6 %

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
– 2 9 %
USAGE
8 . 8 %

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
– 2 0 %
USAGE
9 . 4 %

Synthesis
+
Elaboration

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
-5%
USAGE
9 . 7 %

improvement in the creativity of ad campaigns. For
instance, the types of creativity that agencies cur-
rently emphasize are often not the most effective
ones at driving sales. In our research, we quanti-
fied the impact that each dimension has on sales.
Although all of them had a positive impact, elabo-
ration had by far the most powerful one (1.32 when
indexed relative to the overall average creativity of
1.0), followed by artistic value (1.19). Trailing behind
were originality (1.06) and flexibility (1.03), with syn-
thesis a distant fifth (0.45). Yet the study shows that
ad agencies use originality and artistic value more
than they use elaboration. Possibly, companies think
primarily of originality when trying to be creative.

We also looked at campaigns that scored above
the median on at least two dimensions and found
that the variation in sales impact among the combi-
nations was even greater than the variation between
individual dimensions. Out of 10 possible pairs, we
found that the most-used combination—flexibility
and elaboration, accounting for nearly 12% of all
combinations—is one of the lowest-performing:
0.41 indexed relative to the average of all pairs of
1.0. In sharp contrast, combining elaboration with
originality (accounting for nearly 10% of all combos
identified) had almost double the average impact
on sales (1.96), closely followed by the combination
of artistic value and originality (1.89, accounting for
almost 11% of all combos).

Interestingly, originality is often part of the most
effective combinations, suggesting that this type
of creativity plays an important enabling role. In
essence, being original is not enough—originality
boosts sales only in the presence of additional cre-
ative dimensions. Indeed, originality’s power to en-
able may be another reason that so many companies
use it in ad campaigns, despite its mediocre individ-
ual effectiveness.

110 Harvard Business Review June 2013

Predicting an
Ad’s Effectiveness
To assess the creativity of your ad campaign, ask consumer respondents

to score the ads on each dimension, on a scale of i to 7, by considering

the questions listed below. (These questions, based on communications

researcher Robert Smith’s construct for measuring advertising creativity,

are meant to be somewhat overlapping.)

Your campaign’s overall creativity rating is the average of the scores

of each dimension. By comparing the scores of different campaigns, and

analyzing the budget and sales effectiveness for each, you can improve

your ability to predict the likely effectiveness of your creative ads and make

smarter investments.

Originality
• Is the ad “out of the

ordinary”?

• Does it depart from
stereotypical thinking?

• Is it unique?

COCA COLA
“HAPPINESS FACTORY”

Flexibility
• Does the ad contain

ideas that move from
one subject to another?

• Does it contain different
ideas?

• Does it shift from one
idea to another?

JACOBS KRÖNUNG
“TIME FOR CHATTING”

HBR.ORG

Flexibility is one of the
least effective dimensions,
whether used alone or in
combination.

Although originality has little impact
on sales on its own, it appears to play
an important enabling role, appearing in
three of the four most effective pairings.

Originality Originality Elaboration Originality Originality

Flexibility Synthesis Artistic Value Artistic Value Elaboration

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
– 1 %
USAGE
9.8% Mikm^i^^mmmmmm

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
+ 1 %
USAGE

• B > 1 0 . 7 %

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
+28%
USAGE

10.5% mmmÊmmmmmf

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
+89%
USAGE
1 0 . 9 %

MORE EFFECTIVE

RELATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS
+96%
USAGE
9 . 9 % •mmmtmmmmimmÊmà

Elaboration
• Does the ad contain

numerous details?

• Does it extend basic
ideas and make them
more intricate?

• Does it contain more
details than expected?

EHRMANN YOGURT
“STRAWBERRY TONGUE”

Synthesis
• Does the ad connect

objects that are usually
unrelated?

• Does it contain unusual
connections?

• Does it bring unusual
items together?

WRIGLEY’S JUICY FRUIT
SQUISH

“JUICY FRUIT RANCH”

Artistic Value
• Is the ad visually or

verbally distinctive?

• Does it make ideas come
to life graphically or
verbally?

• Is it artistic in its
production?

DANONE FANTASIA
“FLAVOR TRIP”

Use of creativity differs by category. Levels
of creativity vary significantly across product cat-
egories, with the overall scores ranging from 2.62 for
shampoo to 3.60 for cola. In categories such as cola
and cofFee, advertisers and customers tend to favor
higher levels of creativity, whereas in categories
such as shampoo, body care, and facial care, cam-
paigns focus on showing the actual use of the prod-
uct, albeit in an idealized environment. One reason
could be that it is still important in certain categories
to deliver factual proof points of performance fea-
tures. When products are functional and oriented
toward clear consumer goals (cleaning garments
with detergents, protecting skin with body lotion),
unorthodox approaches are less preferred. In con-
trast, when products are easily understood, simileir,
and tied to personal preferences (quenching thirst
with a soda, for instance, or enjoying a cup of coffee),
an out-of-the-ordinary approach can be more efFec-
tive in stimulating sales.

We also looked at whether investing in additional
creativity pays off and found that it depends entirely
on the category. As the exhibit “Is More Creativity
Better?” shows, in traditionally low-creativity cat-
egories, adding creativity can pay off; according to
our study, a one-point increase in creativity scores
for shampoo and detergent ad campaigns boosted
sales impact by 4%. However, the body lotion and
face care categories, which also tend to feature low
levels of creativity, were harmed by additional cre-
ativity: Sales impact fell by nearly 2%. We see varia-
tion across categories with high levels of creativity.
Investing in additional creativity has a nearly 8%
impact on sales in shavers and cofFee but boosts im-
pact by less than 1% for colas and yogurts. So make
sure you understand your category’s sensitivity to
creativity before you commission that high-priced
category-redefining campaign.

June 2013 Harvard Business Review 111

CREATiViTY iN ADVERTISiNG HBR.ORG

The conservative approaches adopted
in many product categories are leaving
money on the table.
Measuring Campaign Effectiveness
Our research has big implications for advertising
agencies and the companies that engage them. Ad-
vertising professionals can use methods like ours
to identify where to direct their creative energies to
best effect. Companies can use the models to esti-
mate the financial impact their creative investments
will produce.

In many—indeed, most—cases, companies will
find that they are underinvesting in creativity. Our
research clearly shows that the conservative ap-
proaches adopted in many product categories are
leaving money on the table. Increased investment
will usually pay for itself: More-effective creative ads
will allow other parts of the ad budget to be signifi-
cantly reduced.

For example, suppose a company plans to air
two TV campaigns: Campaign A has a creativity in-
dex rating of 3, and it has allocated a TV budget of

Is More Creativity Better?
If creative ads can inspire consumers to , does amping
up the creativity level drive even more purchases? Not
necessarily. According to our study of German ads, the
relative effectiveness of adding creativity to a campaign
can vary significantly.

Categories usually
associated witii liigiily
creative ads—such as
coffee or cola—do not
always get a big boost
when more creativity is
added to campaigns…

IMPACT ON SALES*

7.63%

…and among categories
associated with low
creativity—such as
detergents and body
lotions—getting creative
Is not always a bad idea.

4.43%

0.795%
-1.73%

SHAVER, COLA.
COFFEE YOGURT

SHAMPOO,
DETERGENT

BODY LOTION,
FACE CARE

•PERCENTAGE IMPACT ON SALES OF A ONE-POINT
INCREASE IN A CAMPAIGN’S CREATIVITY SCORES

€500,000 per week. Campaign B has a rating of 3.5,
but because it costs more to create the campaign, it
plans to spend only €400,000 per week for airtime.
(The company establishes creativity ratings by ask-
ing consumer panels to evaluate campaign drafts
and Storyboards along the five dimensions.)

After feeding the scores and budgets into a hier-
archical sales response model (for this hypothetical
example, we used data from our study), the com-
pany estimates that the sales impact for Campaign B
will be 1.07% higher in the first week of airing than
that of Campaign A. In the subsequent weeks, the
gap increases to 1.93% (week 2), 2.63% (week 3), and
3.19% (week 4), thanks to carryover and buildup of
consumer knowledge and goodwill. That means that
diverting money from the airtime budget to creative
will in this case result in a more effective ad. In fact,
the model shows that the company could cut airtime
spending to €330,000 before the negative impact of
reduced airtime outweighed the positive effect of
creativity.

Companies can also use a survey approach to
estimate the impact of particular creative choices.
Let’s say that your product category is coffee, and
you have to choose between two creative pitches
that both scored 4.0, each with a €400,000 weekly
airtime budget. Campaign C emphasizes elaboration
and originality, and Campaign D emphasizes artistic
value and synthesis. Our findings suggest that Cam-
paign C would be the better bet, since that combina-
tion of creativity dimensions produces a positive ef-
fect on sales nearly three times as great as that of the
combo used in Campaign D.

CREATIVITY ISN’T easily engineered—and it is still
largely measurable only after the fact. What’s more,
a focus-group assessment of an unaired campaign’s
creativity levels may well be off the mark. Nonethe-
less, companies can use a model like ours, coupled
with sound baseline data, to better ground the
process of creating advertising ideas and assessing
their value. And in so doing, they can put to good
use quite a bit more than the famous half of their
ad budgets. C

HBR Reprint R1306H

112 Harvard Business Review June 2013

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