Creativity in Advertising: When It Works and When It Doesn't

Do highly creative ads really inspire people to buy products? Studies have found that creative messages get more attention and lead to positive attitudes about the products, but there's little evidence linking those messages to purchase behavior. To address this gap, Reinartz and Saffert developed a consumer survey approach that measures perceived creativity along five dimensions--originality, flexibility, elaboration, synthesis, and artistic value--and applied the approach in a study of 437 TV ad campaigns for 90 fast-moving consumer goods brands in Germany. The study then linked the assessments to sales figures for the products. The findings confirm that creative campaigns are, in general, more effective than other types of ads. The research also shows that the various creativity dimensions deliver different results. Elaboration, for instance, had a far more powerful effect on sales than did originality, a more commonly used dimension. Indeed, many companies focus on the wrong dimensions in their campaigns. This article reveals which product categories are best suited to creative advertising and which dimensions of creativity have the most influence on sales.