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DESPERATELY SEEKING ADVERTISING CREATIVITYSheila L Sasser; Scott KoslowJournal of Advertising; Winter 2008; 37, 4; ABI/INFORM Globalpg. 5

DESPERATELY SEEKING ADVERTISING CREATIVITY

Engaging an Imaginative “3Ps” Research Agenda

Sheila L. Sasser and Scott Koslow

ABSTRACT: An overview and perspective of advertising creativity research is offered in a “3 Ps" (person, place, and process) framework to shape future research agendas. Emerging methodologies and tools are examined to enable a paradigmshift for academic researchers and emerging scholars seeking to stimulate new advertising creativity research initiatives.A discussion ofkey contributions, a literature review, and a classification table summarize various approaches to creativity.An introduction to research papers appearing in this special issue offers insights for scholars.

In the words ofAlbert Einstein, “Imagination is everything, itis the preview of life's coming attractions." Lacking imagination, it would be impossible to envision the future, to exploreideas, or to engage creativity to push the edge of the researchenvelope. To ignite the flame of such a powerful global forceas creativity, research must be imaginative, evocative, exciting,risky, and challenging. Predictable, halfhearted, lackluster,or mundane attempts at understanding advertising creativityneither excite the imagination nor fuel the progress neededto prompt a new paradigm of original creativity research. Atrue fire in the belly is needed to stick a toe in the creativecauldron of advertising creativity research today, as discussedin this special issue. Thankfully, many such extraordinary andemerging scholars have contributed to this very special issueby serving as authors, reviewers, advisors, editors, and cohortsin a passionate search for advertising creativity research.

The evolutionary stage facing advertising creativity researchtoday is what Kuhn (1962) called the route to normal science.This is characterized by the emergence of an area’s first majorparadigm. Advertising creativity scholars are collectivelydeveloping new research methodologies and approaches, butworkable frameworks have been challenging and sparse. Thisexplains the highly interdisciplinary undulating nature ofcreativity research. It is also important during such a transitionto question conventional wisdom (Verbeke et al. 2008). Otherauthors offer imaginative approaches (Erevelles et al. 2008).Some researchers dared to tackle risky topics and experimentaldesigns for this issue, while others triangulated qualitative andquantitative research. As nascent subtleties are coalescing, the

Sheila L. Sasser (Ph.D., Wayne State University) is an assistantprofessor of marketing in the College of Business at Eastern Michigan University.Scott Koslow (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is an associate professor of marketing in the Waikato Management Schoolat the University ofWaikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

stage is set to explore the perspectives, literature, and prospectsfor creativity research in advertising.

To better understand the various perspectives researcherscan use, the "3Ps" of the person, place, and process of creativeadvertising are presented. This framework offers a good fit forthe discussion of creative advertising. Dominant advertisingresponse paradigms focus researchers toward topics such as attention, memory, or information processing rather than areasspecifically tailored to explain the effects ofcreative advertisements. Such knowledge ofcreativity's effects may be weak precisely because dominant advertising response paradigms stilllack appropriate research tools and methodologies. Consumerresponses to creative advertising are not as straightforward.Despite the strong theoretical and methodological base for researching consumer response, this aspect ofadvertising creativity research is still the least developed. One reason may be thatthese established paradigms have long crowded out creativity,albeit inadvertently. This review considers an application ofthe5Ps approach to consumer processing of creative advertisingto suggest and enable future research directions.A second challenge for researchers is making sense of the

literature regarding creativity research in advertising. Becausethere are no consistent guidelines, researchers often overlookor neglect historical precedent. Unfortunately, it is the verylack of such guidelines that makes it even more critical tounderstand interdisciplinary contributions and incorporatesuch achievements. A list of published journal articles isdesignated by several important themes to identify gaps andopportunities.

The third and greatest challenge concerns future researchprospects discussed in terms of methodology, theory, andsubstantive issues. An examination ofmethodological issues isconducted, focusing on generalizability and validity concerns.Several implicit and explicit theories arise and substantiveissues are explored, because good research must also be usefulfor practitioners, as are the studies in the last article of thisissue.

jaumaf of Advertising, vol. 37, no. 4 (Winter 2008), pp. 5 19.© 2008 American Academy of Advertising. All rights reserved.

ISSN 0091 3367 I 2008 $9.50 + 0.00.DOI l0.2753!_]OA009l 3367370401

DESPERATELY SEEKING ADVERTISING CREATIVITY

Engaging an Imaginative “3Ps” Research Agenda

Sheila L. Sasser and Scott Koslow

ABSTRACT: An overview and perspective of advertising creativity research is offered in a “3 Ps" (person, place, and process) framework to shape future research agendas. Emerging methodologies and tools are examined to enable a paradigmshift for academic researchers and emerging scholars seeking to stimulate new advertising creativity research initiatives.A discussion ofkey contributions, a literature review, and a classification table summarize various approaches to creativity.An introduction to research papers appearing in this special issue offers insights for scholars.

In the words ofAlbert Einstein, “Imagination is everything, itis the preview of life's coming attractions." Lacking imagination, it would be impossible to envision the future, to exploreideas, or to engage creativity to push the edge of the researchenvelope. To ignite the flame of such a powerful global forceas creativity, research must be imaginative, evocative, exciting,risky, and challenging. Predictable, halfhearted, lackluster,or mundane attempts at understanding advertising creativityneither excite the imagination nor fuel the progress neededto prompt a new paradigm of original creativity research. Atrue fire in the belly is needed to stick a toe in the creativecauldron of advertising creativity research today, as discussedin this special issue. Thankfully, many such extraordinary andemerging scholars have contributed to this very special issueby serving as authors, reviewers, advisors, editors, and cohortsin a passionate search for advertising creativity research.

The evolutionary stage facing advertising creativity researchtoday is what Kuhn (1962) called the route to normal science.This is characterized by the emergence of an area’s first majorparadigm. Advertising creativity scholars are collectivelydeveloping new research methodologies and approaches, butworkable frameworks have been challenging and sparse. Thisexplains the highly interdisciplinary undulating nature ofcreativity research. It is also important during such a transitionto question conventional wisdom (Verbeke et al. 2008). Otherauthors offer imaginative approaches (Erevelles et al. 2008).Some researchers dared to tackle risky topics and experimentaldesigns for this issue, while others triangulated qualitative andquantitative research. As nascent subtleties are coalescing, the

Sheila L. Sasser (Ph.D., Wayne State University) is an assistantprofessor of marketing in the College of Business at Eastern Michigan University.Scott Koslow (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is an associate professor of marketing in the Waikato Management Schoolat the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

stage is set to explore the perspectives, literature, and prospectsfor creativity research in advertising.

To better understand the various perspectives researcherscan use, the "3Ps" of the person, place, and process of creativeadvertising are presented. This framework offers a good fit forthe discussion of creative advertising. Dominant advertisingresponse paradigms focus researchers toward topics such as attention, memory, or information processing rather than areasspecifically tailored to explain the effects ofcreative advertisements. Such knowledge ofcreativity's effects may be weak precisely because dominant advertising response paradigms stilllack appropriate research tools and methodologies. Consumerresponses to creative advertising are not as straightforward.Despite the strong theoretical and methodological base for researching consumer response, this aspect ofadvertising creativity research is still the least developed. One reason may be thatthese established paradigms have long crowded out creativity,albeit inadvertently. This review considers an application ofthe5Ps approach to consumer processing of creative advertisingto suggest and enable future research directions.

A second challenge for researchers is making sense of theliterature regarding creativity research in advertising. Becausethere are no consistent guidelines, researchers often overlookor neglect historical precedent. Unfortunately, it is the verylack of such guidelines that makes it even more critical tounderstand interdisciplinary contributions and incorporatesuch achievements. A list of published journal articles isdesignated by several important themes to identify gaps andopportunities.

The third and greatest challenge concerns future researchprospects discussed in terms of methodology, theory, andsubstantive issues. An examination ofmethodological issues isconducted, focusing on generalizability and validity concerns.Several implicit and explicit theories arise and substantiveissues are explored, because good research must also be usefulfor practitioners, as are the studies in the last article of thisissue.

jaumaf of Advertising, vol. 37, no. 4 (Winter 2008), pp. 5 19.© 2008 American Academy of Advertising. All rights reserved.

ISSN 0091 3367 I 2008 $9.50 + 0.00.DOI l0.2753!_]OA009l 3367370401


6 Thejournal ofAdvertising

PERSPECTIVES

Research in advertising creativity can be divided into threemajor perspectives relating to the people who create advertising, the process they follow in developing creative ideas, andthe places or environments in which they work. This tripartitestructure may also be applied to the people who respond toadvertising, the places such as media, contexts, or situationswhere they do so, and the thinking processes by which theyunderstand and make sense of advertising. Although otherframeworks are potentially useful (Csikszentmihalyi 1988,1996), the most important focus is developing a processframework for organizing the various perspectives, examiningspecific topics, and gauging interactions. This 3Ps creativityframework is also discussed in Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells(2009), adapted from Sasser (2006) and Sasser and Koslow(2006) as an introduction to the creativity chapters.

Although some researchers like to also include the study ofspecific creative products, or “deliverables," this is explicitlyavoided in this special issue. Given the research agenda—settingmandate of this special issue, a broader visionary perspective isnecessary. Although advertising has a long tradition ofcontentanalysis, the preferable orientation for this special issue is tokeep the focus on the causes and effects—the “artistic science”side of creativity. For example, Goldenberg, Mazursky, andSolomon (1999) Classify advertisements into templates, buttheir main contribution is their creative thinking technique,which is a process.

Models of individual creativity— the “person” P provideresearch insights into what makes individuals creative, that is,what makes them tick or how they are different. These insightsfocus researchers on how people think and behave in differentways to prompt higher levels ofcreativity. Personality, ability,skills, experience, motivation, and especially the passion tocreate, are central. This is evidenced in recent trends involvingthe consumer as cocreator with the brand and agency (Sasser2008), as noted in “The Concept of ‘Imaginative Intensity’ inAdvertising" by Erevelles et al. in their perspectives contribution. Many individual factors interact in complex patterns, andit is such interactions that are most critical to research. Mostpeople exhibit some creative ability, and understanding howsuch factors coalesce in the creative person is vital.

Environmental models —the “place” P—focus on areas ofthe agency organization, culture, workspace structure, or client situations that have an impact on people and the creativeprocess. This may include both controllable and uncontrollablefactors present in the ad agency based on image, structure,culture, integration, communication, styles, systems, traditions, and other factors. Sometimes these factors are evidentin the physical agency environment, as evidenced by creativeboutique agency offices designed to stimulate creative teamideas. BBH Agency in London on Carnaby Street is set in an

energetic creative hub location to inspire employees. London’sMother Advertising Agency has unique support structures forcreativity, while other firms use fairly common hierarchiesdictated by large agencies. Finally, clients also exert an effecton place creativity, both positive and negative.

Models of the creative process focus on factors involved withthe production of creative advertising campaigns. For manyresearchers, this seems to be the most mysterious aspect ofcreativity. Patterns denote how creatives approach and thinkabout their work. These range from very complex patterns ofthinking to rather simplistic devices, even in such sophisticated environments.

Advertising response models privilege information processing, or the “process” P, but research in this area should alsobe extended to gain understanding of person or place effects.One area ofgreat potential might involve extending advertising response models to the emerging interactive media placeP. A view of how creativity impacts different individuals indistinctive ways—the person P—is also needed. Considerationof such topics is offered in the context of future research presented below, after a focused literature overview.

ADVERTISING CREATIVITY LITERATUREOVERVIEW

To identify the journal based literature in advertising creativity, a key word search of top advertising journals (journal ofAdvertising, Internationaljournal ofAdvertising, and thejournalofAdvertising Research), plus key marketing journals (Ionrnal ofMarketing, Marketing Science, journal ofMarketing Research, andjournal ofConsnnzer Researcla) yielded several articles. The startdate for the search was 1972, which was chosen because it isthe founding date of the journal ofAdvertising. A search wasalso conducted of the last 10 years of advertising and marketing journals in the EBSCO database as an extra measure ofconfidence that important creativity articles were duly noted.Prudent selectiveness was employed in this topic area, notincluding related areas such as agency client relations or thestudy of individual execution factors unless there was a directlink to creativity. In spite of such comprehensiveness, someimportant articles may have been overlooked. An overview ofadvertising creativity literature is listed in Table 1. Classification is by empirical, substantive, or theoretical basis, and their3P (persons, place, or process) factors.

The primary source for advertising creativity articles is,not surprisingly, the journal of Advertising, where 31 out of66 articles were published. Including the ll articles in thisspecial issue, over 50% of the advertising creativity literatureoriginates from this outlet. The leading contributor to thisliterature is Douglas West with six publications, followed byArt Kover with five, and Scott Koslow, Len Reid, and SheilaSasser at four each.


Winter 2008 7

TABLE IMajor Advertising Creativity journal Articles, I972 2008

Production OrientedIEmpiricalQ’_ 7 7

Article‘1___ '___

Perspective Description

Auer (I976)Reid (I977)Young (2000)Ewing and jones (2000)

Koslow, Sasser, and Riordan (2003)

El Murad and West (2003)

Devinney, Dowling, and Collins (2005)

Hackley and Kover (2007)

Bursk and Sethi (I976)Reid et al. (I985)

Vanden Bergh, Smith, and Wicks (I986)Michell ( I 986)

Hastings and Leathar (I987)

Hirschman ( I 989)West ( I 993)

Kover and Goldberg (I995)

Taylor, Hoy, and Haley (I996)

West and Berthon (I997)Reid, King, and DeLorme (I998)West (I999)

West and Ford (200l)Hill and Johnson (2004)

Sutherland, Duke, and Abemethy (2004)Tippins and Kunkel (2006)

Horsky (2006)Koslow, Sasser, and Riordan (2006)

Sasser, Koslow, and Riordan (2007)

Winter and Russell (I973)

Reid and Rotfeld (I976)Vanden Bergh, Reed, and Schorin (I 983)

Kover (I995)Goldenberg, Mazursky, and Solomon (I999)

johar. Holbrook, and Stern (200 I)

Chong (2006)

PersonPersonPersonPerson

Person

Person

Person

Person

PlacePlace

PlacePlace

Place

PlacePlace

Place

Place

PlacePlacePlace

PlacePlace

PlacePlace

PlacePlace

Place

Process

ProcessProcess

ProcessProcess

Process

Process

Explores how creative advertising students differ.Finds that academics are poor selectors of creative talent.Contrasts copywriters’ and art directors’ ad views.Details differences in “strong” and “weak” theories of advertising

adherence.Compares differences in perceptions of creative advertising among

cneative, account, and media executives.Demonstrates that creatives who take more risks win more creativity

awards.Examines how clients and agencies differ in evaluation, yet still agree

on identification of advertising.Deals with how professional creatives negotiate their roles and

identities in agencies.Compares in house and traditional agencies.Examines the creative strategies of Clio winning advertising in a

cross national setting.Investigates the conflict between creatives and account executives.Compares client and agency perceptions of creativity, especially in the

context of their relationship.Argues that consumer research can play an important role in

encouraging creativity.Explores qualitatively six roles in producing advertising.Examines creative process differences among American, Canadian, and

British agencies.Documents the political games between advertising creative and

account executives.Categorizes French creative styles into four types: la seduction, le

spectacle, l’amour, and l’humour.Explores risk taking behavior by clients regarding advertising.Shows that advertising has become more creative than it used to be.Suggests that agencies avoid taking creative risks and when they do.

they take a portfolio approach.Examines how agency philosophy impacts creative risks.Presents a problem solving approach that clients use regarding

developing creative advertising.Identifies the information that creatives want to obtain from clients.Shows the mixed effects of winning creativity awards on advertiser

share prices.Examines unbundling of creative and media services.Estimates the significance of the marketer client role and the direct

impact on agency creativity.Explores the relationships between interactive media. creativity, and

integrated marketing communications.Identifies a gap between the value researchers place on psychograph

information and creatives’ use of it.Applies the associative model of creative thinking to advertising.Tests empirically the Gross model premise that the volume of

creative idea generation is critical.Articulates copywriters‘ implicit communications model.Develops the Templates method of creative thinking, an analogies

based approach.Identifies an analogies based thinking technique using a think aloud

task on copywriter—art director pairs.Explores research as perceived by creative directors.

(continues)


8 T/oejournal ofAdvertising

TABLE I (continued)

Production OrientedlSubstantive

Article Perspective Description

McGann (I986)Bullmore (I990)Matthews (I975)Politz (I975)l(eil (I975)Drake (I984)Daniels (I974)

Stephens and Burke (I974)

Dillon (I975)

PersonPersonPlacePlacePlacePlace

Process

Process

Process

Comments on student creative careers and academics.Reflects on the management of creatives.Provides an overview of creativity for management.Warns against attention getting creative tactics.Presents eight rules for judging creative work.Reflects on the relationship between research and creatives.Emphasizes that the purpose of creativity is to present the product to

clients, not just to showcase creative.Argues that learning the creative process is finding a creative voice

that already exists inside oneself.Highlights the persuasive function of advertising as the most

important aspect.

Production OrientedITheoretical


Frazer (I983)Burke et al. (I990)Gross (I972)

White (I972)

Bengtson (I982)

Blasko and Mokwa (I986)Stewart (I992)Zinkhan (I993)O'Connor,Willemain, and MacLachlan ( I996)

El Murad and West (2004)

Sasser (2008)

PlacePlace

Process

Process

Process

ProcessProcessProcessProcess

Process

Process

Focuses on the selection of creative strategy.Proposes a normative model of advertising production.Develops a mathematical model suggesting that developing more

creative ideas is optimal.Argues that excellence in creative idea generation goes beyond

problem solving steps.Comments on Young's problem solving approach to creativity,

emphasizing paradox and serendipity.Focuses on the paradoxical nature of advertising creativity.Explores how research can aid creativity.Calls for more research in advertising creativity.Replicates and extends Gross’s model assuming skewed distribution

of effectiveness.Reviews the limited literature on creativity focused on enhancing and

encouraging it.Discusses appropriateness and engagement of cocreator consumers

and agencies in the ad creative process.

Response OrientedIEmpirical


Kover, Goldberg, and james ( I 995)

l(over,james, and Sonner (I 997)

White and Smith (200l)

Dahlén (2006)

Stewart and Koslow (I989)

Ang and Low (2000)Stone, Besser, and Lewis (2000)

Pieters,Warlop, and Wedel (2002)

Person

Person

Person

Place

Process

ProcessProcess

Process

Explores consumers‘ emotional responses to both creative andeffective advertising.

Compares creatives’ and consumers’ responses to both creative andeffective advertising; shows importance of personal enhancementto consumers.

Examines how practitioners, students, and the general public viewcreative advertisements.

Shows the creative media placement impact on brand associations,attitudes, and ad credibility.

Details impact of I60 executional factors on recall, comprehension,and persuasion; argues against the perception of a “formula”approach to creativity.

Argues three dimensions of creative advertising.Explores the relationships among advertising recall, likability, and

creativity.Using an eye tracking method, shows that original advertisements

receive more attention.(continues)


Article Perspective

Winter 2008 9

Description

ProcessProcess

Till and Baack (2005)Ang, Lee, and Leong (2007)

Smith et al. (2007) Process

Demonstrates how creative advertising facilitates unaided recall.Consumer view of creative advertisements as novel, meaningful, and

connected.Develops scales for consumer perceptions of creativity and compares

the effects of award winning and random advertisements.

Response OrientedITheoretical


Smith and Yang (2004) Process Shows consumer response approach to creativity.

A noticeable aspect of Table 1 is the lack of substantiveresearch. Only a few practitioner articles appeared in the early1970s. Practitioner perspectives do have some representation inthe literature via qualitative research efforts, primarily duringexploratory stages, but typically they are not a direct focus.Numerous venues sponsored by industry associations includethe American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA),the International Advertising Association (IAA), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Advertising ResearchFoundation (ARF), the Institute ofPractitioners in Advertising(IPA), and the Cannes Lions International Advertising FestivalSeminars. Emerging trends are first noted and discussed byexperts at such events. Cross pollinating scholars and practitioners would enable more knowledge sharing and promptaccelerated learning curves, and would inspire new research.

The most common advertising creativity research is comprised of empirical studies of place based perspectives of production. This accounts for almost one third ofthe articles witha minimal overlap in topics. Even this intensively studied areastill needs more research. Questionnaires or other descriptivemethods are typically used due to ease of accessibility. Theoretical articles are rare and many of them were written justprior to most empirical work. These contributions appear tohave been used to position and frame research for upcomingstudies. Advertising creative response research has only threearticles prior to 2000.

If one plotted article frequency over time, it would lookfairly constant (except for rapid growth in the last two years),but this masks substantial changes. The early substantivework largely disappeared by 1980, and insights offered bythese practitioners rarely made an impact. By the mid 1990s,researchers were producing more sophisticated research, butmostly in isolated studies by authors with other primaryresearch interests. Doug West, Art Kover, and Len Reid engaged in systematic investigations spanning several articlesin the 1990s. It is hoped that other innovative articles fromGoldenberg, Mazursky, and Solomon (1999), Koslow, Sasser,and Riordan (2006), and Smith et al. (2007) of more recentorigin will reinvigorate research streams. An emerging cadre

of international researchers is now dedicated to creativityresearch as a primary focus. This research is coalescing into anascent paradigm, a sea change ofprospects for shaping futurecreativity research in advertising.

PROSPECTING RESEARCH AGENDAS,THEORIES, AND METHODOLOGIES

There are many pathways to begin setting new research agendas, from the roads less traveled to some well worn paths.Potential research direction is set in a framework to bettersift through a maze of future opportunities. Suggestions areseparated into the methodological, theoretical, and substantiveareas. This is hardly a comprehensive list of issues or theories,but it is hoped that some of the ideas raised will stimulate arobust agenda for research.

Measuring Creativity

Some researchers appear concerned that creativity is a difficultconstruct to measure, whereas others maintain that it is noworse than many other areas routinely measured. Given theright methodological framework, the measures can be fairlyrobust. In Koslow, Sasser, and Riordan (2003, 2006), forexample, it was not reported that six different operationalizations of creativity were used, yet all showed a similar patternof results. Sasser, Merz, and Koslow (2008) rigorously replicated and validated their earlier findings using several different independent methodologies. Goldenberg, Mazursky, andSolomon (1999) used a variety of measures and showed thatresults are not sensitive to the measures used. The same standard applies to Ang and Low (2000) and Smith et al. (2007).Research is still focused on what may well be the largest effects with reason to believe that signal to noise ratios in ourmodels are such that even imperfect creativity measures willshow significance. Perhaps smaller nuances and effects willbe identified and such measurement will be more critical atlater stages of research. For current research, quite a range ofmeasurement is still adequate.


F

L


There should be greater concern, however, about understanding what is being measured rather than merely how it isbeing measured. To be deemed creative, advertisements must beboth original and appropriate, which means that an interactionbetween the two measures is needed. An additive structure, aswhen originality and appropriateness items load on the samefactor, may yield results, but the interaction of the separatefactors may show stronger effects. Some researchers, such asSmith et al. (2007) and Smith, Chen, and Yang (2008), use anextremely elaborate system ofmeasuring originality, which theycall divergence. Such sophistication is laudable, and now thatthey have shown the nomological net, some researchers wouldprobably find it as acceptable to use only three to five items tomeasure originality, given the scale and scope of research efforts.From Smith et al.’s (2007) three overall items for divergence, toKoslow, Sasser, and Riordan’s (2003) four items for originality,there are more options for creativity researchers. Measurementsof originality remain fairly consistent. Most observers usuallyagree on what constitutes an unusual advertisement, and reliability measures from many articles support this notion.

The more important issue, however, is including the rightkind of appropriateness in the measure. As Koslow, Sasser,and Riordan (2003) note in comparing creatives with accountexecutives, different people have different views of appropriateness. For example, Ang, Lee, and Leong (2007) and Smithet al. (2007) take different approaches to appropriateness andboth are acceptable in their contexts. But there are still otherpossible contexts with different appropriateness measures.Another issue is the relative balance of originality and appropriateness (see, e.g., West, Kover, and Caruana 2008).A concern with award winning advertisements is that theymeasure only originality rather than truly measuring creativity. Greater identification and elaboration of specific criteria,scales, and relevant measurements for use by award judges andjury panels rating creative campaigns is needed.

Sample Size Constraints in Advertising Production

Access to relevant subjects who are able to provide informative and insightful data is perhaps the greatest methodologicalconstraint for models of creative advertising production. Ifthe focus of research is on those who develop advertisements,then the possible appropriate subject pool of individuals isextremely small and organizationally and geographically concentrated. Most worldwide advertising is produced by a smallcommunity ofhighly mobile specialists in approximately twodozen global agency networks owned by a handful of publicholding companies, predominately headquartered in NewYork, London, Paris, and Tokyo. Therefore, the potentialsample of respondents is exceptionally small.

The lack of available subjects may explain why researchdealing with the creative process so rarely uses working ad

vertising creatives. Some notable exceptions are Goldenberg,Mazursky, and Solomon (1999) and _]ohar, Holbrook, and Stern(2001), but most process research tends to use student subjects.While common and convenient, it may not be sensible tostudy subjects of average ability to learn about highly expertworking creatives. Are creatives merely an extrapolation ofaverage subjects, or are they qualitatively different? It maybe difficult, or even impossible, to address this dilemma, asit appears throughout interdisciplinary creativity research.As Sternberg and Lubart (1999) lament, genuine creativity issuch a rare phenomenon that it is always quite challenging tostudy it anywhere.

The difficulty of recruiting useful subjects collectivelyforces researchers to explicitly state their values regardingthe trade off of internal validity versus external validity andgeneralizability. Using student samples means that researchers can pilot test frequently to improved research designs. Yetstudies that provide external validity and generalizability byusing scarce practicing creatives will never be able to pretestso extensively as to completely eliminate possible alternativeexplanations. Given the shrinking practitioner subject poolsavailable, cell sizes are pushed to the lower limits of acceptability. Due to these constraints, studies on working creativesmust invariably be less sophisticated than student studies. Onehope is that student based studies may provide a learning curvefor later application of such knowledge on working creativesin the real world, but there is great pessimism and apprehension with using such a strategy. Consumer behavior research,for example, has not followed the hoped for progression fromstudent studies to general population samples.

Creativity as a Dependent Variable inAdvertising Response

A key question for research on consumer responses to advertising is whether such creativity can actually affect or influenceconsumers without their awareness of creativity. One view isthat clients seek out creative agency advertising hoping to bemore persuasive to consumers, but consumers need not perceivean ad as creative for it to actually work or be effective. Anothernotion is that audience views on what is creative should matter to researchers, and thus audience definitions of creativitycan routinely be used as an outcome measure of creativity.Given that the definition of creativity differs depending oninterviewee subjectivity, this is a hotly debated topic (West,Kover, and Caruana 2008). This issue should not be confusedwith points raised by Goldenberg and Mazursky (2008), as theyexplore whether advertisements produced by the templatesmethod continue to surprise consumers over a longer timeframe. Depending on the context, consumer perspectives ofcreativity obviously matter under several of these views, furthercomplicating research agendas.


A more basic methodological issue, however, is whetherconsumer perception of creativity is a general dependentvariable. This is a critical justification for student samples. Sowhat dependent variable should we measure with regard toaudiences: creativity or effectiveness? Is creativity a vehicle toa more persuasive advertisement in accordance with Stewart,Cheng, and Wan’s (2008) disciplined view ofserving advertiserneeds— a means to an end? Or is creativity a phenomenonof importance in itself, that is, an end in itself? Creativity isoften treated as a tool to facilitate effective advertising. Yetnot all researchers agree with this approach, especially giventhe disparity of perspectives represented in this special issue.

Exemplar Advertisements for Advertising Response

Another methodological issue is the determination of thetypes of advertisements to be used as creative exemplars. Unlike information processing paradigms that provide enoughstructure to enable development of advertising test stimulito tease out detailed advertising effects, the current state ofcreativity theory provides little guidance on selecting stimulifor testing. In this void, researchers have made a variety ofchoices for test advertisements, some better than others.Many researchers choose creativity award winning advertisements, which have good face validity, but may also containunseen biases. Most awards are peer judged by other creatives,who are well known for privileging originality over strategy(Koslow, Sasser, and Riordan 2003). Furthermore, unlesscriterion is specified, creativity awards are usually judgedon the advertisements alone, without consideration of thestrategic thinking and appropriateness constructs. Lackingdisclosure or prior knowledge of such client brief constraints,awards are won based on the originality of the advertisementrather than appropriateness. Interactive emerging media mayalso impact client and jury selection if they are considered tooffer breakthroughs and to be engaging (Sasser, Koslow, andRiordan 2007). Given that many practitioners criticize awardshows for promoting and privileging such “eye candy,” it ishardly surprising that they may measure high originality, butneglect the other facets of creativity.

Genuinely creative advertisements are identified as original,but also appropriate. This means that other judgments are alsoneeded, such as an understanding of the ad strategy and targetaudience. Such information is in the creative brief and sharedwith the creative team. Some researchers argue that the use ofsuch measures introduces the risks of perceptual and/or common methods biases. Thus, any selection ofgenuinely creativeadvertisements is going to result in some compromise due tovarious biases and predispositions. At this point, it may not bepossible to address every concern using empirical research.

Another issue is the actual number or quantity of advertisements needed to offer sufficiently generalized findings in

Winter 2008 1 1

testing. Some researchers have used as few as three creativeadvertisements and three uncreative advertisements—or evenless in research methodological designs. Although this maybe typical in advertising information processing studies, itis difficult to claim that three advertisements represent areasonable creative universe. Complicating this dilemma isa lack of existing theory to guide selections of just a few creative advertisements as stimuli. As a counterbalance to suchconcerns, scholars may find it useful and necessary to reportvariance component scores to demonstrate that the creativeadvertisements produced little variance specific to particularadvertisements.

Internal Versus External Validity

Some researchers also argue that in the formative phase of thiscreative paradigm shift, high levels of internal validity areneeded and issues like external validity and generalizabilityare relegated to secondary importance. Others passionatelydebate that external validity and generalizability are still ofparamount importance and must not be abandoned. Somereviewers for this special issue privileged external validityover interval validity, but most acknowledged both. Clearly,internal validity adds objectivity and weight to research, butresearch must reflect an array of knowledge; thus, externalvalidity is also essential.

One illustration of the danger of overemphasizing internalvalidity is raised in an ominous note ofcaution from Bergkvistand Rossiter (2008) with regard to how many advertisementsto test. Using only five carefully matched pairs of effectivelineffective advertisements in a controlled test, Haley andBaldinger (1991) reported that affect toward the advertisementwas the single best measure ofeffectiveness. However, with theaddition ofonly a dozen more pairs ofadvertisements, Rossiterand Eagleson (1994) reversed their findings. They found thatpersuasion is the single best measure and that, in fact, fewmeasures can actually be rejected. Such experience is a starkreminder that a sole focus on internal validity, such as in Haleyand Baldinger’s (1991) work, is extremely problematic. johnRossiter has further illuminated such issues in several recentconference presentations. Sadly, there is still a lack ofsufficientcreative theory to enable selection of useful exemplars.

A reexamination ofprior advertising effectiveness research(Stewart and Furse 1986; Stewart and Koslow 1989) withpractitioners at ARS, an advertising testing company, enableddevelopment of coding schemes for copy tested advertisements. The first phase examined 160 execution factors acrossover one thousand advertisements. The next stage replicatedthis effort on a second group of one thousand additionaladvertisements. Currently, the ARS database includes wellover 10,000 advertisements, with almost one thousand international commercials. This research has repeatedly shown



that advertisements with brand differentiating messagesoutperform those with less specific messages. Any distractionsfrom the main selling message are disastrous. A strong established brand position further enhances ad effectiveness. Thisresearch proceeded without timely theory available. Absentsuch exploratory research and risks, many effects would nothave been noted. Thus, advertising creativity researchers mayfind it useful to utilize exploratory methods with large datasets emphasizing external validity over internal validity——aslong as replication is also employed to help identify possiblyspurious results.

Theory

An articulation of advertising research creativity theories isoffered using the 3Ps framework (Sasser 2006). The “person”P perspective focuses on the creative individuals who createadvertising. The “place” P perspective deals with environments, clients, advertising and artistic communities, andphysical space. The “process” P deals with agency and clientorganizational processes, thinking, and systems. For creativeproduction, three theories are based on each of the 3Ps. Likewise, creative advertising response is categorized across threetheories provided corresponding to each of the 3Ps.

The “Person " P: A Confluence Approachto Advertising Production

As Sternberg and Lubart (1999) point out, one model of creative production is the confluence model of individual creativity. That is, creative products are best produced when severalcritical factors coalesce. It is believed that these factors areindividual potential, disciplined training, consistent practice,and intrinsic motivation. Possibly the best predictor ofgreatercreativity is intrinsic motivation or passionate enjoyment ofthe process or outcome, followed by practice.

Many creativity scholars have long suspected that creativeindividuals have an innate or intuitive level ofpotential that ishigher than others’ (Guilford 1950). What actually constitutessuch potential is ofgreat concern, however. Early researchers increativity, such as Alfred Binet, felt that intelligence was vitalto the production of creative ideas. Binet originally sought toproduce both an IQ test and a test of creative thinking potential, but only the IQ test had sufficient reliability (Barron andHarrington 1981). Others have looked at the specific potentialto produce novel thoughts as well. Some researchers have evenconsidered perceived antisocial personality characteristics ofcreative innovative people (Barron and Harrington 1981; Rogers 2003). All such factors may be equally important and maycoexist simultaneously. Intelligence and original thinking arecritical capabilities. Such independent thinking may even bemisconstrued as reflecting antisocial tendencies, when, in fact,

unique traits actually enable and signal more true creativity.Having the ability to resist conventional tendencies and traditional problem solving norms empowers and distinguishescreatives.

Training for creativity usually manifests in several ways.Some methods merely enable an organization of thoughts,so if a dead end is reached, it is easier to regroup in anothercreative direction. Such approaches often take the form of ideamapping by starting with one idea, and radiating to severalothers. Each idea is expounded and spawns additional gyrationsuntil a genuinely creative solution is evolved (see Goldenbergand Mazursky 2002). Others set goals for producing creativeideas (e.g., produce a page of ideas), relying on Gross’s model,which promotes the sheer volume of ideas (Gross 197 2). Thesetechniques fall broadly into the category of “mindscribing"discussed by Griffin (2008).

Other forms of training use problem solving steps to focusor prime thinking in fertile territory that might be consideredripe for higher potential. Some formats direct creatives to a setof templates that enable thinking about certain metacognitivepatterns (Goldenberg, Mazursky, and Solomon 1999). That is,most training serves to record, structure, and prime creativethought generation rather than change those thoughts perse. Actual changing or more radical progression of thoughtprocesses might be produced by the random injection of diverse ideas. This more arbitrary and sporadic format, which israrely considered, is usually used in the context ofsnowballingin brainstorming sessions or in Gordon's (1961) “Synetics"training. Many creatives view such methods as a crutch inthe domain of the less skilled. Observations suggest that successful creatives use highly complex yet subtle techniques,beyond current creative thinking approaches. Creatives maybe unaware that they are using such systems (Kilgour 2006).This complicates exploration of creative thinking techniquesin challenging research. It also limits the value of think aloudor retrospective methods for creative thinking.

Practice is essential in creative thinking, and it exhibitsa steep learning curve. Given considerable time and energy,many creatives discover various techniques. It is suspectedthat years spent working on generating creative ideas leads toa restructuring or reordering of individual thought patterns.Individual intrinsic motivation, also known as passion (Sasser2008), is the best predictor of time invested in creativity. Indeed, intrinsic motivation is possibly the most central constructin the whole of the creativity literature (see Amabile 1996).Among professional creatives, genuinely creative thought is arare and hallowed event, although often expected or ignored.If traditional path of least resistance (POLR) problem solvingsuffices, less genuine creative thought is used (Moreau and Dahl2005). Observers underestimate the effort required for an ideathat is both original and appropriate, since it appears to floweasily from top creative teams. Creatives work in teams or in


pairs to stimulate each other’s creative thinking process andthis also enables greater motivation.

The “Process” P: The How and Why ofCreative Idea Generation

Although there is emerging knowledge about creative individuals, the actual process of creative thinking is far moreelusive. After lengthy observation and participation, a twostep process of creative thinking has been proposed. The firststep, which seeks to develop a novel idea, is followed by asecond step that aims to integrate this into the problemsolving process and generate other elaborations. This secondstep is rarely solved perfectly, introducing a tension solvedby another novel departure, then an integration/elaboration,yet another tension and departure. In highly skilled creatives,this two step cycle takes less than two or three seconds, andwill often flow very quickly for approximately seven minutesofheightened attention, followed by several minutes of “rest”characterized by reduced idea flow, and then another roundof rapid idea flow. In highly skilled creatives, multiple novelideas are spun almost simultaneously, and this two step cyclecan go on for hours.

For those with less creative skill, the amount of time spenton elaboration is relative to skill level, often comprising several minutes. They tend to become distracted with the tactical details of execution, so their ability is limited in cyclingthrough the two step process more than four or five times.By comparison, highly skilled creatives perform thousandsof cycles in the same amount of time, outperforming others.Griffin (2008) notes how the more advanced students distinguish between ideas and executions more easily. Advancedstudents downplayed and disassociated the execution of theadvertisement. Among expert creatives, the division deepensand separates across the two steps.

A more basic issue, however, is the question of why creativity techniques are needed. Although creatives usuallydescribe what they do as problem solving, it often bears slightresemblance to how experts solve problems. Kilgour (2006)suggests that there is an inverted U shaped relationshipbetween expertise and creativity. Expertise is needed to aidcreativity only up to a modest level. Beyond this, expertisetends to result in a fixation thinking mentality that relieson standard solutions. Creative thinking techniques allowpeople to think outside this limiting set of knowledge andgo beyond such constrained tactical approaches. Publishedadvertising creative thinking research deals extensively withdivergent thinking, but provides little understanding of therole of convergent thinking, which Guilford (1950) argued isjust as important. In advertising, convergent thinking wouldincorporate the critical role that strategy plays in shapingadvertisements and it usually shows up in the appropriatenessdimension ofcreativity. Most creative thinking models assume

Winter 2008 13

that increasing divergent thoughts will produce more creativeadvertising. If genuine creativity must be both original andappropriate, then increasing convergent oriented strategicthinking may produce more creative advertising. As Kilgour(2006) explains, creative thinking tasks work differently ondifferent individuals because of their innate thinking skills.Some divergent thinkers benefit from traditional creativethinking tools, whereas other tools may be useful for convergent thinkers.

More research is also needed in small group creativity. Academics need to engage studies about why creatives frequentlywork in small groups, especially art director/copywriter teams.Do group dynamics enable emotional support or validation ofthe quality of ideas? Are creatives more stimulated to explorenew directions in groups? Another research avenue may involve the creative director's situational role as judge, confidant,arbiter, buffer, coach, or cheerleader. Such insights may guidea scholarly research agenda.

The “Place” P: Advertising Agencies asInstitutionalized Skunk Works

If thinking processes are largely an individual exercise, groupeffects should comprise the heart ofsituational or place relatedtheories. These situation theories may be based on an inherenttension underlying creativity: Knowledge is needed to produceappropriate ideas, but too much expertise may constrain theability to produce novel ideas. To control this process, themain organizational method used is skunk works (Rogers2003). Creative breakthroughs often require individuals tocircumvent the organizational confounds of well meaningexperts such as brand managers. Thinking outside the boxmay involve escaping the normal organizational dynamicsfor ideation, incubation, developmental thinking, artisticstimulation, and naturalistic settings to enable new creativepaths. Advertising agencies, architectural firms, and designhouses all represent institutionalized skunk works. Yet howthey access needed client knowledge resources while avoidingclient constraints is a significant challenge (Koslow, Sasser, andRiordan 2006; Sasser, Koslow, and Riordan 2007).

A barrier between marketing organizations and advertisingagencies is that client marketer organizational environmentsintentionally inhibit the kinds of creative processes necessaryto produce successful advertising. Organizationally embedded expertise stifles creativity, since such patterns involve setroutines. As Amabile (1996) laments, almost all organizationalmethods employed to promote creativity fail, and the bestone can typically do is stay above baseline levels. Thus, mostattempts by large corporate marketers to produce their ownin house campaigns have been notable creative failures. Thereare exceptions, such as retail advertisers, fashion designers,cosmetics firms, and entertainment companies, which use



their internal creative talent for image advertising. Nevertheless, creative environments and client marketer organizationsfunction best when separated by firewalls. If marketers actedlike agencies, they would be intensely motivated to follow aparticular strategic direction, regardless of risks. Erratic riskychanges in highly charged creative environments are rife withpersonal agendas, passion, and politics. Such drama is besthidden from most marketing client organizations. Marketersmay need a creative firewall between the client and agencyso that only carefully screened creative ideas pass through toignite the marketing organization.

A Co Creation Interaction (CCI) model (Sasser, Merz, andKoslow 2008) recognizes the complex process by which clientsdevelop powerful creative advertising in conjunction with theiragency. Relationship dynamics and latent inherent tensionsunderlying creativity are examined in this model regardingclient willingness to explore and agency motivational impact.Expertise is needed, but it may also inhibit novel ideas andsuppress creativity. This is particularly true under certainconditions in agency relationships where hot and cold zonesof creativity converge based on the motivation relationshipand other factors affecting creativity (Sasser, Merz, and Koslow 2008). Highly sophisticated clients should be open andreceptive to agency creative ideas, since this single factor has anoverwhelming impact on creativity. When agencies sense thatclients are open to exploring ideas, agency internal motivationincreases dramatically. Although high levels ofclient sophistication may stifle or intimidate agency teams, client opennessprofoundly counteracts this effect. In long term, high trustrelationships, the negative effect of evaluation is decreased,enabling greater risk taking. Other internal agency dynamicsalso change as a result of this enhanced receptiveness.

The most highly skilled creatives aspire to work with openminded receptive clients. Sophisticated clients are savvy aboutsourcing the best creative talent. This combination ofmotivation and creative skills leads to highly creative advertising.On the other hand, an opposite effect may occur when theagency is not as successful with clients who are not willing toexplore. Often the most highly creative advertising that agencies develop does not get used, but languishes in the “bottomdrawer." As West (1999; West and Berthon 1997) has shown,clients are resistant to taking creative risks, unless they areunder pressure to perform. Agency politics facilitates creativecampaign adoption (Sasser and Koslow 2008), but more research is needed on agency client relationship dynamics.

Creativity researchers must also further probe the role ofstrategy in campaigns. Many creatives believe that a more distinctive strategy results in a more original creative campaign.Excellent creative work depends on more than just information(e.g., Sutherland, Duke, and Abernethy 2004), and problemfinding (Griffin 2008) may be even more central to creativity.One hindrance is that strategy needs to be considered relative

to its originality. Understanding strategy formation should bea creativity issue (Rossiter 2008). Finally, researchers need toshow that creative advertising is effective in the marketplace.Li et al. (2008) illustrate the complex relationships amongcreativity, market conditions, and campaign outcomes.

Understanding Consumer Responses toCreative Advertising

More research on audience responses to creative advertisingis now emerging. This is ironic because dominant paradigmsexisted to enable such research much earlier. Many advertisingresearchers draw from information processing theories, butsuch "cold" psychological perspectives may not be appropriatefor creativity research. Sternberg and Lubart (1999) argue thatpsychological theories relegate creativity as an extraordinaryoutcome of an ordinary process rather than a special one. Newperspectives must be pioneered for relevant creativity research.Some consumer response articles in this issue follow the traditional information processing approach, but others seek to diversify away from tradition or attempt new frameworks. Smith,Chen, and Yang (2008) use a traditional hierarchy of effectsframework, and successfislly find linkages between creativityand brand awareness as well as originality and brand liking.Two other articles by Heiser, Sierra, and Torres (2008) andPoels and Dewitte (2008) follow traditions that are differentfrom standard information processing. Distinctive advertisingcauses creativity perceptions that drive attitudinal and purchaseintention changes in the former article. In the latter article,consumers are surprised when an ad deviates from the normalrelationship between expected arousal and pleasure. Researchersmay also consider studying responses to creativity from framingor perception approaches, because creative advertising drawsin diverse ideas or evokes unusual schemata.

Within the information processing approaches, attentionand memory are frequently examined. For example, Pieters,Warlop, and Wedel (2002) show that more original advertisingrequires more processing time, resulting in longer exposuresand greater attention. Thus, increased attention and reducedinterference may enhance memory. In Baack, Wilson, and Till(2008), however, creativity leads to positive memory effects forcinema advertising, but not for airport advertising. Althoughforced exposure to creativity leads to deeper processing, in morerealistic situations where consumers have a choice of whetherto engage with the ad, creative stimuli may be ignored. Moreresearch is needed on both attention and memory, especially onwhether enhanced memory is due to superior encoding, greateraccessibility, or both. The emphasis on attention and memoryapproaches focuses on originality as the central causal driver,possibly as a function of the “cold” information processingperspectives applied. If researchers think about attentionand memory differently, originality and appropriateness may


interact to engage consumers. It may even be that stunningcreativity evokes emotional responses that influence information processing.

Creativity could be more powerful in an era where anythingis now possible interactively, given new media options, dialogues, and relationships. Emotion and engagement appear tobe the wild cards in such scenarios that privilege a personalexperiential narrative approach that harkens back to storytelling. Consumers have far more control with regard to thebrand and they are far more demanding in terms of expectations. Relevance and resonance are critical to making such aconnection and drawing the target into a meaningful dialog.This requires a much deeper understanding of the audienceon a personal intimate level. Smith, Chen, and Yang (2008)show that originality impacts advertising likability, but a moreencompassing understanding of emotion is needed to betterunderstand creativity. As Pechmann and Stewart (1988) note,emotion and image oriented advertising delays wear out; thismay also hold true for creative advertising. The emotionalconnection with the consumer spawned by creative advertising might also reduce defensiveness to hasten wear in. As inrelationships, trust, commitment, passion, and intimacy arekey factors driving this brand engagement process and consumer likabilitylloyalty.

A common assumption of the information processingparadigm presumes an unengaged consumer who will allocatelittle capacity to the selling message. Thus, creatives need tomaximize scarce capacity allocated to an advertisement by having a unique selling message with few distractions. However,one may alternatively look at how consumers are spontaneouslymotivated or aroused to more deeply consider advertising, orhow creativity introduces diverse ideas to consumers by tapping different knowledge and enhancing processing. Creativitygrants consumers license to deeply engage in an advertisingmessage, and instead oforiginal advertisement elements beinga distraction, they enhance persuasion.

From a substantive perspective, practitioners emphasize arelationship between creativity and engagement, which appears to be a very profound form of involvement. In lookingto the experts for such inspiration, Wildfire Creativity burnedthe brightest. Worldwide Advertising Agency CEO ThomasBernardin and Paul Kemp Robertson of Contagious Magazine(2008), detail a variety of examples of using highly creativeideas to engage consumers as human beings rather than asinformation processors. They discuss the idea ofbrandedutility,wherein brands stop pushing overt mass marketing messagesand instead provide useful services embedding the brand inconsumers’ everyday lives. This emerging humanistic experiential model relies more on dialogue, friendship, and electronicword of mouth than on advertising persuasion.

Although Yang and Smith (2009) show how creativityleads to higher curiosity about a brand, interpreted as a form

Winter 2008 15

of engagement, academics have much to learn about this newhuman consumer landscape. As traditional advertising fades,new consumer cocreator models are needed. The concept ofimaginative intensity (Erevelles et al. 2008) may provideinspiration and new direction for such research.

How can researchers better approach consumer responsesto creative advertising, especially in this engagement environment? Focusing on the “person” P enables researchers tostep outside the narrow confines of information processingto discover alternative approaches. Examining how differentpeople respond to various creative campaigns or programs iscrucial. Exploratory research may help identify and infer processes that produce such effects. It is suspected that many ofthe effects on consumer responses to creative advertising relateto engagement, branded utility, or empowered consumers, butthey have received little attention in academia.

Likewise, researchers need to understand better the situational P, that is, the place context, of consumer response tocreativity. Certain media situations may yield more receptiveness to creative ideas and can be studied with individual difference methods (Sasser, Koslow, and Riordan 2007). Peopleinteract with brands differently now and are more likely toprovide insight to researchers using cultural anthropologicalmethods. If researchers continue to only look at the "process"P, there will still be a wealth of learning about the relation ofinformation processing to creativity. Yet there is so much moreto understanding creativity. If researchers look for theoriesrelating to the other two P's, they will find inspiration.

Substantive Issues

Scholarly methods and theories ofcreativity research in advertising are key to establishing the new paradigm. A continuingchallenge, however, is how to tap the gold mine ofpractitionerknowledge on substantive issues. Creativity research hasendured cycles of high activity followed by a disappointingshift or “falling out” period where all the progress on previoustheories and methods is questioned and discarded. It is hopedthat a synergistic interdisciplinary framework 3 Ps approachto advertising creativity research can mitigate this cycle andprovide stability. By focusing on emerging substantive issuesrather than an inevitable “falling out," a “falling in” mayprovide synergy for the next phase.

Finding a relevant focus for substantive issues will continueto be a challenge. There is a natural cycle of originality wherenew ideas become mainstream that applies to creative advertising research. As work is benchmarked, a new threshold risesand others copy and cite the breakthroughs, forming a newthreshold. Creativity researchers must continually stay aheadof the game and seek out the latest trends. Given research,review, and publication cycles, it is likely that agencies andadvertisers will adopt trends more quickly than academics.



The alternative perspectives article at the end of this specialissue offers ideas and insights for future substantive research,including current practitioner perspectives on creativity.

CONCLUSION

Formerjournal ofAdvertising editor George Zinkhan discussedcreativity in advertising in 1993. Finally, 15 years later, anentire special issue is devoted to this topic. Scholars are nowpoised to evolve a more engaging creativity research path.Although it is tempting to draw from the wider creativityliterature or advocate adherence to existing paradigms, itis far bolder to chart a new course. The practitioner worldis full of creativity and inspiration for research. Advertisingresearchers are able to navigate this maze and offer significantcontributions. Challenging creativity research problems can beturned into immediate opportunities for innovative advertisingresearchers. As Verbeke et al. (2008) illustrate, even creativityframeworks developed in management often fail to be replicated in advertising. Advertising really is quite different andmerits specialized creativity research.

Rather than just a new discovery of existing creativity literature, consider this special issue a siren call for passionateresearchers to rediscover the original excitement of advertising. Many advertising researchers chose this field for the sheerjoy and love of creativity. It often takes a wildfire to clear thepath through the forest and illuminate new research ideas. Theincredible journey ofadvertising creativity research is only justbeginning. Readers are invited to participate in this creativeresearch wildfire and absorb the knowledge, enthusiasm, andsheer energy of the articles in this special issue. In this desperate search to engage an imaginative new research agenda, it istime to unlock the keys to scholarly creativity. Such passionatecreativity is essential to advertising, and must be a vital partof advertising creativity research.

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