Professionals’ View on Nowadays Creativity in Online Advertising

Abstract

IntroductionThis study approaches two main dimensions of that, actually, frame the campaign success: message creativity and media adaptation, in terms of technology and customers' needs. Any message should achieve marketing objectives, according to the client's brief, but also the communication purposes to entirely appeal to consumers. Hence, a message should be not only functional, but also attractive to get consumers' involvement and their deep connection to the values. In this equation, creativity should be related both to effectiveness and aesthetical appeal. Some scholars (Dahlen, Rosengren, and Torn 2008) assert that creativity demonstrates brand ability, which prompts its standards rising in time, confidence in its values and even credibility in the consumers' eyes. Creativity triggers a real boost of feelings, emotions and meanings in consumers' minds due to cultural context and mentality. Therefore, professionals strive for understanding consumers' insights and for making the right connection with capital and product/service characteristics. At this point, creativity becomes an issue of collective culture, not of individual skills and so advertisers have a double role: to be active members of the community and thus shape an appropriate message that appeals to consumers. For that matter, defining creativity in context employs a wide approach regarding clients' requests, cultural norms and consumers' behavior. Fill, Hughes and De Francesco conclude that:Interpretations of what constitutes creativity therefore vary depending on the viewer's context. This may be relative to their role (a client striving to meet market-share targets), culture (the societal values and norms of behavior) or perspective (media commentator or blogger). (2013, p. 126)Besides, I would say that media channels raise other questions in terms of creativity, at least when comparing the offline with the online environment, which change the relationship between brand, consumers and professionals. One of the most important features of in terms of effectiveness is consumers' answer to creative stimuli expressed either by achieving that product, or by getting involved into delivering the message. The answer is a matter of credibility when it comes firstly to client's offer and agency creative strategy, secondly. According to Logan, Bright and Gangadharbatla, credibility relies on the balance between customers' dreams or needs and clients' honesty towards their expectations: Advertising credibility is an expression of the consumers' expectations regarding the fairness and factualness of advertising (2012, p. 166).Returning to the present study, we intend to make a brief comparison of the creativity concept applied in offline and online through professionals' perspectives, considering that they should both meet clients' demands and consumers' expectations. It is quite interesting to investigate the extent to which creativity can be more or less compromised by the client's perspectives upon their own investment in a successful campaign. As Belch and Belch (2001) assert, the creativity price in is strongly associated with the risk of any campaign. Similarly, El-Murad and West make the right connection between risk and clients' attitude, based on their business success:Furthermore, creatives feel freer to take creative risks when dealing with less important clients and of course the corollary to this is that larger clients probably receive less creative advertising. (2003, p. 668)Creativity vs. Effectiveness in AdvertisingBeing creative plays an important role in every moment of our life, regardless the activity we are involved in, as long as we deal with various tasks, answers and questions, or we often experience risks and dilemmas. This complex term of creativity has been investigated over years in many fields such as psychology, neurology, marketing, business, advertising, liberal arts and a. …