Editor’s Desk

What Do We Know
About Creativity?

John B. Ford The quantification of creativity in advertising is an passion also seems to spill over to the consumer and
Editor-in-Chief, ongoing challenge that seems to remain just beyond his or her brand attitudes and purchase intentions.”
Journal of Advertising the grasp of proper marketing research. The good The creative-idea generation process is the focus
Research news is that both academics and practitioners are of “Why Do Great Creative Ideas Get Rejected?
Eminent Scholar and closing the gap between execution and evaluation, The Effect of Creative Ideation Processes on Exter‐
Professor of Marketing and four papers in a special “What We Know about nal Judges’ Assessments,” (please see page 12) by
and International Creativity” collection demonstrates the breadth of Mark Kilgour (University of Waikato), Scott Koslow
Business, that progress. (Macquarie University) and Huw ­O’Connor (also
Strome College of Does the conveying of passion in advertising from University of Waikato).
Business, Old Dominion make customers rate their products and brands The authors provide strong evidence that, in
University more highly? In “The Effects of Communicating order to judge an idea for its creativity, an external
[email protected] Passion in Advertising: How Messages Like ‘We judge needs to “agree that the idea an advertising
Love What We Do!’ Shape People’s Product and professional generates and views as creative is high
Brand Evaluations” (please see page 3), authors in both originality and appropriateness.” Not only
Micael Dahlen (Stockholm School of ­Economics), does the concept have to be considered creative, but
Helge Thorbjørnsen (Norwegian School of the generator of that idea must be able to sell that
­Economics), Jonas Colliander and Sara Rosengren idea to the external decision makers.
(also from the Stockholm School of Economics), Some 49 creative professionals and 65 account
Alice Gemvik (AT Kearney), and Christian ­Thorwid executives took part in the “Great Creative
(McKinsey and Co., Stockholm) find evidence that Ideas” study and shared a one-page brief for a
there is indeed a positive relationship. household-brand advertising campaign. The authors
So strong is their work that the Journal’s edit- found that “the originality of creative ideas is relat-
ors honored this paper as the winner of the ively easy to recognize and accept.” The downside:
third-annual Douglas C. West Advertising Creat- The people who generated the ideas “tended to
ive Article award. Its findings suggest that, when rate their own ideas as more appropriate than did
a brand advertises that the company “loves” what external judges.” If external judges do not see the
it does, consumers believe that the company works whole idea generation process, the authors contend,
harder and makes better quality products. they may not be able to judge the appropriateness of
The authors also rationalized that since “passion the ideas which arise from the process.
can be transferred from leaders to employees in a To advance the practice of creativity in advert-
management context,” they suggest that emotional ising, the research finds the best way forward is “to
contagion would apply to the transfer of passion get rid of the notion that in evaluating ideas man-
from a brand to consumers through advertising. To agers need to have confidence in those decisions
reach their findings, the authors conducted three – at least in the initial stages.”
studies in three product categories (coffee, soft And, with that broad-stroke suggestion comes a
drinks, and hand soap). Not only did they find that two-stage idea-selection process.
the use of passion in advertising sends a positive
signal to consumers that the firm works harder to • Find the most original ideas, even those that
create better products, but they also found that “the seemingly are outrageous.
positive emotion the brand signals by stating its • Identify “the strategy that underlies each idea.”

DOI: 10.2501/JAR-2020-005 March 2020 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 1

What Do We Know About Creativity?

And, in support of that theory, the paper counsels, “Creative ***

ideas do not speak for themselves; presentation is crucial.” The Journal of Advertising Research is a peer-reviewed publication
How does the language of an advertisement affect a targeted that relies on the knowledge and experience of an Editorial Review
audience’s willingness to pay? In “Can Your Advertisement Go Board of marketing academics and professionals to ensure that
Abstract without Affecting Willingness to Pay? Product-Centered each paper has a fair reading and full final execution. The very
versus Lifestyle Content in Luxury Brand Print Advertisements” nature of marketing research, however, means that our editors
(please see page 28), authors Francesco Massara (Università IULM), need to step beyond the board’s expertise to identify subject-matter
Daniele Scarpi (University of Bologna) and Daniele Porcheddu specialists who can give further expertise to our review process.
(University of Sassari) examine print advertising for luxury brands To that end, a variety of ad-hoc reviewers give freely of their
to determine the connection between content and commitment. time and effort to balance out the reviewing burden for our regular
The study first “disentangled advertising style (lifestyle- versus board members. Among the distinguished reviewers who volun-
product-centered content) from the language used to convey the teered to maintain the highest standards of research presentation
message.” Then, through the lens of construal theory (the way that in 2019 were Michael Belch, San Diego State University; Julie Bilby,
consumers envision the brand), the authors examined the role of life- RMIT University; Joël Brée, ESSCA School of Management; Jaime
style advertising in the shaping of the consumer’s willingness to pay. Core, University of Washington Tacoma; Catherine Demangeot,
Their research demonstrates “that lifestyle advertising is more con- IESEG School of Management; Christian Dianoux, Université de
sistent with abstract language and that product-centered advertising Lorraine; Troy Elias, University of Oregon; Debbie Ellis, Univer-
is more consistent with concrete language.” As such, the study con- sity of KwaZulu-Natal; Fernando Fastoso, University of York;
cludes that “advertising style per se does not trigger construal levels Nathalie Fleck, Le Mans Université; Marie-Laure Gavard-Perret,
but rather the language used in the advertisement.” In such instances, Université Grenoble Alpes; Ritesh Ghosal, Infiniti Retail; and Joel
construal level, therefore, becomes a key component since it signi- Gjuka, Slalom.
ficantly affects the consumer’s willingness to pay for an advertised Additionally, Linda Hamdi-Kidar, University of Toulouse;
brand where a low construal level (less concrete envisioning of the Agnès Helme-Guizon, Université Grenoble Alpes; Marco Ieva, Uni-
brand) was found to lead to a higher willingness to pay. versity of Parma; Michael Kamins, Stony Brook University; Eunjin
In “Gotcha! Realism of Comedic Violence and Its Impact on (Anna) Kim, University of Southern California; Kevin Lehnert,
Brand Responses: What’s So Funny about that Bloody Ad? The Grand Valley State University; Jean-François Lemoine, Univer-
Moderating Role of Disposition to Laughter,” (please see page sity of Paris I; Marie-Christine Lichtle, University of Burgundy;
38), Malgorzata Karpinska-Krakowiak (University of Łódź) exam- Karina T. Liljedal, Stockholm School of Economics; Lily Lin, Simon
ines the use of comedic violence and its impact on consumers’ ­Fraser University; Géraldine Michel, University of Paris I; Prokriti
brand responses. Mukherji, King’s College London; Cathy Nguyen, Ehrenberg-
In brief, Karpinska-Krakowiak found that highly violent humor Bass Institute; Philippe Odou, University of Reims Champagne-
had a negative impact on perceived realism and resulted in less pos- Ardenne; and Gaëlle Pantin-Sohier, Université d’Angers.
itive brand attitudes when compared to low levels of comedic viol- We also thank Claude Pecheux, EDHEC Business School;
ence, suggesting that “when an advertisement incorporates highly ­Christine Pitt, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm;
violent humor, … consumers tend to deny its veracity, and the medi- Ingrid Poncin, Université Catholique de Louvain-Mons; Karen
ating effect of advertisement realism becomes negative.” Robson, University of Windsor; Gregory Rose, University of Wash-
The study also proposes that “claims of nonreality might shield a ington Tacoma; Subhadip Roy, Indian Institute of Management,
brand from negative consequences of aggressive humor.” Interest- Udaipur; Ouidade Sabri, IAE de Paris; Maja Šerić, Universitat de
ingly, the author concludes that “people who enjoy being laughed Valencia; Kevin Shanahan, Mississippi State University; Heather
at and who like laughing at others were observed to respond more Shoenberger, Pennsylvania State University; Shawn Thelen, Hofstra
favorably to comedic violence than nongelotophiles [those who do University; Hsiu-Yuan Tsao, National Chung Hsing University; Eva
not like being laughed at] or nonkatagelasticists [those who do not van Reijmersdal, University of Amsterdam; Michelle Weinberger,
enjoy laughing at others], particularly when advertising depictions Northwestern University; Yunzhijun Yu, Simon Fraser University.
were highly realistic.”
* * *
While the use of comedic violence is growing in advertising, its
use must be approached carefully in that such practice could have a As the Journal of Advertising Research continues to grow and evolve,
negative impact on consumer brand perceptions if improperly used. as always, I welcome your feedback.

2 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH March 2020

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