This post is part of my bachelor paper ‘The Evolving Role of Creativity in Brand Management’. You can read the introduction, other posts and the table of contents here.

Feldwick and Heath (2008, p.32) challenge the very notion that advertising works via the conscious processing of a message or the transmission of information. This dominant model stresses the importance of one clear message being communicated and therefore appropriates creativity by merely acknowledging its effect on either processing or outcome variables, as it is shown e.g. in the research by Smith et. al.

Consequently, Feldwick and Heath (2008) identify an information processing (IP) paradigm at work that builds on core assumptions visible both in industry practise as well as academia and business school textbooks:

• “For any ad to be effective, it must communicate a clear (i.e. verbally describable) message about the product or service.
• Success in advertising is indicated by ‘recall’ of this message, which must also be ‘believed’ and ‘understood’.In addition, it is commonly held that:
• the advertising process is essentially a one-way communication from the advertiser to the consumer
• the role played by creativity and emotional elements is to support this communication, either by fostering liking of the advertising, which transfers to the brand, or by increasing attention, which aids memory of the key message
• advertising is most effective when processed with high levels of attention and the active involvement of the viewer.” (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.31)

While being presented as common sense and ‘natural’ way of understanding and measuring advertising and viewing advertising creativity, this view can easily be traced back to advertising’s historical routs. On the one hand it is related to Lasker and Kennedy, who looked at advertising as salesmanship in print (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.34ff), which in turn led to the development of the famous AIDA formula and numerous other hierarchy of effects models. ‘Salesmanship in print’ was in practice understood as reaching a few people only, giving them as much information as possible and then providing them an opportunity to order. What made sense in print then and in direct response advertising today, developed – with the increasing importance of the Starch ratings in the 30s – into the dominant view in agencies and marketing departments alike: advertising had to grab all the viewers attention by all means (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.36).

Another root is Rosser Reeves’ Unique Selling Proposition that he invented after asserting – without empirical evidence – that “[t]he consumer tends to remember just one thing from an advertisement – one strong claim, or one strong concept” (Reeves 1961, p.34 qtd. in Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.36). This verbal proposition in turn developed into one of the most dominant constructs in advertising, as it further increased the dominance of the word over other cues. Consequently research practice tested if consumers correctly and exactly remembered the proposition. Even though communication science and theory (e.g. Watzlawick et al. 1967) have long ago refuted the notion that communication works as information or message transmission, the message is still dominant in briefing formats, research, testing and marketing textbooks.

However, there have been numerous challenges made to the IP paradigm both from practitioners (the Stephen King papers in Lannon & Baskin 2008; Hedges 1974), as well as from recent research into attention and the mind (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.39). Already in 1965 Krugman noticed the strength of low-involvement or low-attention reception of television advertising:

“Does this suggest that if television bombards us with enough trivia about a product we may be persuaded to believe it? On the contrary, it suggests that persuasion as such … is not involved at all and it is a mistake to look for it … as a test of advertising’s impact …” (Krugman 1965, p.353 qtd. in Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.39)

Heath and Feldwick therefore list empirical evidence that the IP model of advertising is flawed, that advertising does indeed work without much conscious attention (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.42f), that Krugman was right asserting that advertising is watched at very low levels of attention (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.43f) and most importantly that it is the emotional content that drives brand choice, and not information (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.45; Heath et al. 2006).

“So the experimental results show clearly that it is the emotional ‘creative’ content in advertising that builds favourability, not the rational message. This again contradicts the idea in the information processing model that it is the communication of the factual message that gives advertising its power.” (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.46)

This assertion is further backed by Les Binet’s and Peter Field’s meta-analysis of the data and advertising behind 880 IPA effectiveness cases, an award that purely measures the business effects of advertising campaigns (Binet & Field 2009). Their conclusion about advertising content determining effectiveness determinants is as follows: “The more emotions dominate over rational messaging, the bigger the business effects. The most effective advertisements of all are those with little or no rational content.” (Binet & Field 2009, p.132)

Contrary to popular belief, it seems that the active processing of a message itself, or the central rout to persuasion as it was dubbed by Petty and Cacioppo (1986), is less important, while “the sounds, symbols, music, gestures and context are not aids to recall or attention (or ‘engagement’), but exist in their own right as central elements in communication” (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.51). Managers, researchers and advertisers, according to Heath and Feldwick (2008, p.51) have to understand that human communication is a complex system, that people can indeed be powerfully influenced by something of which they have no conscious recall and that emotions and pre-conscious associations are not following cognition but themselves drive decision-making.

The purpose of creativity, in this view, is therefore to create holistic communication that influences emotions and brand relationships. Brand managers have to acknowledge that reducing the emotional content of advertising in favour of a proposition or rational message will in general reduce effectiveness and creative departments will have to forgo their desire to create ‘impact’ – as in attention – by any means (Heath & Feldwick 2008, p.51). Interestingly enough, these findings are also backed by the research of Smith et. al. which is conducted from the perspective that Heath and Feldwick criticise.

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Binet, L. & Field, P., 2009. Empirical generalizations about advertising campaign success. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(2), S. 383–94.

Heath, R., Brandt, D. & Nairn, A., 2006. Brand relationships: Strengthened by emotion, weakened by attention. Journal of Advertising Research, 46(4), S. 410.

Heath, R. & Feldwick, P., 2008. Fifty years using the wrong model of advertising. International Journal of Market Research, 50(1), S. 29.

Hedges, A., 1974. Testing to destruction. A fresh and critical look at the uses of research in advertising, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.

Krugman, H.E., 1965. The impact of television advertising: Learning without involvement. Public Opinion Quarterly, 29(3), S. 349.

Lannon, J. & Baskin, M., 2008. A Master Class in Brand Planning: The Timeless Works of Stephen King, Wiley.

Petty, R.E. & Cacioppo, J.T., 1986. Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change, Springer-Verlag New York.

Reeves, R., 1961. Reality in advertising, Knopf.

Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J.H. & Jackson, D.D., 1967. Pragmatics of human communication. Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. 1. Aufl., W. W. Norton & Company.

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Related posts:

1. 3.2.1.1 Creativity and the hierarchy of effects
2. 3.2 A Product View Of Creativity In Brand Management
3. 3. Creativity In The Context Of Brand Management
4. 1. The Evolving Role of Creativity in Brand Management

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