From the Editor: Creativity in Advertising

Author(s): George M. Zinkhan

Source: Journal of Advertising, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 1-3
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4188874
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 CREATIVITY IN ADVERTISING

Creativity in the Journal of Advertising

Advertising, as we know it, could not exist without creativity. Many ad campaigns are
From
successful simply because they break commonly accepted rules of what a commercial
message should be or say. From the very beginning, Journal of Advertising authors un-
the derstood and paid homage to the pivotal role that creativity plays in advertising. For ex-
ample, in the first five years of JA, 1 0 of the 1 1 1 articles published (9.0%) explicitly dis-
Editor cussed the topic of creativity in advertising. However, the next 15 years saw only five
more articles (1.4% of the total) published on creativity. What can explain this sudden
drop in interest?

One possible explanation is changing authorship patterns in the Journal. The majority
of "advertising creativity" articles which have appeared in JA were authored by agency
personnel (Zinkhan 1992). For a variety of reasons (e.g., changing reward systems),
agency personnel do not submit articles to JA in the numbers that they once did. (Note
that this is not necessarily a desirable situation; we are missing the published perspec-
tives of an important stakeholder group.)

Another, related explanation is that creativity is a difficult topic to study via traditional
social science techniques. By its very nature, creativity defies measurement. Consider
the inherent problems associated with a "test for creativity," where someone has deter-
mined (ahead of time) what the correct answers should be. It is not necessarily easy to
judge creativity; and the process of creativity remains somewhat of a mystery. Of
course, one possibility is to go to the source and attempt to study creative people and
their output (whether that be advertisements, art objects, poetry, products, or what-
ever).

As White (1 972) points out, the terms "creative" and "creativity" may sometimes seem
to be far too grand for much that has been done in advertising. Nonetheless, a key fea-
ture of successful advertising involves thinking up (dreaming up) new ways to present
selling propositions. Creativity is involved in all stages of decision making (especially
idea generation); and creativity is especially crucial for marketing decision making and
planning. Even the notion of a "unique selling proposition" implies that the decision
maker is going to be able to imagine something never before seen under the sun.

Thus, creativity plays a role at many stages in advertising planning. It takes some cre-
ativity to recognize promising directions for new ad campaigns. It takes creativity to
identify and specify unique selling propositions (USP). And, creativity is quite promi-
nent in the process of transferring the USP into something that can be communicated
in an interesting way. In the field of advertising, creativity is most often discussed in
this last context (i.e., the important roles played by copywriters, art directors etc.).
Nonetheless, creativity is involved at many stages of business decision making.

One common assumption of business decision making is that the possibilities for future
investment are immediately apparent and self-evident (Zinkhan and Zinkhan 1993).
Under this assumption, strategic planning (including advertising plans) can be accom-
plished mechanistically. That is, planning for the future merely involves decisions about
how to allocate resources among the possibilities of what's to be done. However, this
assumption is often incorrect; in practice, it is a creatively challenging act for corporate

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decision makers to define and realize the most promising possibilities for the future
(Levitt 1983). In other words, it is more important to do the right thing than to do things
right. And, creativity plays a very important role in the generation and identification of
the "right things to do." This is true not just for advertising, but for all areas of human
activity.

Creativity in Human Behavior

The process of creativity in advertising (or marketing) is more or less identical with the
process of creativity in the arts and sciences (White 1972). Nonetheless, creativity has
received more attention in the humanities than it has in the advertising literature. For
example, literary writing has been studied as a form of cultural production:
Far from being divorced from the world, literary production is itself a form of social practice: texts
do not merely reflect social reality but create it (Patterson 1990, p. 260).

That is, art serves to shape life patterns. Poetry and the reader interact, creating each
other and opening a path for the birth of a being. Advertising is also created and con-
sumed through a social process (Hirschman 1989). Advertising reflects popular culture;
and advertising stimulates or shapes popular culture, in return. However, the process
of producing advertising does involve "creativity on demand" or creativity within strict
parameters (White 1972). Of course, deadlines and stylistic constraints also apply in
the humanities and arts.

As an example of the special parameters and guidelines which direct or govern the
field of advertising, consider the cartoon on page 4 of this issue. On the face of it, the
client seems to ask for the impossible ("something catchy that mentions ball bearings
six or eight times"). The songwriter in the cartoon appears (at least temporarily) demor-
alized and without a clue as to how this managerial objective might be achieved. Typi-
cal marketing wisdom might prescribe that catchy jingles are not appropriate for some
product categories (e.g., industrial products). Nonetheless, the songwriter (Taylor
1993) is equal the task and provides a humorous, effective treatment which falls within
the client's parameters (see page 4 of this issue).

Contributions from the Humanities

Over the last thirty years, advertising researchers have considered using a wide variety
of approaches to explain and understand how advertising works. At one time or an-
other, the fields of economics, psychology, sociology, communications, marketing, sta-
tistics and philosophy have made valuable contributions to advertising research. More
recently, there has been some interest in exploring contributions from the humanities.
For example, Stern (1 992) uses literary criticism as the basis for stimulus-side analysis
of nostalgia in advertising text. Holbrook (1 987) suggests that the humanities have the
potential to deepen our understanding of a product or service's: a) value in acquisition;
b) usage; and c) disposition.

Consider the possibilities of poetry for contributing to our knowledge about advertising.
The word "poetry" refers to a song or verse in which one writes feelings, thoughts, and
experiences which can most effectively be expressed with metaphor and image and in
which sound and rhythm are important qualities of expression (Vaughn 1 989). The in-
tense, spontaneous feelings which are expressed may depict dimensions of universal

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truths. Schopenhauer (1 966) describes a lyric poem as an exquisite song in which the
poet vividly perceives and expresses a mood of the moment, whether this be passion,
emotion, agitation, or peaceful satisfaction. Within the last 1 0 years, advertising re-
searchers have been increasingly interested in the topics of: consumer feelings, experi-
ences, images, fantasies, metaphors, moods, emotions, and satisfaction. As the above
(brief) description shows, poetry provides a means for exploring these important adver-
tising topics and concepts. With this objective in mind, several poetic works have been
recently published in JA (cf. Sherry 1992; Schouten 1993).

Future Directions

I encourage scholars and practitioners who are interested in advertising to think more
about the creative spark which drives much of advertising. To date, we know relatively
little about the creative process which underlies business decision making; and com-
mercial messages are an area of business where creativity especially comes to the
fore. Typical social science research techniques can reveal only so much about this im-
portant phenomenon. Approaches from the humanities or fine arts seem promising; but
these too cannot be applied directly, without caution. I urge advertising professionals to
be creative in the way that they think about and imagine advertising creativity.

References

Hirschman, Elizabeth C. (1989), "Role-Based Models of Advertising Creation and Production," Journal of Advertising, 18
(No. 4), 42-53.

Holbrook, Morris (1987), "What is Consumer Research?" Journal of Consumer Research, 14 (No. 1), 128-132.

Levitt, T., (1983), The Marketing Imagination. New York: Free Press.

Patterson, Lee (1990), uUterary History," in Critical Terms forLiterary Study (F. Lentricchia and T. McLaughlin, eds.).
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Schopenhauer, A. (1966), The World as Will and Representation (E.F.J. Payne, Trans.) New York: Dover Publications.

Schouten, John W. (1993), "Recommended Daily Allowance," Journal of Advertising, 22 (March), 24.

Sherry, John (1992), "Brideprice," Journal of Advertising, 21 (December), 60.

Stern, Barbara B. (1992), "Historical and Personal Nostalgia in Advertising Text: The Fin de Si6cle Effect," Journal of
Advertising, 21 (No. 4), 11-22.

Taylor, Gary (1993), "Ball Bearings," Journal of Advertising, 22 (No. 2), 4.

Vaughn, M. Lynn (1989), "The Experience of Writing Poetry: An Heuristic Investigation," Unpublished Ph.D. Disserta-
tion, The Union Institute.

White, Gordon E. (1 972), "Creativity: The X Factor in Advertising Theory," Journal of Advertising, 1 (No. 1), 28-32.

Zinkhan, George M. (1992), "Topic Areas in the Journal of Advertising: 1973 through 1979," Journal of Advertising, 21
(September), i.

Zinkhan, George M. and F. Christian Zinkhan (1993), "Capital Budgeting: Emerging Issues and Trends," Managerial
Finance (forthcoming).

George M. Zinkhan
University of Houston

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