Who needs highly creative advertising? How brand familiarity moderates creativity’s influence on attention, affect, and memory

Ahmed Hamed al-Shuaili, Scott Koslow, and Mark Kilgour

Although the overall effect of creativity in advertising appears positive, the moderating effect of brand familiarity is unknown.
Al-Shaili, Koslow, and Kilgour

Management Slant

  • Highly creative advertising is critically important for less familiar brands.
  • Although highly creative advertising improves consumer attention to advertisements for highly familiar brands, brand affect may sometimes suffer.
  • If highly familiar brands do seek out highly creative advertisements, they should ensure that the advertisement implicatures are “on brand” to retain their attitudinal advantages with consumers.

Introduction

Researchers have made important strides in understanding what drives advertising effectiveness, and, not surprisingly, significant attention has been given to the effects of creativity. Although the case for how creative advertising benefits brands has been made frequently (...

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