Alternative advertising strategies
Exploring outcome effects of creative media advertising
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Persuasive Communications Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Edith Smit
Lily Heaton
Student ID: 10778659 January 27, 2016
Abstract
With traditional advertising strategies, consumers are exposed to an ever-growing number of advertisements each day. This onslaught of persuasion can lead to irritation, wear out and ad avoidance. This study focuses on alternative advertising with creative media, a strategy that utilizes every day structures to implicitly convey an advertised message. Past research indicates creative media advertising is linked to stronger ad effectiveness, favorable ad and brand evaluations and more ad credibility. However, as a relatively new concept, the outcome effects of creative media advertising have not been thoroughly investigated. Two studies were conducted, both aimed to explore the strength of effects creative media advertising has on purchase intention along with ad and brand evaluations when compared to traditional print media ads. While the hypotheses were not supported in full, results indicate that creative media ads were indeed considered more creative and novel than their traditional counterparts. Further exploratory analysis gave evidence for a variety of outcome effects between ad novelty and creativity, ad and brand evaluations and purchase intention that are useful for future studies as the topic of creative media advertising continues to be explored by both practitioners and academics.
Introduction
Picture this: you’re taking a break in the park and sit on a bench with your favorite magazine. In a rush to find your article of choice, you open to a page advertising a Kit Kat chocolate bar. Would you pause to observe the slogan, “Have a break, have a Kit Kat” or skip over it because that you’ve already seen countless magazine ads before? Now, what if you’ve sat on a park bench to read your magazine and at closer inspection, you notice this every day park isn’t so ordinary. It’s been constructed to resemble the long, rectangular piece of a Kit Kat bar with the phrase, “Have a break. Have a Kit Kat” embedded across the panels. Would this unusual bench make you interested to ponder why it’s shaped like a candy bar? Perhaps
you find this unexpected structure to be a delightful surprise that in turn, makes you feel more positively towards the product or brand. In the event that you stop to buy a Kit Kat or think of Kit Kat the next time you pass by a park bench, then this creative media advertising campaign has successfully influenced your consumer behavior.
Every day, consumers are exposed to a high volume of ads, from traditional tactics such as a poster in shop window to advertorials in magazines. While past research suggests
consumers in the 1970’s saw about 500 ads per day (Johnson, 2006), more recent estimations expect that the average American consumer is now exposed to upwards of 3,000 (Kimmel, 2005) to 5,000 ads daily (Johnson, 2006). Due to this onslaught of advertising, today’s consumers are increasingly more aware and use persuasion knowledge to maintain skepticism and resist persuasion. Repetition of similar advertisements can lead to faster audience wear out (MacInnis et al., 2002). This in turn, drives both advertisers and academics to better understand how and why consumers avoid ads and pushes brands and marketers to develop new, innovative strategies that effectively break through the clutter.
In effort to attract consumer attention towards the advertisement, entice positive consumer reactions, brands have begun to employ the use of new, alternative strategies such as guerilla, ambient and creative media advertising. In fact, the use of non-traditional
marketing and advertising strategies has grown extensively in the past decade and is expected to continue (Rosengren & Dahlén, 2012). Under the umbrella of alternative advertising fall three related techniques; guerilla, ambient and creative media advertising. Coined by Jay Levinson in the 1980s, guerilla marketing utilizes non-traditional media with a minimal budget (Dahlén, Granlund, & Grenros, 2009) while ambient advertising highlights the element of surprise to seize consumer attention (Hutter & Hoffman, 2014).
At the heart of this study is creative media advertising; an emerging strategy that catches consumer attention by placing the ad in an unexpected medium not typically used for
advertising (Dahlén, 2005; Dahlén, Friberg, & Nilsson 2009; Eelen & Seiler 2016; Wottrich & Voorveld, 2016). For example, using an eggshell to sell insurance (Dahlén, 2005), a park bench to sell Kit Kats (JWT London, 2008), a park fountain for Schweppes tonic water (Duval Guillaume, 2006), or a fire extinguisher for Tabasco hot sauce (Dahlén, Grandlund, & Grenros, 2009). An everyday object can implicitly communicate the message more
effectively without activating the viewer’s persuasion knowledge, leading to less ad resistance. While research on creative media advertising continues to grow, conclusive results have so far been established. Creative media advertising is linked to increased ad effectiveness via stronger ad credibility, positive ad and brand attitudes, and higher perceived consumer value of the advertisement (Dahlén et al., 2005, 2007, 2009). However, as a
relatively new technique, the outcome effects of creative media advertising have not been investigated extensively. Therefore, the overall purpose of this study is to more closely examine differences between alternative (creative media) and traditional (print) advertising techniques and explore outcome effects of consumer behavior such as purchase intention, ad and brand evaluations and the role of individual need for creativity.
Theoretical Background
Ad avoidance: a shift from traditional to alternative advertising
Traditional media has long served as a reliable advertising platform. However, the long standing association between traditional print media (magazines, newspapers, posters, etc.) and advertising has led to increased skepticism as consumers become more aware of advertising intent (via persuasion knowledge) and subsequently become irritated or lose interest in ads (Speck & Elliott, 1997). Everyday consumers are inundated with ads and simply can’t process them all. They can however easily flip quickly through the pages of a magazine selecting only information of interest. In fact, research indicates a shift that consumers more often avoid traditional advertising they consider to be uninteresting and
excessive (Speck & Elliot, 1997). This shift in consumer disinterest pushes brands and advertisers to seek new campaign ideas, paving the way for growing number of alternative advertising strategies such as guerilla, ambient and creative media advertising Utilizing creativity in advertising has been linked to increased attention, motivation to process and depth of processing the ad (Smith & Yang, 2004). Consumers can easily avoid reading a poster hanging in a shop window but what if the advertisement was hosted in an unusual location? Creative media advertising is an emerging, alternative advertising strategy that transforms every day structures (i.e. a fire extinguisher, plastic straw or park fountain) to something eye-catching and unexpected that implicitly communicates the message without activating persuasion knowledge (Dahlén, 2005), which may lead to dismissal of the advertisement in whole.
Leading researcher and proponent for the creative media choice, Micael Dahlén states that creative media advertising differs from traditional by “employing a novel medium that makes a statement in itself” (Dahlén et al., 2009, p. 121). Dahlén (2005) concludes that a creative media advertisement must maintain two core traits. First, in order to stimulate novelty and surprise, the creative media ad should take the form of an object that not typically used for advertising. Second, the object must share overlapping associations with the advertised brand or product in order to implicitly communicate the message. Following this framework, we have conducted two studies that aim to investigate creative media advertising with the following research questions:
RQ 1: Does creative media advertising lead to a perception of novelty, more positive ad and brand evaluations and might these two lead to increased purchase intention? RQ 2: What are the effects of creative media advertising in terms of ad attitude, brand attitude and purchase intention?
RQ 3: Do personal characteristics such as high need for creativity further enhance the effects of creative media advertising on purchase intention?
As individuals, consumers naturally want to maintain their own set of beliefs and avoid persuasion. As consumers gain experience with brands and advertisements, they become more aware of persuasive attempts and develop persuasion knowledge throughout their lifespan in an effort to recognize and attend to outside influences and maintain control to cope with a surplus of persuasive attempts. The Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad & Wright, 1994) explains that in resistance to persuasion, consumers automatically become skeptical of a message (or advertisement) once they recognize it to have persuasive intent. Currently, the influx of traditional advertising campaigns are easily recognizable, leading to the reduced effectiveness of traditional advertising (Dahlén, Rosengren, & Törn 2008). In addition to decreasing levels of attention towards the ad (Donthu et al., 1993), research suggests advertisements that activate persuasion knowledge may lead to reduced recall and stronger counter arguments (Goodstein, 1993). Alternatively, research reveals that creative media ads (i.e. an egg carton) instigated less persuasive intent in comparison to a traditional newspaper advertisement. The unexpected location made the creative media ads more difficult for consumers to identify as advertisements and subsequently did not activate persuasion knowledge (Dahlén, 2005).
Novelty and creativity: A fundamental role
Subjective in nature, perceived novelty and creativity are in the eye of the beholder, Till and Baack noted that, "creative advertisements have been consistently defined, at least in part, as novel and/or original" (2005, p. 49). Undoubtedly, creativity has long been an
important factor in advertising strategy and both practitioners and academics agree that creativity in advertising is an essential component for breaking through an oversaturated marketplace (Smith et al., 2007). Advertising creatively is beneficial and linked to increased consumer processing of the ad, leading to stronger ad recall (Baack, Wilson, & Till, 2008).
While past research has focused on ad recall, message comprehension and likability (Till & Baack, 2005; Stone, Besser, & Lewis 2000), more current studies give attention to creativity and message usefulness (Sheinin et al., 2011). Ads that score high on creative dimensions also score higher on recall and attitude toward the ad in comparison to the less creative ads (Ang, Leong, Lee, & Lou, 2014). Smith and colleagues (2007) suggest that research on creativity move beyond attention and focus further on the role creativity can play in the persuasive process.
The elements of novelty and creativity go hand in hand with advertising effectiveness. Dahlén and colleagues (2005, 2007, 2009) have empirically tested how novelty functions within creative media advertising. As suggested by Dahlén, Rosengren and Törn (2008) creativity increases brand interest and perceived brand quality, while novelty attracts
consumers to an ad. Dahlén’s construct of creative media advertising calls for ad placement in a novel setting that also shares an associative overlap between the unexpected location and the advertised brand or product. A recently conducted study took place in a Dutch
supermarket and found that exposure to the creative media ad (versus an in-store poster) elicited more surprise, then the traditional in-store poster advertisement (Rauwers & Van Noort, 2016). Conceptually similar to the creative media strategy, ambient advertising also surprises the viewer with an ad placed in an unexpected setting. Hutter and Hoffmann (2014) established that by utilizing an element of surprise, ambient media ads drew more consumer attention, increased positive attitude towards the ad while also stimulating word of mouth, purchase intention and sales revenue.
Novelty and surprise increase attention to an advertisement (Meyer et al., 1991), advertising creatively leads to higher levels of purchase intent and commercial liking (Kover, Goldberg, & James, 1995). To date, limited research has empirically compared creative media and traditional advertising. However, it has been established that ad credibility
increases when placed in a creative media (Dahlén, 2005) and creative media ads capture attention more effectively than traditional ads (Dahlén et al., 2009). As an important aspect of the creative media advertising strategy, novelty and creativity function to capture audience attention by using unexpected stimuli, which is less likely to activate the viewer’s persuasion knowledge. Following this framework, we have conducted two studies to compare outcome effects of creative versus traditional advertisements.
Congruent product-media associations
The human brain functions by remembering information in clusters, building a mental network of associative memories. Human memory is an extensive network of nodes that strengthen in connection as we build associations through new experiences and interactions. Throughout daily life, ideas and experiences become mentally linked and begin to reinforce one another (Meyers-Levy & Tybout, 1989). The Associative Learning Theory (Paivio, 1969) explains that when an individual is exposed to two or more stimuli, they subsequently learn by building upon shared associations between the two. As, consumers gain experience with different brands and advertisements the associations build and strengthen into
developing brand schema (Dahlén, 2005, 2013).
Using creativity in advertising is more than combining novel concepts with a relevant persuasive message (Maniu & Zaharie, 2014). Building on the Associative Learning Theory, creative media advertising allows the medium to implicitly communicate the message when it shares associations with the advertised brand or product (Dahlén, 2005; Dahlén, & Edenius, 2007). As Dahlén (2005) demonstrated, the actual placement of an advertisement in an unexpected, novel location can alter consumer perception of the advertisement. Furthermore, the creative media placement can incite natural cues to strengthen the viewer’s associations and function as a reminder of the advertisement even when the brand is no longer featured (Dahlén et al., 2009).
Supporting arguments demonstrate that creative media ads increase the strength of brand associations over time and capture attention better than a traditional medium (Dahlén et al., 2009). To elaborate, their study used both a fire extinguisher (creative media) and a poster (traditional) to advertise Tabasco hot sauce and one similar, fictitious brand. Findings offered insight that due to a significant associative overlap between the creative medium and the product, participants who viewed the fire extinguisher (creative media ad) experienced implicit cognitive associations with Tabasco hot sauce (i.e. fire, hot, spicy). In turn, the overlapping associations aided the viewer to remember the product and brand more
effectively than when a poster advertisement was used. Dahlén and colleagues mention, “The results suggest that the associative strength between the medium and the brand may work both ways; the creative media choice reminded consumers of the brand to a significantly greater degree than the traditional medium” (Dahlén et al., 2009, p.128) and creative media ads can also spontaneously remind consumers of the brand even if they are no longer exposed to the ad. This effect occurs due to associations and preexisting memories of an every day object (fire extinguisher), which now remind viewers of a particular brand and product (Tabasco hot sauce) and the association may continue to persist even after advertising exposure no longer lingers. This finding further emphasizes the importance of congruent associations. Without an associative overlap, the consumer may struggle to understand the (implicit) persuasive message (Dahlén et al., 2009). For this reason, extensive consideration was taken in stimuli development for both Study 1 and Study 2.
Creative media effects on ad and brand evaluations
Creative media advertising stimulates attention through novelty and surprise which in turn leads consumers to form more positive ad and brand evaluations via affective priming and the positive (or negative) feelings an individual has towards an advertisement may spill over to the advertised brand itself (Murphy & Zajonc, 1993). Dahlén’s (2005) study on
creative media choice reflects this phenomenon, explaining that when the medium and advertised brand converge, they become more similar in the consumer’s mind. In other words, exposure to a creative media ad stimulated a positive feeling of surprise, by way of novelty, which lead to positive brand evaluations (Dahlén, 2005).
Advertising creativity enhances brand interest and signals higher brand quality to the consumer, which in turn lead to more positive brand evaluations (Dahlén, Rosengren, & Törn, 2008). Furthermore, when compared to traditional media such as a magazine or print ad, creative media advertising leads to more positive attitude toward the ad and brand, along with stronger ad credibility (Dahlén, 2005; Dahlén & Edenius 2007; Dahlén et al., 2009) Eelen and Seiler (2016) confirmed that when utilizing a creative media ad (a flexible, plastic straw) versus a traditional ad (poster) to advertise a yoga studio, the creative ad was liked better by viewers and more likely to be shared with others than the traditional print advertisement. In line with this evidence we expect that:
H1: Creative media advertising will elicit more positive attitude towards the ad (a) and attitude towards the brand (b) than a traditional print ad.
Creative media advertising and purchase intention
The Theory of Planned Behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) explains that human behavior is influenced by three sets of beliefs that first influence behavioral intent and subsequently, behavioral action. First, behavioral beliefs encompass an individual’s attitude towards a particular behavior in terms of outcomes and evaluations leading to an individuals’ positive or negative attitude towards a behavior. Second, normative beliefs reflect an
individuals’ motivation to comply with the expectations of others, leading to perceived social pressure. Third, control beliefs refer to an individuals’ perceived behavioral control, in other words the extent to which they believe they can complete a behavior. Together, the attitudes formed via beliefs, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control lead to an individual’s intention to comply (or not) with a particular behavior, such as purchasing a product.
Generally, a favorable attitude (and subjective norm) leads to stronger perceived behavioral control, on to behavioral intention and finally the actual action of a behavior.
Creativity in advertising has been shown to increase perceived product value, in turn mediating a positive brand attitude and subsequently, purchase intention (Modig &
Rosengren, 2014). Similarly, when exposed to a creative media advertisement, the consumer experiences a more positive attitude toward the ad (Dahlén, 2005), which in turn influences the consumer’s intention (to purchase the product) and finally, their behavior (actually making the purchase). To support this finding, Wottrich and Voorveld (2016) replicated Dahlén’s (2005) study, further confirming the strength of overlapping associations with the creative media advertising strategy and the effect positive ad and brand evaluations have on consumer purchase intention. Wottrich and Voorveld (2016) established that the creative media ad lead to more positive ad and brand evaluations which mediated a positive effect on purchase intention. Given this framework, we can expect that consumers exposed to a creative media ad will also be more accepting of the implicit advertised message and subsequently want to purchase the product. In light of purchase intention being the most widely used assessment for measuring advertising effectiveness (Beerli & Santana, 1999) and past studies linked consumer attitude to influence purchase intention (Engel, Blackwell, & Miniard, 1990; Bush, Smith, & Martin, 1999; Wottrich & Voorveld, 2016) we combine past empirical evidence with the Theory of Planned Behavior to expect that:
H2: Creative Media advertising will lead to higher levels of purchase intention than a traditional ad.
Moderating role of Need for Creativity
Each individual has their own unique perspective, based on personality characteristics and life experiences, which influence differences in information processing (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Consumer processing plays an important role given that perceived ad creativity
also leads to increased consumer processing of the ad (Baack, Wilson, & Till 2008). In other words, the more creative an ad is, the more attention it is expected to receive from
consumers. Those who greatly crave surprise are referred to as ‘sensation seekers’ and this personality type is often linked to craving more information, in effort to understand the source of surprise (Oatley, Keltner, & Jenkins, 2006). In a study on uniqueness and cognition, Dollinger (2003) found that creative people are motivated by the need for uniqueness (to be distinctive) and need for cognition (enjoying elaborative thought).
Investigating consumer need for creativity will give further insight to how consumers process creative media advertising.
Creativity in advertising leads to a more favorable attitude towards the ad, a more favorable brand attitude and a more favorable purchase intention than traditional ads (Shirkhodaee & Rezaee, 2014). Additionally, creative advertising had a positive effect on consumer creativity and consumer perception of the media vehicle (Rosengren, Dahlén, & Modig, 2013). Therefore, it is expected that consumers with high need for creativity may have more positive attitudes towards a creative media ad than a traditional one. The third aim of this study is to investigate the moderating role of need for creativity in the effect of
creative media advertisements on purchase intention, leading to the last hypothesis:
H3: The effect of creative media advertising on purchase intention will be strengthened for consumers with high need for creativity.
Pre-test Procedure
An online questionnaire was created with Qualtrics (see Appendix A) to determine the final brand and product (i.e. San Pellegrino sparkling water) while gaining insight on the associative overlap between the creative media (fountain and beach shower). The pretest was conducted in November 2015 at a large, international university campus in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The questionnaire was used to determine the most suitable product (either lemon-lime soda or sparkling water), brand (from set of five brands per product) and product-media associations. The questionnaire measured four main items for both potential products: Brand Familiarity, Drink Frequency, Product Adjective Associations and Media Adjective Associations. Participants were recruited face to face and offered a piece of chocolate as an incentive to fill in the questionnaire, which took an average of seven minutes to complete.
Participants. International participants (N = 30) were between 18-29 years old (MAge = 24.47, SD = 3.15) and 56.7% male. Participants from 11 different countries were primarily (56.7%) Dutch. The sample population had a strong command of English with 86.7% at an advanced language level (See Table 1.1).
Ad Condition
Creative media vs. Traditional
Purchase Intention Ad Creativity
Ad attitude
Brand attitude
Need for Creativity
Ad Novelty Study 2 H1a Study 1 & 2 H2 Study 2 H1b Study 1 H1. Study 1 & 2 H3 Figure 1. Conceptual Model
Key: Novelty Creativity Ad Attitude Brand Attitude
Measures
Brand familiarity. During the Pre-test, participants were asked to indicate their level of familiarity with seven different brands (including one fake brand) of lemon-lime soda and sparkling water. Familiarity was measured using a Likert scale from 1 (not at all familiar) to 5 (very familiar). Results established that San Pellegrino was a moderately familiar sparkling water brand (M = 3.00, SD = 1.66) and therefore it was incorporated into the creative media stimuli. See Table 1.2 for scores of all brands.
Drink Frequency. Two beverages (lemon-lime soda and sparkling water) were potential stimuli choices. Fast-moving consumer goods are frequently advertised and familiar to most consumers. We therefore expect participants to have sufficiently developed
advertising scheme for the products (Goodstein, 1993; Dahlén & Edenius, 2007). Participants were asked how frequently they drank both products using a Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). On average, lemon-lime soda consumption fell below the midpoint (M = 2.17, Mdn = 2.00, Mo = 2.00, SD = .75) and 63.3% indicated that they never or rarely ever drank it. In comparison, the consumption of sparkling water was somewhat higher (M = 2.60, Mdn = 2.5, Mo = 2.00, SD = 1.25) and 50% indicated they sometimes to very often drank sparkling water, thus it was retained for use in stimuli construction.
Product associations. Participants were asked to free write between three and 10 associations about each product (“What associations (thoughts, descriptions, feelings) come to mind when you think of sparkling water/lemon-lime soda?”). Content analysis indicated the most frequent associations for sparkling water were: Bubbles/Sparkling,
Fresh/Refreshing, Thirst/Hydrating, Natural/Healthy. The most common associations for lemon-lime soda were: Alcohol, Bubbles/Sparkling, Fresh/Refreshing, Sugar/Sweet, and Summer/Sun.
Media associations. Participants were also asked to free write between three and 10 associations about two potential creative media vehicles: a park fountain and a beach shower (i.e. “Imagine that you’re walking in the park and you see a large fountain. What associations (thoughts, descriptions, feelings) come to mind?”). Content analysis indicated the most common overlapping associations between the product (sparkling water) and a park fountain were: Bubbles/Sparkling, Natural, Fresh/Refreshing, and Hydrating/Thirst. The most
common overlapping associations between sparkling water and a beach shower were: Clean, Cold, Fresh/Refreshing, Hydrating/Thirst and Wet/Water .
Conclusion
Drink Frequency and Brand Familiarity results lead us to select the product (sparkling water) and the brand (San Pellegrino). Results of the product and media associations were complied into a final list of five adjective associations that fit sparkling water, a fountain and a shower (Hydrating, Bubbles/Sparkling, Natural, Refreshing, Healthy) and following Dahlén’s (2005) criteria for creative media advertising, the most common overlapping adjectives (Bubbles/Sparkling, Fresh/Refreshing, Healthy, Natural, Hydrating) were kept in mind for stimuli development. See Table 1.3.
Study 1 Methods
Participants. The sample population (N = 169) ranged from 18 to 75 years old (M = 40.5, SD = 15.79) and was 77.5% female. Participants indicated their highest completed level of education (No school completed, Primary/elementary, Secondary/high school, Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree or PhD). The sample population was highly educated, the majority (56.2%) held a Bachelor’s degree while 29.6% held a master’s degree and 6.5% had a PhD. Participants were from a total of 30 countries, the majority (55.6%) were American while 12.4% were Dutch and 5.3% British. Participants indicated their level of English proficiency
measured with four items (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Native speaker). The vast majority (75.5%) were native English speakers indicating the sample population was literate enough to read, comprehend and respond to the questionnaire in full. See Table 1.4.
Procedure. Study 1 was created using the online survey platform Qualtrics. Participants were randomly exposed to one of three advertisements; consisting of two creative media stimuli (fountain or beach shower) and one traditional ad (print magazine) functioning as the control. The questionnaire was open to participants age 18+ for seven days in December 2015 and took an average of six minutes to complete. Respondents were
recruited using convenience sampling via social media (Facebook) and email. A total of 184 questionnaires were collected and those with more than three missing measures were deleted, resulting in a final total of 169 participants (N = 169). To view the full questionnaire and related stimuli for Study 1, see Appendix B.
Stimuli Development. Given the online nature of Study 1, stimuli for each advertising condition consisted of high resolution photographs following McQuarrie and Mick’s (1996) reasoning that photographs are an iconic, well known media that elicit similar reactions to the items they represent. This strategy has been used successfully in many past studies (Dahlén, 2005; Dahlén & Edenius, 2007; Eelen & Seiler, 2016). To maintain
consistency and create realistic advertisements, all three shared similar features including the distinctive, green San Pellegrino glass bottle, logo and official brand colors.
Using Pre-test feedback, two creative media ads were created in Photoshop. The first creative media ad was based on a similar real-life advertisement for Schweppes Tonic Water (Duval Guillaume, 2006). It featured a park fountain with a base that appeared to be a bottle of San Pellegrino with bubbling water spurting and cascading out of the bottle (San Diego Photos Ca, 2005). The second creative media ad concept was based on a real-life Sprite campaign featuring a 30-foot functioning shower to simulate a soda dispenser installed on the
beach (Fernandosau, 2012). It portrayed a unique beach shower, which allowed swimmers to rinse off under an oversized soda fountain of San Pellegrino. A traditional print
advertisement was used as the control condition, a strategy successfully used in past research for to with creative media ads (Dahlén 2005, 2009; Eelen and Seiler, 2016; Rawers and van Noort, 2016; Wottrich and Voorveld, 2016). The control condition (Magazine) featured a San Pellegrino poster in which the green bottle was shown alongside a variety of tropical animals (San Pellegrino, 2010).
Measures
Ad Condition. As the independent measure, participants were randomly exposed to one of three Advertising Conditions, two creative media (Fountain or Shower) or the traditional ad condition (Print Magazine) as a control. Participants were able to view the image once, for as long as they wished, and were warned they could not return to the page after moving forward. They were prompted to imagine seeing the ad in a real-life scenario (“Imagine that you’re walking through the park on a sunny day and you see this fountain…” or “Imagine that you’re at the beach on a sunny day. When you are ready to rinse off, you walk up to the beach showers and see this shower…”). After viewing the image they moved on to answer a variety of questions. The sample population was equally distributed between conditions (N = 169; nFountain = 59; nShower = 53; nMagazine = 57).
Need for Creativity (NFC). Functioning as a moderator, NFC was measured with eight items from a highly reliable (α = .85) Originality/Creativity Scale (Goldberg et al., 2006). Participants were asked to self-report how accurately eight different statements represented their personality based on a Likert scale from 1 (not at all like me) to 5 (just like me). In the questionnaire, items 3, 4 and 8 were negatively keyed to avoid respondent bias and later were reverse coded for scale consistency. A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that items fit on two components (N = 169; EV = 3.55 and 1.82; R2= 44.41 and 67.16). The
scale was highly reliable (α = .85) and a final NFC scale was created (M = 3.77, SD = .67, Mdn = 3.75). For use in hypotheses testing, a median split divided NFC into two groups: low (n = 70, from 1 to 3.74) and high (n = 99, from 3.75 to 5). See Appendix D.
Ad Novelty. We measured novelty and surprise based on Dahlén and Edenius (2007). Participants rated the ads using five-point bipolar adjective scale (“I consider the ad to be: old/new, unusual/common, typical/atypical, unoriginal/original, familiar/novel”) on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high). The item unusual/common was reverse coded in the questionnaire and later recoded for consistent scale development. A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all five items fit to one component (EV = 3.03, R2= 60.50). The scale was very reliable (α = .83) and a final Ad Novelty scale (N = 169, M = 3.30, SD = .89) was created.
Brand Attitude. To measure participants’ overall attitude towards San Pellegrino as a dependent variable, we used three bivariate adjectives from Baker, Honea, and Russell
(2004) as previously used by Dahlén and colleagues (2009). For each Ad Condition,
participants were asked to complete a statement based on the ad they saw (“I think the brand San Pellegrino is: bad/good; unpleasant/pleasant; unfavorable/favorable) on a Likert scale from 1 (negative) to 5 (positive). The item pleasant/unpleasant was reverse coded to avoid respondent bias and later recoded for consistent scale construction. A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all items fit to one component (N = 169, EV = 2.38, R2= 79.17). The scale was very reliable (α = .86) and a final Brand Attitude scale was created (N = 169, M = 3.66, SD =. 89).
Purchase Intent. To measure this dependent variable, participants were asked to indicate their intent to purchase San Pellegrino using three items from a bipolar adjective scale previously used by Dahlén (2005) (i.e., “I [definitely would not / definitely would] purchase San Pellegrino for myself or others). Each item (definitely would not/definitely
would; very unlikely/very likely; very improbably/very probable) was measured from 1 (low) to 5 (high). All three items were combined to create a highly reliable (α = .95) Purchase Intention scale (M = 3.05, SD = 1.31).
Adjective Associations. Participants asked to indicate how well the adjectives (determined by the Pre-test) fit sparkling water and the ad medium, on a Likert scale from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). The adjective associations were considered a good fit, further
supporting stimuli construction (M Bubbles/Sparkling = 4.20, SD = 0.98; MRefreshing = 3.46, SD = 1.18; MHealthy = 3.01, SD = 1.16; MHydrating = 3.0, SD = 1.18; MNatural = 2.63, SD = 1.24).
Brand Familiarity. To maintain support for Pre-test findings that San Pellegrino was a moderately familiar brand, participants were asked to indicate their level of familiarity using Likert scale from 1 (not at all familiar) to 5 (very familiar). The brand set included San Pellegrino (MSanPellegrino = 3.83, SD = 1.52) and four additional international sparkling water brands to function as fillers.
Product-Media Congruency. Similar to Dahlén’s study (2005) the scale from Lange, Selander and Åberg (2003) was used to measure congruency between the product (San
Pellegrino sparkling water) and advertising media (Fountain, Shower or Magazine). For each ad condition, participants were asked to respond to the statement “Advertising for sparkling water with a fountain/beach shower/magazine…” in terms of Fit and Match using a Likert scale from 1 (does not fit/does not match) to 5 (fits well/matches well). A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all scales had items fitting on one component (nFountain = 59, EV = 1.97, R2= 98.72; nShower = 53, EV = 1.95, R2= 97.60; nMagazine = 57, EV = 1.75, R2= 87.61). All three scales were highly reliable (Fountain: α = .99, M = 3.43, SD = 1.28; Shower: α = .97; M = 2.94; SD = 1.59; Magazine: α = .86; M = 3.83, SD = 1.10). Next, the two items for each condition were combined to create a final Product-Media Congruency scale. Identical to Dahlén (2005) this measure later functioned as a manipulation check.
Drink Frequency. Participants were asked how often they drink sparkling water, measured with a Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). About half of the sample population (49.1%) sometimes to very often drank sparkling water (N = 169; M = 2.73; Mdn = 2; SD = 1.25).
Results
Preparatory analysis. A univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated no significant differences between Ad Conditions (N = 169) in terms of age (F (2, 166) = .53, p = .594), education (F (2,166) = .52, p = .410), English proficiency (F (2, 166) = 1.35, p = .262), gender (F (2, 166) = .252, p = .778), Drink Frequency (F (2, 166)= 1.55; p = .216) or Brand Familiarity (F (2, 166) = 2.39, p = .094). The aforementioned measures were equally distributed between groups and were not controlled for in the final analysis. See Table 1.4.
Exploratory analysis. We found evidence for correlations between outcome variables using a correlation matrix (Table 3.1). A moderate, positive correlation between Brand Attitude and Purchase Intention (r = .563, p = .001) existed, meaning that the more positive one felt about the brand San Pellegrino, the more intent they had to purchase it (b* = .56, t = 8.70 p = .001, 95% CI [64, 1.06], R2 = .32). In addition, Brand Familiarity had a weak, positive correlation with Purchase Intention (r = .415, p = .001) meaning as familiarity with San Pellegrino increases, so does the intent to purchase (b* = .42, t = 5.90, p = .001, 95% CI [.24, .48], R2 = .17). See Table 4.1.
Manipulation check. Based on Dahlén’s (2005) criteria for creative media advertising, the ad media must be an object not typically used for advertising to evoke novelty and surprise in the viewer and the creative media ad must have associative overlap between the media and the advertised product. A univariate ANOVA confirmed that Ad Condition significantly differed in terms of Ad Novelty (F (2,166) = 16.33, p = .000). The creative media Shower ad was perceived to be significantly more novel (MShower= 3.83, SD = .83) than
the other two ad conditions (Fountain = 3.01, SD = .83; MMagazine = 3.00, SD = .81). Mean scores for five adjective associations also indicate that the creative media stimuli were in line with the associations first established by the Pre-test. The data supports construction of creative media stimuli in terms of Dahlén (2005) by using a novel location not typically used for advertising that had overlapping associations with the advertised product. We also found confirmation that the creative media ads held Product-Media congruency, which Dahlén (2005) previously used as a manipulation check. Results indicated Ad Conditions (F (2, 166) = 6.16, p = .003) differed significantly, however not in the way we expected. The Magazine ad (M = 3.83, SD = 1.10) was considered to be significantly more congruent than the Shower ad (M = 2.94, SD = 1.60) while the Fountain ad was directly in the middle (M = 3.43, SD = 1.28). Regardless, both creative ads were rated positive in terms of Product-Media
Congruency further supporting stimuli development according to the terms indicated by Dahlén (2005). All three advertisements were strong in terms of Product-Media Congruency (MFountain = 3.43, SD = 1.28; MShower = 2.94, SD = 1.59; MMagazine = 3.83, SD = 1.10). See Table 2.1.
Hypotheses testing. All analysis was completed with SPSS version 21 using General Linear Model (Univariate ANOVA with Post-Hoc Bonferroni). See Tables 5.1 and 5.2.
Hypothesis 1. We expected the creative media advertisements to elicit more positive Brand Attitude scores than the traditional print magazine ad. Results did not indicate a significant difference between Ad Conditions (F (2,166) = 0.41, p = .666, η2 = .005) within terms of Brand Attitude (MFountain = 3.57, SD = 0.76; MShower = 3.69, SD = 1.07; MMagazine = 3.71, SD = 0.84). Hypothesis 1 was not supported.
Hypothesis 2. We expected the creative media ads to evoke higher levels of Purchase Intention than the traditional print ad. Results did not indicate significant differences between
Ad Conditions (F (2, 166) = 0.56, p = .573, η2 = .007) with respect to Purchase Intention (MFountain = 2.92, SD = 1.28; MShower = 3.18, SD = 1.41; MMagazine = 3.05, SD = 1.24). No direct effect was found and Hypothesis 2 was not supported.
Hypothesis 3. We predicted that high NFC would function as a moderator to strengthen the effect of creative media advertisements on Purchase Intention, however no direct effect was found. A significant effect was found for high NFC (F (2, 163) = 3.79, p = .053, η2 = .023) on Purchase Intention and high NFC participants who viewed the Shower ad had stronger purchase intention (MShowerhigh NFC = 3.41, SD = 1.36) than the low NFC
participants (MShowerlow NFC = 2.67, SD = 1.42). However, this result was not found for the creative media Fountain ad (MFountain high NFC = 2.88, SD = 1.30; MFountain low NFC = 2.99, SD = 1.27). Furthermore, no interaction effect was found between Ad Condition and high NFC (F (2, 163) = 1.62, p = .202, η2 = .019) on Purchase Intention and Hypothesis 3 was not
supported. Discussion
Contrary to our predictions, hypotheses testing did not confirm our expectations. Despite having formed stimuli and manipulation checks in accordance to Dahlén (2005) we did not find a direct effect for creative media advertising on Brand Attitude or Purchase Intention. Contrary to our expectations, neither of the creative media ads in Study 1 generated a significantly more positive Brand Attitude than the traditional ad condition. However, results of Study 1 hypotheses testing (Table 5.1) show that both creative media ads evoked a moderate to highly positive brand attitude, yet the traditional ad did so too. Furthermore, Study 1 data showed that the creative media Shower ad elicited the highest purchase intention of all three conditions, although not significantly stronger than the Fountain and Magazine ads. Significant differences were not found between conditions, yet data provides evidence that both creative media ads did elicit a moderate, positive intent to purchase the product and
mean scores for the creative media Fountain ad were only slightly lower than the Magazine ad. Overall, 59.8% of Study 1 participants indicated they had a moderate to very strong intention to purchase San Pellegrino water in the near future. Results also show that high NFC participants in both the Shower and Magazine conditions had stronger intent to purchase than the low NFC participants while the Fountain condition reported nearly equal mean scores for high/low NFC. A possible explanation for lack of support for Hypotheses 3 may be that the Fountain ad was not considered creative enough for participants with an already high NFC.
Despite lack of hypothetical corroboration, exploratory analysis elicited interesting findings linking Brand Attitude with Purchase Intention. This finding is inline with past studies that also linked consumer attitude to influence their purchase intention (Engel, Blackwell, & Miniard, 1990; Bush, Smith, & Martin, 1999; Wottrich & Voorveld, 2016).) Additionally, Brand Familiarity and Purchase intention were positively correlated which is fitting considering that consumers can more easily detect familiar brands through the clutter (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987; Dahlén, 2001) and in comparison to unfamiliar brands, repetition of ads for familiar brands leads to less wear out due to easier processing for a brand with an already developed schema (Campbell & Keller 2003).
Conclusion
Lack of significant hypotheses testing may have been in part due to the control stimuli appearing almost equally as novel as the creative media Fountain ad (Table 5.1). We did not expect the control ad to have such strong scores of Ad Novelty and Product-Media
Congruency and suspect different results may have occurred because participants are more familiar with magazine advertisements and most likely have not considered the creative media (fountain and shower) for advertising before. Searching for more accurate and in depth exploration of creative media advertising outcome effects, changes were made for conducting
Study 2. First, the control ad in Study 1 was perceived to be very novel so, Study 2 used a different print magazine ad. Additional measures Ad Attitude, Ad Creativity and Past Purchase Frequency were added.
Study 2 Method
Participants. The sample population age ranged from 20 to 78 years old (M = 39.82, SD = 13.99). They were 78% female and highly educated, the majority (49.4%) held a Bachelor’s degree while 29.5% had a Masters degree. Participants came from a total of 29 countries and were primarily (71.9%) American while 5.6% were Dutch. The majority (83.3%) were native English speakers and 16.6% were advanced in the English language, thus able to comprehend and respond to the complete questionnaire. See Table 1.5.
Procedure. Study 2 was also created using Qualtrics. The questionnaire was open to participants age 18+ for five days in December 2015 and took an average of seven minutes to complete. Respondents were recruited using convenience and snowball sampling via social media (Facebook) and email. As with Study 1, participants were again randomly exposed to one of three ad conditions (Fountain, Beach or Magazine) and given identical prompts for viewing. A total of 396 questionnaires were collected, responses with more than three missing or incomplete values, non-response and drop outs were removed, resulting in a final total of 356 participants (N = 356). To view the full questionnaire and stimuli for Study 2, see Appendix C.
Stimuli Development. The creative media stimuli used in Study 2 were identical to Study 1. A different, more simplistic magazine ad featuring a bottle of San Pellegrino being poured into a glass (San Pellegrino, 2015) was used as the control condition (Magazine) for Study 2. See Appendix C.
Measures
Ad Condition. As the independent variable, participants were again randomly exposed to one of three advertising conditions; two creative (Fountain or Shower) or the traditional print ad as a control (Magazine). The sample population was equally distributed between groups (N = 356; nFountain = 119; nShower = 118; nMagazine = 119).
Need for Creativity (NFC). A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all eight items fit to 1 component (N = 356, EV = 4.10, R2= 51.22). Reliability analysis indicated the scale was strong (α = .84, M = 3.89, SD = .67). A median split (Mdn = 3.88) created two NFC groups low (n = 166, scores < 3.87) and high (n = 190, scores 3.88 to 5).
Ad Attitude. As an additional dependent variable, participants responded to a
statement (“I think the San Pellegrino advertisement was…”) based on the ad they saw, using four bivariate adjectives (bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, unfavorable/favorable”) measured with a Likert scale from 1 (negative) to 5 (positive) (Baker, Honea, & Russell, 2004; Dahlén et al., 2009). A PCA with varimax rotation indicated all four items fit to one component (EV = 2.55, R2 = 84.82) and a reliability analysis indicated the scale was highly reliable (α = .91, M = 3.3, SD = 1.05).
Ad Creativity. This additional measure directly gauged participants’ perception of each advertisement after the control condition was changed. Participants were asked to rate the advertisement they saw on a Likert scale from 1 (not at all creative) to 5 (very creative) (MFountain = 3.00, SD = 1.23; MShower = 3.77, SD = 1.22; MMagazine = 2.67, SD = 1.01).
Brand Attitude. A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all three items fit to one component (EV = 2.61, R2= 86.97). Next, a reliability analysis indicated the scale was very strong (α = .93, M = 3.64, SD = .92).
Purchase Intention. A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all items fit to one component (EV = 2.70, R2 = 89.8). The scale was very reliable (α = .94) and a final scale was constructed (M = 2.87, SD = 1.32).
Ad Novelty. A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all five items fit to one component (EV = 3.47, R2= 69.46). Reliability analysis indicated the scale had very strong reliability (α = .89) and a final Ad Novelty scale (M = 2.97, SD = 1.07) was created.
Adjective associations. Overall, participants rated the set of five adjective associations used for stimuli development as well fitting to the product and ad medium (MBubbles/Sparkling = 4.31, SD = .91, MRefreshing = 3.5, SD = 1.28), MHealthy = 3.03, SD = 1.21 MHydrating = 2.95, SD = 1.20), MNatural =2.65, SD = 1.16).
Brand Familiarity. In comparison to the Pre-test and Study 1, the sample population of Study 2 was slightly more familiar with the brand San Pellegrino (N = 356; M = 3.97, SD = 1.40). A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to check for equal
distribution between groups.
Drink Frequency. Participants were asked how often they drink sparkling water and measured with a Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). Results show that 27.5% rarely, 25.6% sometimes and 25.9% often to very often drank sparkling water (M = 2.73, SD = 1.25).
Past Purchase Frequency. This additional, more specific measure was added to Study 2 to strengthen understanding of participants’ purchase behavior. Participants were asked, “In the last six months, how often have you purchased sparkling water?” using a Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often/more than three times per week) only 34.6% indicated purchasing sometimes to very often (M = 2.22, SD = 1.24).
Previous Ad Exposure. All stimuli were based on real-life advertisements and identical creative media stimuli were used in both Study 1 and 2, therefore an additional
manipulation check to ensure the majority of participants had not seen the ads before. Overall, the vast majority (97.5%) thought they not seen the creative media Fountain ad (nFountain = 119) before and the vast majority (94.9%) reported having never seen for the creative media Shower ad (nShower = 118) before either. In comparison, the magazine advertisement (control) was actually an authentic San Pellegrino advertisement and we expected participants might have previously seen the image. Once again the majority (91.6%) of respondents indicated they had not seen the control condition before (nMagazine = 119). Results indicate that the sample population was unlikely to have been previously exposed.
Product-Media Congruency. A PCA with varimax rotation indicated that all scales had items fitting on one component (nFountain = 119, EV = 1.94, R2 97.12; nShower = 118, EV = 1.90, R2= 94.76; nMagazine = 119, EV = 1.91, R2= 95.60). All scales were highly reliable (Fountain: α = .97; Shower: α = .94; Magazine: α = .95), indicating all ads were congruent. Results
Preparatory analysis. Results of a univariate ANOVA indicated no significant differences between Ad Condition in terms of age (N = 356, F (2, 353) = .16, p = .350), education (F (2, 353) = 2.22, p = .110), gender (F (2, 353) = 1.18, p = .309) Drink Frequency (F (2, 353) = .29, p = .745), Past Purchase Frequency (F (2, 353) = .02, p = .981) and Brand Familiarity (F (2, 353) = 1.73, p = .179). We did not control the aforementioned variables in final analysis, see Table 2.2.
Manipulation check. A univariate ANOVA with Post-Hoc Bonferroni confirmed that Ad Conditions significantly differed in terms of Ad Novelty (F (2,353) = 78.10, p = .000, η2
= .307). The creative media Shower ad was perceived to be significantly more novel (MShower= 3.71, SD = .92) than the other ad conditions (MFountain = 2.93, SD = .96; MMagazine = 2.27, SD = .78). In addition, the conditions were differed significantly in terms of Ad
Creativity (F (2,353) = 28.35, p = .000, η2 = .138). The creative media Shower ad (MShower = 3.77, SDShower = 1.22) was considered significantly more creative than both the creative media Fountain ad (MFountain = 2.98, SDFountain = 1.23) and the Magazine ad (Magazine = 2.67, SD = 1.01). These findings support stimuli construction and confirm our decision to change the control ad for Study 2. Furthermore, all ads were sufficient in terms of Product-Media Congruency, the measure also used by Dahlén (2005) as a manipulation check. However, results again state that the control condition was considered more congruent (MMagazine = 3.81, SD = 1.05) than the creative media conditions (Fountain = 3.35, SD = 1.36; MShower = 2.94, M = 1.44)
Exploratory Analysis. A correlation matrix indicated that both Ad Attitude and (r = .563, p = .001) and Brand Attitude (r = .657, p = .001) were correlated with Purchase
Intention. In addition, Ad Attitude was positively correlated with both Brand Attitude (r = .591, p = .001) and Ad Creativity (r = .564, p = .001). Regression analysis offered more details about the relationships. As Ad Creativity increased, so did Attitude towards the Ad (b* = .56, t = 12.86, p = .001, R2 = .32). As Ad Attitude increased, so did Brand Attitude (b* = .59, t = 13.79, p = .001, R2 = .35) and a more positive Purchase Intention increased with more positive Ad Attitude (b* = .55, t = 12.23, p = .001, R2 = .30) and more positive Brand Attitude (b* = .65, t = 16.39, p = .001, R2 = .43). See Tables 3.2 and 4.2 for the complete correlation matrix and additional regression analysis.
Hypotheses testing. Analysis were completed with SPSS version 21 using General Linear Model (Univariate ANOVA with Post-Hoc Bonferroni). See Tables 5.3 and 5.4.
Hypothesis 1a expected the creative media advertisements to elicit a more positive Ad Attitude than the traditional print ad. Results do not show significant differences between Ad Conditions (F (2, 353) = 2.68, p = .070, η2 = .015) and Attitude towards the Ad. Hypothesis 1a was thus not supported.
Hypothesis 1b expected the creative media advertisements to elicit a more positive Brand Attitude than the traditional print ad. The ANOVA did not indicate a significant effect of Ad Condition (F (2, 353) = 2.08, p = .126, η2 = .012) on Attitude towards the Brand. Furthermore, Post-Hoc testing indicated that contrary to expectations, the traditional media condition elicited a more positive Brand Attitude (MMagazine = 3.74, SD = 0.84) than the two creative conditions (MFountain = 3.67, SD = 0.98; MShower = 3.51, SD = 0.92). Hypothesis 1b was not supported.
Hypothesis 2 expected the creative media ads to evoke higher levels of Purchase Intention than the traditional print ad. Results did not indicate a significant main effect of Ad Condition (F (2, 350) = 1.14, p = .371, η2 = .006) on Purchase Intention (MFountain = 2.73, SD = 1.29; MShower = 2.94, SD = 1.38; MMagazine= 2.94, SD = 1.30). Hypothesis 2 was not
supported.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that high NFC would function as a moderator to strengthen the effect of Creative Media advertisements on Purchase Intention. No direct effect of Ad
Condition on Purchase Intention was found. Furthermore, no significant differences were found for high NFC participants (F (1, 350) = .38, p = .537, η2 = .001) and no interaction effect was found for high NFC and Ad Condition (F (2, 350) = 0.36, p = .699, η2 = .002) on Purchase Intention (MFountain high NFC = 2.80, SD = 1.28; MShower high NFC = 2.90, SD = 1.42; MMagazine high NFC = 2.90, SD = 1.32). Hypothesis 3 was not supported. See Appendix E for a full Hypothetical model.
Discussion
Study 2 elicited similar outcome results to Study 1 in the sense that again, all three ads led to a positive Brand Attitude. However, the traditional Magazine ad elicited the most positive Brand Attitude, although it was not significantly higher either of the creative media
conditions. Ad Attitude was added to Study 2 and resulted in a very similar reaction to that of Brand Attitude: the traditional Magazine ad (MMagazine = 3.46, SD = 0.84) reported the most positive Ad Attitude however, the creative media ads were only slightly lower (MShower = 3.29, SD = 1.23; MFountain = 3.15, SD = 1.03;). Similar results in both studies may be due to participant familiarity with traditional print media.
All three ads in both studies indicated similar level of Purchase Intention (See Table 5.1 and 5.3). In Study 2, the data shows that while the creative media ads were not
significantly higher than the traditional ad, they did indeed lead to a moderately positive intent to purchase the product. Furthermore, the creative media Shower ad had the same Purchase Intention score as the Magazine ad. While we expected it to be significantly more positive, no boomerang effect (that generating significantly less purchase intention than the traditional ad) was found. Despite lack of support for Hypotheses 2 and 3, results indicate that high NFC participants who saw the creative media Fountain ad had stronger Purchase Intention than the low NFC participants. However, the same finding also occurred for participants who saw in the control condition (Table 5.4).
Conclusion
Overall, the sample populations of Study 1 and 2 were similar in terms of age, gender, nationality, education and Need for Creativity (Table 1.4 and 1.5). Although no hypotheses for either study were corroborated, manipulation checks indicate that the creative media advertisements in both studies were sufficient in terms of the criteria established by Dahlén (2005). Further confirming and strengthening Dahlén’s established criteria for creative media advertisements, results from both studies show the creative media ads were more novel than the traditional ad. In Study 2, the creative media Shower ad was also considered to be the most creative (Tables 5.1 and 5.3). These findings are in line with past research (Dahlén, 2005) that establish creative media ads to be more novel than traditional ads and novelty is
also liked to advertising effectiveness (Dahlén et al., 2007; 2009). Ad Creativity was an additional measure for Study 2 and data suggests that as expected, the creative media ads were deemed more creative than the traditional print ads, a useful finding considering that novelty increases attention to an advertisement (Meyer et al., 1991), creative media ads capture attention more effectively than traditional ads (Dahlén, 2005) and creative ads are liked more and more likely to be shared than traditional ads (Eelen and Seiler, 2016). Study 2 results established strong, positive correlation between Ad and Brand Attitudes, further confirming Dahlén’s (2005) statement that ad evaluations may spill over to the brand itself.
Both studies also indicated that the Magazine condition was considered to be the most congruent. This may be a result of media familiarity. While creative media ads require an element of novelty, the consumer audience is naturally more familiar and has a stronger advertising schema with print media because they expect to find ads in a magazine, leading to higher perceived congruency between product and media.
Pertaining to research questions and hypotheses related to NFC, we suspect that complications with this measurement may be due to the difficulty of self-reporting a
personality trait in an unmonitored online survey. Participants may have given conservative estimates of their actual behavior and personality traits due to self-report measurements (Bellamy and Walker, 1996). Or, perhaps this result occurred because participants with high NFC already have a strong yearn for novelty and creativity. The traits are already prominent in their advertising schema, meaning that high NFC consumers call for even more creative ads. Despite insignificant results in hypotheses testing, the NFC factor of this study sheds light on how different consumer personality traits may affect interpretation of an
advertisement. Given that neither NFC related hypotheses for either study were corroborated, we look further to other significant outcome effects.
As market implementation and academic research surrounding creative media advertising strategies continues to grow, other studies have successfully linked creative media ads to positive ad and brand evaluations (Dahlén et al., 2005, 2009) and purchase intention (Wottrich & Voorveld, 2016). While no direct effects were found for creative media ads onto ad and brand evaluations, further analysis did confirm that the outcome effects interacted with each other. Our results add to the topic by shedding light on ad and brand evaluations, the role of consumer personality traits on interpreting creative media advertising and how they can effect consumer behavior, such as purchase intention. We found strong correlations between the outcome effects stimulated by creative media advertising. More specifically, we found that the creative media ads did generate stronger effects of novelty and creativity than the traditional ad, which in turn were correlated with Ad and Brand Attitude. Subsequently, Ad and Brand Attitude were also positively correlated with Purchase Intention, which was inline with a variety of past studies (Engel et al, 1990; Bush et al., 1999; Wottrich & Voorveld 2016).
Participants in Study 1 and Study 2 were not sizable consumers of the product and this may have effected the low scores for purchase intention. While purchase intent is a key determinant in advertising effectiveness, a focus group may have been useful for this study to more thoroughly explore the outcome effects based on different consumer habits. As a
multilayered strategy, creative media advertising differs from traditional routes in the sense that it is highly unique and cannot work with every product-media combination. Nowadays, ads are becoming increasingly more targeted to specific consumer audiences however, this concept doesn’t fit creative media advertising because the ads are located in public areas thus, they must be approachable and able to implicitly communicate to a wide audience. Consulting a focus group (or more elaborate Pre-test) with consumers who have strong interest or frequently consuming the product would be helpful and research shows that using
a Pre-test before constructing and implementing a creative media ad strategy can improve ROI (Millward-Brown, 2016).
Finally, although photographs are an accurate representation of the advertisement, both studies did not allow an opportunity for consumer-ad interaction. The creative media Shower ad may have evoked significantly higher scores because participants could more easily envision themselves interacting with the ad. Participants were able to view the ad for as long as they wished however, given the online nature of Qualtrics, participants were not able to interact with the advertisements in real life and this could have inhibited their ability fully experience and process the creative media ads. They were warned that returning to the advertisement after moving on would not be possible yet, this is not true to a real-life scenario where a novel ad could grab their attention and lead them to spend more time processing it.
Lack of physical interaction with the creative media ads may have made it more difficult to fully envision the advertisement functioning in real life. They were asked to envision a real life scenario however, this may have been difficult because most consumers have never seen a bottle shaped fountain in the park nor have they showered under an oversized soda fountain at the beach. This also falls in line with the fact that we did not measure persuasion
knowledge before or after ad exposure. We attempted measured implicit communication via the creative media ads with explicit measures. Therefor, the participants knew they were being exposed at an advertisement, which may have automatically set off their persuasion knowledge, and lead them to respond differently and this may have effected our results. Moreover, real-life interaction effects could strengthen the effect that creative media ads have on increasing word of mouth communication (Eelen & Seiler, 2016). Creative media
advertisements may effectively generate strong word of mouth communication which in turn can have greater effects in the long term as consumers discuss creative ads, subsequently
allowing positive brand and ad evaluations to spill over to a larger audience who did not see the ad in person.
Limitations and suggestions for future research
The first limitation involves the NFC measurement. No significant results were found for hypotheses that involved NFC. This may have occurred because an 8 item self-report scale is not a sufficient measurement for a complicated personality characteristic such as NFC. Alternatively, it may be that NFC is not a strong factor related to ad brand evaluations given that ads are created for a more general audience and this should be apparent in their
development. Second, this study was not able to measure or follow up with ad and brand recall or persuasion knowledge. In the event of the practical implementation of creative media ad campaigns, brand and advertising associates would gauge reach and recall to estimate how effectively the alternative ad campaign generated purchase intention and ROI. Second, we could have removed the small percentage of participants who believed they had seen the creative media ads before however, with a relatively small sample population it was more beneficial to retain all respondents who had completed the survey in full.
Future research should consider interaction effects and if funding and time allow, more thorough, long term research could be conducted allowing participants to engage with the advertisement in real-life setting. This would strengthen the understanding of consumer ad and brand evaluations, ad recall and purchase intention with creative media advertising. Despite its limitations, little research has been conducted on outcome effects of creative media advertising. Both studies contribute to and strengthen past findings, which are useful for academics and practitioners to better understand the phenomenon, in turn, giving more insight to advertisers, and marketers who implement alternative advertising strategies.
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