Abstract:
The importance of creativity in advertising as one of the primary factor for
advertising effectiveness has been much advocated by advertising professionals and
academicians particularly in a cluttered media. Industry experts argue that advertisements
have to be more creative to break through the greater media clutter and develop an
impression for the brand. This study examines the potential effectiveness of award-
winning television advertisements in Pakistan in both single and three advertising
exposures. Both creative and control advertisements were embedded in a television
program which were shown to two separate groups of research subjects with single and
three advertising exposures respectively. After watching the advertisements, Subjects’
tapped their responses about brand and advertisement recall, attitude and lastly purchase
intent. Contrary to expectations, the finding of this study in single exposure does not
verify the superior performance of creative advertising in terms of recall, brand and
advertisement attitude and purchase intent. However, in three exposures, creative
advertisements developed significantly more favorable brand and advertisement attitude
and greater unaided brand recall than control advertisements. Creative advertisements
developed greater mean purchase intent for the advertised brands than control group of
advertisements; however, it just slipped from attaining significance. Being an optimum
and more mature response of research participants in three exposures as compared to
single exposure, the results of this study in three exposures conclude that creative
advertisements are really more effective than conventional advertisements and bestow
value to the advertised brands.
