Can Advertising Creativity Overcome Clutter?

327 Pages·2016·5.58 MB·English

Can Advertising Creativity Overcome
Clutter? Affect, Attention, and Memory

Ahmed Hamed Abdullah Al Shuaili

This thesis is presented for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Marketing and Management
Macquarie University, Sydney

th
8 April 2016
Table of Contents
Page

Thesis Abstract ....................................................................................................... i
Statement of Original Authorship ....................................................................... iii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................. iv
Personal Acknowledgements ............................................................................... v
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Thesis .............................................................. 1
Chapter 2: The First Paper .............................................................................. 25
Introduction to the First Paper ......................................................................... 25
Why Use Highly Creative Advertising? Breakthrough Clutter, Buy

Time and Build Brands ................................................................................... 27
Chapter 3: The Second Paper .......................................................................... 78
Introduction to the Second Paper ..................................................................... 78
Is Creative Advertising a Curse or Cure? Why Creativity Is Good for
Ads, but Can Be Bad for Brands ..................................................................... 80
Chapter 4: The Third Paper .......................................................................... 128
Introduction to the Third Paper ...................................................................... 128
Attention in Competitive Advertising Interference: Can Unfamiliar
Brands Do Better with More Creative Ads? ................................................. 130
Chapter 5: Thesis Conclusion ....................................................................... 172
Summary ..................................................................................................... 172
Implications ............................................................................................... 177
Limitations ................................................................................................. 184
Future Research .......................................................................................... 187
Full Reference List .......................................................................................... 192
Appendices ....................................................................................................... 211
Appendix A: Brand Familiarity Pre-test ........................................................ 211
Appendix B: Participant Information Sheet .................................................. 215
Appendix C: Consent for Data Use ............................................................... 218
Appendix D: Ads names and orders as shown on the eight versions of the
Rosna magazine ............................................................................................. 220
Appendix E: The study Questionnaire ........................................................... 225
Appendix F: Ethical Approval Letter ........................................................... 252
)
Appendix G: Study’s Stimuli (Ads were used in the third paper ............... 256
Appendix H: Rosna Magazine (version 2) ................................................... 273
Thesis Abstract

In the marketplace, advertising clutter refers to the high volume of advertising
consumers are exposed to daily. This high quantity of advertisements has negative effects on
unfamiliar brands which always face difficulties competing with other more familiar brands
from the same product category. This thesis shows that unfamiliar brands have to work
harder to overcome advertising clutter. Many academic researchers and marketers find that
advertising creativity is an important strategic tool that should be considered when trying to
attract consumer attention, increase advertisement and brand liking, and improve
advertisement and brand memory. Thus, the thesis investigates “does advertising creativity
overcome clutter?” and measuring that effects on attention, affect, and memory.
This thesis includes one theoretical and two experimental papers to address the effects
of advertising creativity on brand familiarity and competitive advertising interference. It also
uses eye-tracking techniques to measure attention. The experiments were designed as
realistic experiments, one session time, using a within subjects design. Participants were
exposed to a digital magazine which was designed into the eye-tracking software. The ads in
this magazine included 24 advertisements which were manipulated to be attributed to both
familiar and unfamiliar brands. Of these, eight were highly creative advertisements which
won major advertising creativity competitions. Eight control and eight interference
advertisements were also selected. A pre-test identified familiar and unfamiliar brands.
The data were analysing by using GLM models for attention and affect and also
logistic regression models for memory. Four dependent variables used to measure attention,
which are total fixation duration toward the advertisement, total fixation duration toward
brands, non-fixation duration toward the advertisement, and non- fixation duration toward
i
brands. Memory measures were advertisement recall, brand recall, advertisement recognition,
and brand recognition.
The results show that advertising creativity for familiar brands has a negative
influence on brand affect and brand recognition. However, advertising creativity enhances
visual attention for the advertisements of unfamiliar brands, and it also improves affect
toward the ad, affect toward the brand and brand recognition for most situations. In addition,
brand familiarity moderates the effect of creativity on ad recognition. Creativity enhanced ad
recognition more for unfamiliar brands than familiar brands. And there were no significant
effects of creativity on either ad or brand recall.
The results also show that attention has strong relationship with affect and memory.
And attention itself was influenced by proactive competitive interference. However,
competitive advertising interference has no significant effects on affect toward the ad. And
there was negative effects of interference on affect toward the brand. The effects of
competitive advertising interference on memory was positive at the most conditions.
Each paper provides implication and future research suggestions. And the thesis
conclusion chapter includes implications and future research for both academic and
practitioner research.

ii
Statement of Original Authorship

The work embodied in this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other
university or institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no
material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is
made.

Ahmed Hamed Abdullah Al Shuaili
(42982464)
8th April 2016

iii
Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the contribution of my supervisor in each of the studies and
subsequent papers.
While I am the principal author for all of the studies and papers, I have been assisted in the
writing of the papers by Professor Scott Koslow. The contribution ratio of authors is outlined
below.

Why Use Highly Creative Advertising? Breakthrough Clutter, Buy Time and Build
Brands
Ahmed Al Shuaili – 90 %
Scott Koslow – 10 %

Is Creative Advertising a Curse or Cure? Why Creativity Is Good for Ads, but Can Be
Bad for Brands
Ahmed Al Shuaili – 70 %
Scott Koslow – 15 %
Lawrence Ang – 5%
Mark Kigour – 5%
(The University of Waikato – Hamilton, NZ)
Sheila Sasser – 5%
(Eastern Michigan University – Michigan, USA)
Attention in Competitive Advertising Interference: Can Unfamiliar Brands Do Better
with More Creative Ads?

Ahmed Al Shuaili – 70 %
Scott Koslow – 30 %

iv
Personal Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my principal supervisor
Professor Scott Koslow for the continuous support of my PhD thesis and related studies, for
his motivation and extensive knowledge. I am sure that no words will ever express the true
gratitude I feel having had you as my supervisor. You are always very supportive and
encouraging and your guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this
thesis. I could not have imagined having a better supervisor for my PhD studies.
I would also like to thank the co-authors in the second paper of my PhD, Professor
Scott Koslow, Associate Professor Lawrence Ang (Macquarie University), Senior Lecturer
Mark Kigour (The University of Waikato, Hamilton- New Zealand), and Associate Professor
Sheila Sasser (Eastern Michigan University – Michigan, USA), for their insightful comments
and encouragement.
Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family: my parents, my wife, my kids,
and my brothers and sisters. You all have been my inspiration to strive higher and work
harder to reach my goals.

v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Consumers receive large numbers of individual advertising messages via radio,
television, print advertising, online advertising and direct mail. Marketers aspire to attract
consumer attention by investing in media ranging from print to television advertisements,
advertising in shopping malls, grocery stores, and train or bus stations. The average rate of
advertising exposure in 2014 was more than 5,000 per day (Johnson, 2014). Consumers are
exposed to advertisements everywhere and at any time. The amount of adverting they see
every day can be overwhelming.
The large number of advertisements in the marketplace is called ‘clutter’, which refers
to the high volume of advertising consumers are exposed to daily. Advertising clutter is
defined as an amount of advertising in a medium that is considered excessive (Speck &
Elliott, 1997). The quantity of advertising sets the level of advertising clutter—this level can
be higher or lower in different marketplaces. For example, advertising clutter in the
Philippines is twice as high than in Hong Kong, and clutter in Ireland is half that of Hong
Kong (Brown, 2015).
Advertising clutter is considered an obstacle for individual advertisers to achieve their
fundamental goals, because it is difficult to rise above clutter to stand out and be noticed.
Consumers avoid advertisements when they perceive them as clutter (Cho & Cheon, 2004).
Hence, clutter reduces advertising impact (Brown, 2015). Most consumers deal with this
issue by not focusing on advertisements, for example, ignoring television advertising by
engaging with other activities during programming breaks. These reactions make consumers
1
less likely to pay attention to advertisements or retain messages. Yet, if advertising clutter
was reduced, advertising messages would have a greater impact (Jack Rotfeld, 2006).

Advertisers must consider the role of clutter in consumer engagement, and its effects
on target customers. While advertising clutter may harm the marketing environment, the
natural response for most companies is to increase spending further effectively making the
problem even worse. Money is essentially wasted if advertising does not achieve campaign
goals (Brown, 2015).
Advertising clutter has three dimensions: quantity, competitiveness and intrusiveness
(Ha, 1996; Zanjani, Diamond, & Chan, 2011). Quantity is described as overloading
consumers with a large quantity of information that interrupts consumers’ minds. Ha (1996)
reported that quantity has negative effects on attention and information processing, and
creates information overload. Competitiveness is described as competitive interference,
which can be shown when consumers are exposed to advertisements for different brands from
the same product category. For example, simultaneous exposure to Toyota and Volkswagen
advertisements can make it difficult for consumers to distinguish which message is related to
which brand. In addition, intrusiveness interferes with editorial content on advertisements. Ha
(1996) found that there are individual differences in perceived intrusiveness of clutter
because it based on reactance theory. In this situation, consumers have the option to skip
advertisements or resist persuasion (Ha, 1996; Zanjani et al., 2011).
Advertising clutter can also be divided into two types: competitive and non-
competitive. Kent (1993) studied the effects of competitive clutter and non-competitive
clutter in television advertising. He reported that competitive clutter has a negative impact on
advertising effectiveness. It also harms advertising recall. However, recall is better for
2