Queen\'s University 2021 fall Lecture #1 Transcript 3 PDF

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Queen's University 2021 fall Lecture #1 Transcript 3...

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Evaluating Creative Productions In this lecture we'll focus on a different kind of creative product, not physical items per se, but creative productions and experiences. We'll look at how to evaluate these more ephemeral products according to a creativity index, and we'll consider how consumers perceive their creative effectiveness. So to begin, advertising. How to evaluate the effectiveness of creative advertising? Which metric do we use to measure its impact? Which bottom line? Is it industry awards? Online buzz? Memorability? What about sales? As Werner Reinartz and Peter Saffert argue in Harvard Business Review, it's challenging for companies to assess their return on investment (ROI) in creative advertising. Reinartz and Saffert's research involved studying consumer perceptions and purchase behaviors of commodities that were promoted creatively (including body lotion, chewing gum, coffee, cola and lemonade, detergent, facial care, shampoo, shavers, and yogurt). Reinartz and Saffert concluded that there *is* a definite positive relationship between creative ad campaigns and consumer buying decisions. What's more, they also identified particular aspects of these creative products (the ads) that were especially effective at driving sales. Before we consider which ones, we need to backtrack a bit to first describe where they got their methodology. To measure the impact of creative ads, Reinartz and Saffert borrowed a model developed by Indiana University communications researcher Robert Smith working in the early 2000's, who had borrowed it from psychologist and professor Ellis Paul Torrance's research on creative personalities in the 1950s and 60s. Torrance's model for measuring creativity involved scoring people's thinking styles according to four factors, namely, their: -- Ideational FLUENCY. Which means the ability to rapidly produce a series of ideas. Fluency has to do with amount of ideas produced. Lots of them, so emphasis on quantity not quality.

-- second: Torrance measured how FLEXIBLE people's creative thinking was. Flexibility is about categories, in other words, the ability to generate a variety of ideas, spanning different disciplines, fields, genres, and the like. Emphasis on difference. -- third, Torrance measured how ORIGINAL their ideas were. which means the ability to generate novel, unexpected, unfamiliar ideas. Originality measures by how unique an idea is, compared with what already exists. Emphasis on non-obviousness and infrequency. -- And lastly, people's ability to ELABORATE. Which means the ability to expand on an idea, adding details to make it more real, filling in gaps to make it more complete and easier for others to understand, embellishing it to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Emphasis on adding the finishing touches. This 4-part model was part of the *Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking* (TTCT) circa 1966. Fast forward to 2008, Professor Robert Smith adopted and modified Torrance's model, so it was the creativity of advertisements, not of people, being assessed, Smith also added two new traits that were more directly relevant to advertisements, namely: -- SYNTHESIS by which he means how well the ad connects seemingly unrelated ideas.. And this is difficult to do, as Margaret Kelsey points out, unless we practice lateral thinking, Janusian thinking, and other kinds of ideation techniques to push us out of our comfort zone. -- and ARTISTIC VALUE by which he means how aesthetically appealing the ad is. Fast forward again, this time to 2013, and Reinartz and Saffert from the University of Cologne in Germany use these same measures to examine audience perceptions, and the financial implications, of contemporary creative promotions. They discovered that those ads scoring high on the creativity index employed strategies of elaboration and artistic value to make the strongest impression on audiences. This, despite the fact that ad agencies often aim primarily for *originality* when developing their creative productions. Originality is powerful, these researchers found, but mostly

when it is *paired* with one of the other elements (such as elaboration, artistic value, synthesis or flexibility). Reinartz and Saffert's research also demonstrated that consumers are more open to creative ads for products that they know well and understand, like cola and coffee. On the other hand, for products that users buy to satisfy their functional needs, like cleaning products for example, creativity is less preferable. Instead, what consumers really want is information about and evidence of the product's effective performance, period. Next, let's leave advertising for the moment, and focus on a different kind of creative production, namely the restaurant experience. At Noma, a world-famous restaurant in Copenhagen, the user journey has been carefully designed. Every detail of the service intentionally reflects the company culture and its mission, which is to transform the way diners experience and understand food. The concept: to serve ‘found’ food that had been foraged from nature. As Peter Thomson observes, from his first-hand experience of Noma, the creativity and innovation of the Noma experience is second to none, highly original, delightful, surprising, memorable--and even "immersive." To accomplish this creative production, Noma uses strategies of improvisation, storytelling, and excitement to increase diners' emotional engagement. By inducing a sense of awe (Thomson describes it as mind-blowing), exclusivity (Thomson reveals that getting reservations is a Herculean feat), and wonder (Thomson describes the plating presentations as nothing short of amazing) -- Noma designs and delivers an exceptionally aesthetically pleasing, and original creative service experience. This is due in no small part to the talented chefs and waitstaff Noma attracts, the creative space it occupies, and the culture of experimentation it encourages. As Thomson recounts, chefs are challenged to express their individual creativity via unusual combinations (SYNTHESIS), adding unexpected small flourishes (ELABORATION), and rapidly developing random new offerings each week in the on-site food laboratory (IDEATIONAL FLUENCY). Summing up…

Creative productions such as advertisements and food service experiences impact consumers' emotional reactions, perceptions, and purchase behaviors. The very most creative of these productions will evidence high levels of divergent and convergent ideation -- which means thinking differently, and making unusual and interesting, even absurd connections. After all, as the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher said "Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.” //end

Selected references: On Lateral and Janusian thinking: "Three ways to think more creatively about product design." by Margaret Kelsey. 2014. https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/3-ways-to-think-more-creatively-about-produ ct-design/ "Creativity in Advertising: When It Works and When It Doesn’t." by Werner Reinartz and Peter Saffert. Harvard Business Review. 2013. https://hbr.org/2013/06/creativity-in-advertising-when-it-works-and-when-it-doesnt "Creativity lessons from Noma Restaurant" by Peter J Thomson. 2012. https://www.peterjthomson.com/2012/11/creativity-in-business-at-noma-restaurant/...