14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists found out that the most creative ads that were aired during Super Bowl Night in the United States were remembered with greater accuracy later on than the game itself. This finding demonstrates that consumers' thought patterns can be changed with creative, cunning advertisements.
These discoveries are very important because they are saying a lot. The Super Bowl is the most important football game of the year, and many people are usually waiting for it. Therefore, they watch it with great interest, and chances of them remembering sequences from it are very high.
The fact that they are also remembering one or two ads – which usually annoy people rather than capture their attention – is a further testimony to the power of persuasion these video clips have.
The very way in which people process information about the different products they are seeing can be changed through creative stimuli, say experts behind the new study. Further details of the work appear in the latest issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.
“Creative marketing stimuli are pervasive in the marketplace as marketers and advertisers scramble to break through the clutter to attract consumers’ attention and win their approval,” the authors of this research paper explain, quoted by PsychCentral.
The correlation held true for designs, logos and creative messages alike, the team reveals. By forcing the potential customers to think more creatively, and outside the box, the new ads also changed people's perspective on the things they want to buy.
“Though it still makes sense to target consumers segments with ad campaigns that tap into their way of thinking, marketers should be aware that this practice is most effective for consumers with a less creative mindset,” the investigators go on to say.
“To target those consumers with a creative mindset, marketers might actually augment their advertising effectiveness if their ad messages involve some kind of creative departure from the segment’s common way of thinking,” they explain in the journal entry.
The new investigation sought to elaborate on the difference in public response between abstract and concrete ads. Previous works have established that people who are capable of a high degree of abstract feeling respond better to abstract ads.
The exact opposite correlation is also true, but what the new study is suggesting is that companies should no longer keep their ad contents clearly divided between the two. The study reveals that people from one group can rally to the other with ease, if creativity is used as a a bridge.