Advertising design: too much efficiency can also be harmful

The large-scale study with over 4,000 participants concludes: creativity is never wrong, but too much efficiency can damage brand perception. "Creative" or "efficient" - this is often the decisive question in discussions between advertising clients and agencies. With a constant eye on the budget and sales figures, many advertising clients are keen to make their advertising as economical or "efficient" as possible, i.e. to achieve a supposedly particularly good ratio of advertising costs to sales. The fact that this strategy can also fall short is shown by the current study "Consumer-perceived signals of 'creative' versus 'efficient' advertising. Investigating the roles of expense and effort" by Erik Modig et al. The authors addressed the question of whether and to what extent not only the content, but also the design of the advertising message itself has an influence on the consumer's brand perception and brand assessment. Specifically, the researchers wanted to know: Does "creative" advertising signal above-average costs and effort on the part of the sender of the advertising message to the consumer and does this have a positive reinforcing effect on brand perception? And conversely, is "efficient" advertising seen by consumers as a signal of below-average effort on the part of the company - with a correspondingly negative impact on brand perception?

Earlier studies (e.g. Ambler & Hollier 2004; Dahlén et al. 2008) have already shown that consumers have a very realistic impression of the effort, cost and effort involved in designing an advertisement. Even if consumers cannot back up this impression with concrete figures, they are still able to classify whether an advertisement has been designed with comparatively above-average, average or below-average costs and effort.

This impression shapes the consumer's image of the brand - usually in the sense that supposedly more elaborate or more expensively produced advertising signals a higher quality product. The current study by Modig et al. takes these findings one step further and proves that more elaborately designed (in this case "creative") advertising has a positive effect on consumers' brand perception and interest in the brand and also strengthens consumers' willingness to speak positively about the brand to third parties (word-of-mouth).

In order to test their hypotheses, the researchers initially selected five advertisements (both print and TV formats were tested) that had been recognized in the corresponding national competitions as either particularly creative or particularly successful in economic terms, i.e. that had received either a creative award or an efficiency award. The ten award-winning advertisements were supplemented by a further ten advertisements that had not received an award and were judged by the competition jury to be of average creativity or efficiency. The 20 advertisements in total were shown to almost 4,400 test subjects as part of the study; each advertisement was therefore judged by more than 200 people.

Various factors were surveyed: on the one hand, the perceived effort required to create the advertisement ("sender expense") and the perceived effort of the respective sender of the advertising message ("sender effort"). On the other hand, the attitude ("brand attitude") and the interest of the test person in the advertised brand ("brand interest") as well as the intention of the test person to speak positively about the brand with third parties ("brand word-of-mouth intentions"). The results: The study demonstrated a significant positive correlation between the expenses assumed by the consumer or the effort made by the sender of the advertising message and the three impact indices measured: attitude, brand interest and word-of-mouth. Furthermore, it has been shown that creative advertising leads to an increase in the assessment of the expenses and effort made, while "efficient" advertising leads to a lower assessment. Accordingly, creative advertising has a positive effect, while efficient advertising has a negative effect on the three measured impact indices of brand attitude, brand interest and word-of-mouth.

The results of the study suggest that budgets for high-quality, creatively designed advertising are generally well spent - even if one or two clients may disagree. Conversely, however, advertising can certainly be designed "too efficiently". This is because consumers are able to assess the costs and effort that have gone into designing the advertising. If this effort is perceived as below average, this has a negative impact on brand attitudes.

Clemens Koob

The study cited: Erik Modig, Micael Dahlén and Jonas Colliander (2014): Consumer-perceived signals of "creative" versus "efficient" advertising. Investigating the roles of expense and effort. International Journal of Advertising, 33(1), pp. 137-154. further sources: M. Dahlén, S. Rosengren, F. Törn (2008): Advertising creativity matters. Journal of Advertising Research, 48(3), 392-403.T. Ambler & E. A. Hollier (2004): The waste in advertising is the part that works. Journal of Advertising Research, 44(4), 375-389.

Key Facts

- The study by the Stockholm School of Economics examines the effect of creativity and efficiency in advertising design on brand perception, brand interest and word-of-mouth.
- 4400 test persons, 5 award-winning advertisements each in the categories "Creativity" and "Efficiency", 10 others.
- Consumers are able to estimate and classify the costs and effort involved in designing advertising.
- Creative advertising leads to a higher estimation of costs and efforts, "efficiently" designed advertising to low estimation.
- Both costs and effort correlate positively with brand perception, brand interest and word-of-mouth.
- Creativity has a positive effect on the brand, too much efficiency can have a negative effect. exhibits