The Role of creativity in Advertising and Digital Marketing

In Dubai, we can see many advertising and digital marketing companies blooming. But an advertisement campaign or a marketing strategy without creativity is like an advertisement with no life. Creativity is the life and soul of advertising and branding. It is what gives life to ads about products and services that may otherwise be monotonous or insignificant for the viewers. Advertisers often turn to advertising agencies for the design and development of campaigns and ads, but an advertising can never be effective unless and until it is appealing. It can only appeal once it is creative and this creativity varies with taste, geography, culture, time, gender, age etc. The professionals in advertising always say that nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make. In fact, an impression is a differentiator in the advertising business.

The creative process includes the following:

• Preparatory phase: Gathering background details.
• Digestive phase: Taking the background details, working on it and fiddling
  with it in the mind.
• Incubatory phase: Idea development.
• Illuminator phase: foreseeing the solution.
• Verification phase: Refining the idea and finding the appropriate solution.

Here are some parameters which can help you figure out the creativity:
1. Creative strategy: For a successful advertising or digital campaign, we need a creative strategy. Prior to developing ads, a creative copy team formulates a creative concept or strategy. The creative team consists of people at an ad agency who collaborate on the creative concept for an advertising campaign. Typically, this includes copywriters, art directors or designers, and account planners. This is the theme of a campaign that will carry through all executions and serve as the foundation of the message you want to get across to target customers.
2. Uniqueness: If you are showing something which they have never seen, they would surely be interested to have a look at least. This creates an impact and fetches you quality customers.
3. Elements of creativity and advertising: These include the three ‘I’s. That is Imagination, Inventiveness, and Inspiration. To draw the attention of the viewers, the ads should be funny, clever, unique and exciting.
4. Taking creative risks: Many people will use a proven formula when creating ads because they are safe. But those who go beyond these proven techniques will be more successful in creating winning campaigns and marketing strategies.
5. Creating a brand image: this is particularly important when we have similar brands or competitors.
6. Positioning: Establish the brand position in the customers’ mind.
7. Message appeal: It is an approach taken to draw the attention of viewers to influence them to act. Message appealing can be done through price appeal, quality appeal or star appeal or sensory appeal or social acceptance appeal etc.
Prof. Jef L. Richards quoted, “Creativity without strategy is called Art, creative with strategy is called Advertising”. If the objective of advertising is to build a brand and increase market share of a product, the essence to achieve those goals is creativity. So, let all the advertising sparkle by including a bit of creativity!