Future Directions for Advertising Creativity Research

Based upon a review of the literature, this paper presents a framework for understanding advertising creativity, and asks the question: “what future direction should advertising creativity research take?” We divide creativity research into work focused on creative development (CD) and creative effectiveness (CE). In each stream, we provide an overview of the key areas of research interest and identify future research directions. The study argues that research should continue to understand how individual, group, and organizational structural elements influence creative development, as well as the effect of new media. Additional work is also needed to better understand the evaluation processes given the difficulty in judging creative advertisements, as well as a better understanding of expression issues. This study also calls for additional work dealing with the specific challenges facing each stream and a better integration of the two.