Assessing creativity in print advertising campaigns : the case of ‘Diesel’, ‘French Connection’, and ‘United Colours of Benetton’

Abstract

People are exposed to a large number of adverts on a daily basis. In consequence, people become so accustomed to advertising that they may no longer be interested in what is being advertised. Advertising scholars have remarked that, in order to break out of this clutter, an advertisement should be creative, it should attract attention and instill interest towards that product or service. This research analyses creativity in three print advertising campaigns from three prominent clothing brands: Diesel, French Connection, and United Colours of Benetton. The research focused on one advertising campaign for each brand, i.e., the Diesel ‘Be Stupid’ Spring Summer 2010 campaign, the French Connection ‘The Man/The Woman’ Spring Summer 2010 campaign, and the United Colours of Benetton ‘Unhate’ 2011 campaign. The research explores whether the campaigns are perceived to be creative and, if in the affirmative, the level of creativity perceived by the participants. The research was conducted through ten face-to-face interviews with representatives of advertising agencies in Malta, and a focus group with seven Creativity and Innovation Masters students from the University of Malta. The findings demonstrate that in order for an advert or an advertising campaign to be considered creative, the advert has to be original, different from the rest, meaningful to the target audience, communicate a message, and reach a company’s objectives. The respondents found the three campaigns to be creative in different ways. From the data collected on the three campaigns, the Benetton ‘Unhate’ campaign is regarded as the most creative campaign, as it was considered as being original and as communicating a message. According to the respondents, the second most creative campaign is the Diesel ‘Be Stupid’ campaign as it was not considered to be a common experience for a brand to tell their customers to act stupid. The Diesel campaign was considered as a fun campaign that is appropriate when directed towards a target audience with a particular young lifestyle. The respondents considered the French Connection ‘The Man/The Woman’ campaign to be the least creative campaign from the three, as the adverts were not considered as being original and often used in traditional fashion print advertising campaigns. Smith et al.’s (2007) theory was considered to be the best tool to use for this research as it incorporates the exploration of both the divergence and relevance factors (Smith et al.) of the three above-mentioned advertising campaigns. Through the use of this tool, an analysis of creativity of the selected campaigns was derived.