Who Needs Highly Creative Advertising?

Although the overall effect of creativity in advertising appears positive, the moderating effect of brand familiarity is unknown. On the basis of psychological frameworks, the authors developed an eye-tracking experiment using an electronic magazine format. Creative and control advertisements were compared, and brand familiarity was manipulated. The results demonstrate how brand familiarity moderates the effects of creativity. Creative advertising enhanced visual attention for advertisements, advertisement affect, and advertisement recognition in most situations. Highly creative advertising, however, led to less brand affect and brand recognition for familiar brands but more brand affect and brand recognition for unfamiliar brands.