Creative strategy

Creative strategy is the execution element and communication strategies used to bridge the gap between what marketers want to say and what consumers want to hear.

Companies can redefine their traditional approach to strategy development by implementing creative strategy development. This latter allows them to constantly develop alternative, bold and new strategies, but it requires companies to ask management to question their assumptions and challenge the status quo. The right questions must be constantly asked to rethink or shape the business model.

In digital competition, social media marketing requires the presence of marketing content. Social media marketers have created a new concept of creative strategy in the marketing world through different types of messages (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010). In fact, creative strategies are built and implemented to increase the effectiveness of communicated messages and, in particular, to bridge the gap between what brands want to say and what consumers need to hear (Ashley et al., 2015).

Literature review

As MacInnis, Moorman and Jaworski (1991) argued, creative strategies can improve the recipient's motivation, skills, and/or ability to process information from the advertisment. Brand marketers are very interested in creative strategies because they are essential for promoting results. The creative strategy involves both the content and delivery of the message. It involves designing the communication to increase the likelihood that it will produce the desired effect on the target group (Laskey, Day, & Crask, 1989).

Based on Aaker and Norris' research (1982), emotional/transformational and functional/informational creative strategies were distinguished (Aaker & Norris, 1982). When developing a creative strategy, it is essential to distinguish between rational and emotional information. A brand's creative strategy could focus on the benefits that are unique to it (unique selling proposition), superior to it (pre-emptive, comparative), or undifferentiated from its competitors (generic). Chandy, Tellis, MacInnis, and Thaivanich (2001) proposed that advertisment cues can affect consumer behaviour depending on whether the market is new or old. Their study found superior effectiveness of comparative strategies in new markets over old markets, while emotional messages performed better in old markets than new ones. Many factors can influence the effectiveness of specific creative strategies, such as target audience characteristics, creative execution, market characteristics, and environmental trends.

Importance of creative strategies in companies

This article examines how a number of leading companies are gaining a competitive advantage by applying creative strategies and building new business models.

These companies do not try to analyse what went wrong with last year's strategy plan. Instead, these organisations recognise that dynamic environments offer valuable opportunities for those who can shape, lead, or at least anticipate and respond to change in their industry. Their report found that incumbent industry players had difficulty shifting their mental framework and creating some key concepts in a new and unique way. For instance:

• The Mental Model of Questions: it is hard to question the thinking that makes an organisation successful. Organisations that challenge analytical uniformity rethink traditional assumptions and constantly challenge the status quo to create creative strategies for new business models.
• Challenge Assumption: traditional approaches and tools should not be abandoned by organizations. What is important is the underlying mentality managers adopt when analysing and applying them. Questioning the framework of if mental framework assumptions do not change, the strategy will not change either.
• Encourage openness to new ideas: the final element for developing creative strategies relates to when an organisation has access to new strategies and business.

Traditional strategies are built with a top-down approach but developing creative strategies and identifying new business models fosters ideas and challenges from anywhere inside or outside the organisation. This requires top managers to be open, share a vision, and encourage conflicting views. Challengers to the status quo should be welcomed as they offer another argument that the mainstream perspective overlooks.

As creative strategy becomes more critical in the development of companies, more specialised roles, such as creative strategists, are emerging. Agile, digital, and ready for new challenges, these individuals consider the stories people tell, create brand stories that resonate, and use those stories for clients to connect with brands. In addition, they reflect and act positively on cultural change, social issues, and the importance of branding. This new mandate will consist of new professionally trained people to generate new ideas in a strategic environment, provided with cultural curiosity and deep confidence in ideas as powerful cultural assets. Confluence culture is led by creative strategists who understand all aspects of the advertising process and use their creative skills to solve brand problems. Agencies that adopt a creative and strategic approach are prepared to deliver superior messages to clients, protect themselves from the recession when clients embrace the value of such messages and find innovative ways to communicate.

Creative strategies' conclusion

Formal planning is an important and effective management activity, but the process often becomes routine, reinforcing an organisation's existing strategies and failing to build new business models. It is important for businesses to be aware of rapidly changing customer preferences and emerging market spaces, respond creatively and devise new business models to meet these changing expectations. Organisations that challenge their mental models, look beyond logic, and encourage openness to innovative ideas can develop new and creative strategies and new business models. Companies that approach strategy creatively are among the smartest.

References

• Ashley, C., & Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), 15-27.

• Golan, G. J., & Zaidner, L. (2008). Creative strategies in viral advertising: An application of Taylor’s six-segment message strategy wheel. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 13(4), 959-972.

• Kim Bartel Sheehan & Deborah K. Morrison (2009) The Creativity Challenge, Journal of Interactive, Advertising, 9:2, 40-43, DOI: 10.1080/15252019.2009.10722154

• Zaharin, N. L., Sharif, S., & Mariappan, M. (2019, October). BEHAVIOURISM THEORY: APPLICATION INTO STRUCTURE OF ATOMS VIA THE USE OF EDUCATIONAL ROBOTICS (ER). In e-Proceedings of 2nd Connect-Us Conference (CuC 2019) (p. 16).

• Zhao, W. E. I., & Ji, C. H. E. N. (2019). The Application of Emotion Creative Strategy in Advertising Design. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 9(10), 1088-1092.

Author: Francesca Scattolin