Where being creative truly matters

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📝 Intro

Of course, creativity matters.

But when and where does it matter most?

Say you are developing and launching a new product or a new advertising campaign, there are two broad areas in which you could be ‘highly creative’:

• The product or content itself: what it’s about

• The packaging and design: how it looks

Usually, we’re pressured to be great at both. But do they both matter? Where should we focus our limited resources?

Researchers from Monash University and Bocconi University set out to understand this crucial question.

And thanks to them, we now have the answer.

P.S.: Related research found that for product packaging on its own, people are willing to pay more - up to 24.6% - for products with simple, straight-forward packaging, compared to more complex designs.

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Creative features are more beneficial than creative aesthetics

Topics: Product | Ads
For: B2C. Can be tested for B2B
Research date: August 2024
Universities: Monash University, Bocconi University

📈 Recommendation

When developing a creative product (e.g. movie, game) or advertising campaign - focus your creative effort on the actual features and contents (e.g. storyline, core message), rather than the packaging or the aesthetics (e.g. a creative color combination in your ad).

Your creativity will have a much greater positive impact.

🎓 Findings

• When a product’s creative content is better (e.g. better movie story, more fun board games), both customers and experts rate it higher. When its creative packaging is better (e.g. cinematography and editing, creative colors/design), experts rate it higher, but regular people are put off.

• As part of an analysis of 268 Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards, 7,764 games from BoardGameGeek.com, and an online experiment, researchers found that:

  • Both regular people and experts had positive responses to creative content in Oscar-nominated movies. The chances of winning the Best Picture award increased 9x for every point increase in a movie’s creative content score (from 0 to 7)

  • While experts had positive responses to creative packaging for movies (e.g. cinematography, production design), regular people found them less appealing or slightly negative (on Rotten Tomatoes)

  • The likelihood of winning the Spiel des Jahres award for board games was 3.5x higher for every point increase in creative content score and 1.6x higher for every point increase in creative packaging scores.

  • People rated games 32.4% higher when they had more creative content, but only 15% higher when they had creative packaging

• The effect works differently for experts and regular people:

  • Creative content had a strong positive impact on ratings by both groups

  • Creative packaging had a small positive effect on experts

  • On regular people, it had either a slightly positive or a negative impact

🧠 Why it works

• For most products, as an average customer, we have different taste preferences than an expert in the field might have.

• Experts tend to focus on complexities and technical aspects that often don’t matter to us. For example, when we’re eating a cookie, we likely judge the cookies more on how they taste to us and how they make us feel - while a pastry chef may focus more holistically on the balance of flavors, texture, and bake of the cookies.

• As ordinary buyers of a product, we’re more likely to dislike a product if its look and feel are very different from what we’re used to for the product (e.g. book cover that opens downwards) but are more open to the content itself being creative (e.g. a completely new type of story).

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✋ Limitations

• The research focused on creative products (board games and movies), where the product is focused on storytelling and creativity is highly valued. They believe that the effect carries over to other industries (e.g. music, books), situations (e.g. advertising campaigns), and product categories in general (e.g. electronics, food and beverages, household products, professional services) - but future research may uncover important nuances.

• The study measured how people rated a product and its award wins - it did not measure any impact on sales or people’s willingness to buy.

• People were classified as either experts or general customers, but there’s likely an in-between too. For example, a regular person who watches several movies a week would likely have different ways of judging a movie than someone who rarely watches movies.

• The research did not account for the overall quality or reputation of the product - people would likely expect more creative packaging (cinematography) from a Ridley Scott movie than a romcom, and judge it accordingly.

• Audience preferences are likely to vary significantly both over time and across cultures.

🏢 Companies using this

• There are numerous examples of movies, shows, and video games focusing on creative packaging (cinematography, editing, and visuals) at the expense of the story.

  • The Rings of Power featured groundbreaking visuals but was written by two relatively inexperienced screenwriters, resulting in low ratings

  • Similarly in the video game world, Resident Evil 6, Need For Speed: The Run, and others were criticized for poor narratives despite stunning visuals

• In advertising and marketing campaigns, an industry analysis by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising found that award-winning creative campaigns were no more effective than campaigns that didn’t win any awards, and often had little or no effective impact.

• In the food and beverage world, numerous brands ran into difficulty when introducing products that look overly creative for their category, including: 

  • Crystal Pepsi (a clear version of Pepsi)

  • Kellogg’s Breakfast Mates (a box containing dry cereal, milk and a spoon)

  • Heinz’s EZ Squirt Ketchup (regular Ketchup available in teal, purple and green).

2019’s movie Cats was hailed for its costumes, set design, and music but panned by critics and audiences for a weak storyline and bad acting.

⚡ Steps to implement

• As you’re developing your product, focus your creativity on the core content that differentiates it from competitors and helps set your brand apart.

• Focus these creative changes on areas that impact how your customers use/interact with your product, including the purpose they’re using it for or the benefits it provides. These changes can include:

  • Flavors or tastes for food and drink items

  • Cuts, patterns, or fabrics for fashion items

  • Features for users, especially those powered by AI, for SaaS products

  • Specifications usage of electronics

• While your product packaging is important, making it too creative or different for your category (e.g. selling fresh juice in cans) can backfire as people often prefer the packaging they are used to.

• Similarly, ad campaigns can be separated into two aspects - the message you’re conveying, and how you convey it. Focus your creative energies on unorthodox messaging while sticking to more conventional aesthetic choices to maximize effectiveness.

🔍 Study type

Online experiment and market observations (analysis of 268 Academy Award-nominated movies for Best Picture and of 7,746 games from BoardGameGeek.com)

📖 Research

Disentangling audiences' reactions to creative content and creative packaging. Strategic Management Journal (August 2024)

🏫 Researchers

• Davide C. Orazi, Monash University

• Pier Vittorio Mannucci, Bocconi University

Remember: This is a new scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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🎓 It took 3 of us 15.5 hours to accurately turn this 28 page research paper into this 3min insight. 

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