For many students, as well as many advertising and marketing practitioners, the most interesting aspect of advertising is the creative side. We have all at one time or another been intrigued by an ad and admired the creative insight that went into it.

A great ad is a joy to behold and often an epic to create, as the cost of producing a TV commercial can exceed million. Many companies see this as money well spent. They realize that the manner in which the advertising message is developed and executed is often critical to the success of the promotional program, which in turn can influence the effectiveness of the entire marketing program. Procter & Gamble, Levi Strauss, Nissan, General Motors, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nike, McDonald’s, and many other companies spend millions of dollars each year to produce advertising messages and hundreds of millions more to purchase media time and space to run them.

While these companies make excellent products, they realize creative advertising is also an important part of their marketing success.Good creative strategy and execution can often be central to determining the success of a product or service or reversing the fortunes of a struggling brand. Conversely, an advertising campaign that is poorly conceived or executed can be a liability. Many companies have solid marketing and promotional plans and spend substantial amounts of money on advertising, yet have difficulty coming up with a creative campaign that will differentiate them from their competitors.For example, Burger King has changed its advertising theme 11 times in the past 15 years and changed agencies 6 times in search of a campaign that would give the chain a strong identity in the fast-food market Figure 8-1. During many of these campaigns, market share dropped and franchises were unhappy with the company’s inability to come up with an effective campaign.

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