High Involvement-Transformational Emotional portrayal of motive Authenticity Paramount; must reflect lifestyle of target audience Necessary Like ad Execution style Unique; target audience must identify with product, people, or consumption situation shown Benefit claim of brand message Number of benefits Acceptable number to provide key information Very accurate claim, may overclaim but do not underclaim Intensity of benefit claim Repetition of benefit claim Many are required to support informational message LO5 IMC Planning: Guidelines for Creative Evaluation While the creative specialists have much responsibility for determining the message appeal and execution style to be used in a campaign, the marketer must evaluate and approve the creative approach before any ads are produced. A number of people may be involved in evaluating the creative recommendation, including the advertising or communications manager, product or brand managers, marketing director or vice-president, representatives from the legal department, and even senior managers if required. Top management is involved in selecting an ad agency and must approve the theme and creative strategy for the campaign. Evaluation and approval of individual ads proposed by the agency is often the responsibility of advertising and product managers. The account executive and a member of the creative team present the creative concept to the client’s advertising and product managers for their approval before beginning production. A careful evaluation should be made before the campaign actually enters production, since this stage requires considerable time and money. Basic criteria for evaluating the creative approach focus on a number of questions requiring managerial judgment: • Is the creative approach consistent with the brand’s marketing and advertising objectives? Advertisers must consider whether the creative strategy and tactics recommended by the agency are consistent with the marketing strategy for the brand and the role advertising and promotion have been assigned in the overall marketing program (i.e., brand image marketing positioning strategy). • Is the creative approach consistent with the communication objectives? The creative strategy and tactics must meet the established communication objectives. Creative specialists can lose sight of what the advertising message is supposed to be and come up with an approach that fails to execute the advertising strategy. Individuals responsible for approving the ad should ask the creative specialists to explain how the creative strategy and tacties achieve the creative and communications objectives. Is the creative approach appropriate for the target audience? Careful consideration should be given to whether the creative strategy and tactics recommended will appeal to be understood by, and communicate effectively with the target audience. This involves studying all elements of the ad and how the audience will respond to them. Advertisers do not want to approve advertising that they believe will receive a negative reaction from the target audience. Does the creative approach communicate a clear and convincing message to the customer? Most ads are supposed to communicate a message that will help sell the brand. While creativity is important in advertising, it is also important that the advertising communicate information attributes, features and benefits, and/or images that give consumers a reason to buy the brand.