Advertising creativity and its effects: a meta-analysis of the moderating role of modality

Given the media’s changing landscape for advertising, an examination of advertising creativity and its media interaction takes on increasing importance. Accordingly, we investigate within a meta-analytic framework the moderating role of media type (i.e., traditional/non-traditional) in the relationship between advertising creativity and its effects. The analysis covers 48 papers with 298 data points. First, the meta-analytic findings indicate that ad creativity is positively related to cognition, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Second, the type of media moderates the relationship between ad creativity and its effects. Specifically, the results show that for cognition, print media exhibits a larger impact than TV and non-traditional media. For affect, there is a significant difference in the influence of print versus non-traditional media and TV versus non-traditional media. Non-traditional media produces a smaller impact than print and TV media. For conation, a comparison of TV versus non-traditional media reveals a significant difference in impact. TV media shows a larger impact than non-traditional media. Given that the motivation, opportunity, and ability to process creative ads in traditional and non-traditional media may differ, we present several directions for future research.