Creativity and Marketing: The Fuel for Success

Swapping as part of collaborative consumption is not a new phenomenon per se, but might gain increased importance after the recent COVID-19 pandemic that has seen a shift in consumer attitudes, consumption, and disposal behaviour. Swapping as one form of collaborative consumption, however, is currently neither mainstream nor target towards the general population, but rather a niche population (secondhand consumers). With sustainable issues (environmental, economic, and social) remaining a key concern, and consumers seeking to dispose of their garments, swapping might become an increasingly attractive alternative, yet currently it may not be communicated as such. This chapter explores the potential of creative marketing communications to enhance the uptake of swapping in order to overcome a key challenge in the industry: fashion waste.

The role of creativity in marketing has great importance. In this chapter, the authors discuss the role of creativity in the sports context. The authors discuss creativity and then move onto the various contexts in sports that could be covered. This looks at the worlds of traditional and extreme sports along with a brief exploration of the burgeoning area of esports. The authors then draw from some creative principles that are worth keeping in mind before moving onto future areas that could be covered. The authors hope that this will be useful for practitioners and researchers who are interested in not just creativity, but also the exciting opportunities in sports. In short, the authors hope this provides inspiration for those wishing to explore these areas further. Creativity is a powerful thing, and sport is an area full of potential. As such, the authors believe that these two are a pairing worth exploring more.

The aim of the chapter is to highlight the limits and opportunities linked to the use of tools such as interactive marketing and communication in small creative businesses comprising Italian jewellery districts to achieve greater competitiveness of local systems on global markets.

From secondary data and the analysis of district websites, the specificity of Italian jewellery districts is analysed in terms of relational and learning differences. Starting from a circumscribed (isolated), experience of hands-on learning, it is suggested that systemic progress can be made within a collective local system of learning (i.e. a virtuous and widespread knowledge of the district system) by virtue of internet-based technologies (IBT). In this respect, the chapter evidences how the productive and creative specificity of Italian jewellery district systems can gain impetus, in terms of greater competitiveness, from the use of IBT.

The clean beauty phenomenon is gaining momentum and beauty brands are getting creative with on-pack sustainability claims. With the increasing focus on sustainability from both brands and consumers, sustainability communication has the potential to raise the profile of sustainable production and consumption. Further attention is needed on the creative approach behind on-pack sustainability marketing communications as companies no longer focus on single eco labels but instead use a bundle of claims to advertise their commitment to sustainability which finds consumers confused and brands open to accusations of greenwashing. This chapter explores on-pack sustainability communications in the beauty industry through the lenses of creative marketing communications which need to be both original and appropriate. This study contributes to the longstanding debate on the role of sustainability claims in marketing communications and addresses the role of on-pack sustainability claims design and creativity.

Although not yet frequently used in marketing management, design thinking (DT) encompasses a creative, proactive, and empathic approach that connects different bodies of knowledge to shape innovative product and service solutions. Based on lean progress models, DT combines a manufacturer’s strategic objectives with the customer’s business requirements. This model focusses on the most important ‘pains’ the customers actually have in order to co-develop and more successfully sell products or services that provide value to specific customer groups or segments. This chapter aims to shed light on the potential of applying DT in new product or service development processes in different business fields to incorporate significant customer requirements a priori. The goal of this method is twofold: to reduce the extremely high risk of unsuccessful product launches and to make the integration of important customers during the product development phase easier.

Innovation is a key driver of growth in the twenty-first century economy. Organisations of all types are increasingly relying on innovators to create and deliver this key driver in a constantly changing, globally competitive business environment. We need to understand innovation – what it is, how to harness it, why it is important and what frameworks and tools are useful for product, service, experience design and beyond.

The purpose of this chapter to introduce the principles of design thinking and its role in creativity and marketing as well as some of the organisations that are using it in order to spur innovation and how they are using it effectively. The chapter examines some of the results and best practices for how organisations, and their creative leaders, can use design thinking effectively. Last, the chapter provides some insight into the future trends of design thinking.

The aim of this chapter is to explore to what extent artificial intelligence (AI) could be introduced in new product development (NPD) process to support the decision making from the development to the launch of a new idea. Building on qualitative data from multiple cases from alcohol sector, the study reveals that AI could be introduced to reduce the risk of unsuccessful development and launch of a new product, supporting all the phases by systematically integrating feedbacks from the market. Specifically, AI can be used to create new recipes/flavours for alcohol drinks. Results also show that integrating AI from the idea scoping to the final product launch is feasible with the support of external stakeholders. The chapter concludes with some recommendations for theory and practice.

Really creative posts on the social media accounts of brands or political parties can produce gratifyingly viral results that can boost brand engagement, loyalty, profits and votes. This makes it a highly attractive new marketing tool. However, when brands or parties get creativity on social media wrong it can damage reputation. This chapter examines two aspects of this trade-off between the viral and the virtuous. Firstly, the authors explore the regulations around labelling brand posts as adverts and show that they are very unclear, tempting brands to bend the rules or allowing them to inadvertently break them. Secondly, the authors consider memes: a content marketing technique widely used in political and commercial brand posts. The authors analyse the three creative elements core to memes along with successful and unsuccessful examples. The authors end by suggesting that regulators clarify the codes and invite readers to weigh up the pros and cons of using creative content marketing in brand posts.

The competitive luxury market raises higher requirements for luxury brands to effectively involve young generations in creating and endowing meanings to products, services and experiences. Several researchers suggest that art experiences create a fertile source of co-creation practices for cultural customers as they could engage in cognitive, emotional and imaginal activities to endowing meanings to products or services. Hence, bridging art and luxury is of significance for luxury brands to create value and engage their customers. This chapter delivers the essence of value for luxury brands and their customers and focusses on how luxury brands deploy art-based initiatives as a favourable technique in which value co-creation takes place.

Influencer marketing in the traditional sense is changing and taking on a new and creative form. Previously, classic influencers were real, human people, now there is a rise in fake, artificial influencers who are opening up innovative means for brand–influencer collaborations over a variety of platforms. Computer-generated imagery influencers (CGIIs) are blurring the lines between the concept of real and fake people and with that numerous brands have begun creatively integrating them into both their marketing strategies and campaigns. This chapter contributes to the largely unexplored phenomena of CGIIs with a focus on the social media platform Instagram. Following a qualitative approach, the research provides a first detailed classification of CGIIs according to the categories demographics, positioning, behaviour and brand collaborations, and followers. As a frame of analysis, the current top 20 CGIIs (those with the most followers on Instagram) were investigated according to the top rankings outlined by HypeAuditor in 2019. The research resulted in the findings that CGIIs from their profile tend to be mostly female, of Asian origin, aged between 18 and 25 years old, and their content is most predominantly related to lifestyle and fashion. Also discussed in this chapter are six case studies evaluating creative brand collaborations with CGIIs in order to gain insights, as well as a first guideline to best practices. These collaborations can be seen across a spectrum of multiple different industries, such as luxury, home and interior, service, people, technology, and fashion.

The focus of this chapter lies in exploring the views Greek Higher Education academics delivering marketing modules in state universities hold with regard to how they conceptualise ‘creativity’; it also examines whether and how academics incorporate teaching creativity in their curriculum and professional practices. Various concepts and contexts pertaining to creativity in education are introduced, emphasising creativity enhancement through marketing teaching and learning. Although educators recognise the critical role of creativity, the methods to enable the cultivation of students’ creativity remain elusive. In the light of these matters, a qualitative approach has been adopted with online structured interviews, which led to the formation of a thematic map through NVivo; the reflexive thematic analysis applied resulted in five final themes, entailing nine sub-themes, which in turn reveal the core patterns and Greek marketing academics’ perceptions on teaching creativity, along with their instructional practices and the challenges they face in this endeavour.