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Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing: Matching The Demand and Supply Side of Creativity
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing: Matching The Demand and Supply Side of Creativity
Managerial Decision-Making in
Marketing: Matching the Demand
and Supply Side of Creativity∗
Niek Althuizen1 , Berend Wierenga2 , and Bo Chen3∗∗
1
ESSEC Business School, France
2
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands
3
Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
ABSTRACT
This article provides an overview of creativity research in marketing and
offers a novel framework for matching the demand and supply side of
creativity. The demand side comprises the marketing problem domain
and the specifics of the task, which will influence how much emphasis
management places on the originality versus usefulness of the generated
ideas or solutions. The supply side includes individual and organizational
resources that management can put to use for boosting creativity. Based
on contemporary creative cognition research, this article distinguishes
the following pathways to creativity: fluency, persistence, and flexibility.
Examples of common marketing decisions, including their need for
creativity, the emphasis placed on originality versus usefulness, and the
pathway(s) that may lead to the desired level of creativity, are used to
illustrate how the presented framework for matching the demand and
supply side of creativity can guide managerial decision-making. This
article concludes with a discussion of creativity research priorities in
marketing.
∗ This paper was processed and accepted by Klaus Wertenbroch, Editor of the Journal
of Marketing Behavior.
∗∗ Niek Althuizen, Associate Professor, Department of Marketing, ESSEC Business School,
Introduction
T he tilted “smiling” e’s of Heineken that characterize the beer brand logo,
the yellow “sticky notes” that made the 3M company famous, the catchy “Q8”
brand name and logo of Kuwait Petroleum, and the sensual shape of the Coca
Cola bottle are iconic examples that explain why creativity is often put on a
pedestal in marketing. Emblematic companies of the new economy, such as
Apple, Google, and Amazon, also provide great examples of creativity and
product innovations. And although they may not garner as much attention
from the media as the powerhouses of the digital age, “old-economy” companies
such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble have long showcased high levels of
creativity in the marketing of their products and brands. Given the tendency for
products, brands, and marketing communications to commoditize (Clancy and
Krieg 2007; Kleinberg 2013), innovative new products, creative advertisements
and promotions, and ingenious marketing strategies will remain an important
source of differentiation for companies and, hence, are important for their
long-term survival (Andrews and Smith 1996; Levitt 1983; Woodman et al.
1993). Therefore, it is not surprising that CEOs worldwide frequently mention
creativity as one of their top priorities (IBM 2012).
The words creativity and innovation are often used interchangeably, but
in the academic literature they are viewed as distinct concepts. From an
academic perspective (see, for example, Amabile 1983; Baer 2012), the concept
of creativity refers to the early stages of the process, which involve thinking up
original ideas to tackle a problem, while innovation refers to the subsequent
stages of the process, which involve the evaluation, selection, and successful
implementation of a creative idea. While innovation research has a long-
standing tradition in marketing, creativity started to attract attention from
marketing scholars more recently. This article intends to provide an overview of
this growing body of research, with a focus on the implications for managerial
decision-making in marketing.
Creativity has long been regarded as an elusive phenomenon, an innate
trait that cannot be taught, associated with geniuses such as Albert Einstein,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Pablo Picasso, or Steve Jobs, which may partly ex-
plain the relative dearth of academic research on the topic. However, following
Guilford’s (1950) influential presidential address to the American Psychological
Avenue Bernard Hirsch, 95201 Cergy-Pontoise, France, phone: +33 1 3443 3645, fax: +33
1 3443 3211; althuizen@essec.edu. Berend Wierenga, Professor, Department of Marketing,
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, P.O. Box
1738, 3062 PA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, phone: +31 10 408 1969, fax: +31 10 4089 011;
bwierenga@rsm.nl. Bo Chen, Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing, Sungkyunkwan
University, 25-2, Sungkyunkwan-ro, Myeongnyun 3 ga, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea.
phone: +82 10 43464904; chenbo@skku.edu.
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 131
tools, which are at the disposal of the manager for stimulating creativity. When
deciding which resources to deploy, we propose that managers should take
into account the (cognitive) pathway(s) via which these resources are likely to
influence creativity, as these pathways may lead to different outcomes. Drawing
on the creative cognition literature, we distinguish three possible pathways, i.e.,
fluency, persistence, and flexibility. Figure 1 depicts the resulting framework
that will be discussed in more detail in the first part of this article. The
second part of this article attempts to link common marketing decisions to
the different creative pathways, providing many examples that illustrate how
our framework can guide managerial decision-making in practice. The article
concludes with a discussion of the managerial implications and priorities for
creativity research in marketing.
Figure 1: Framework for matching the demand and supply side of creativity.
ing the exterior of a sports car. And while creativity for experience goods may
exist at an abstract level, such as an ingenious plot in a movie, for shopping
goods it can be much more concrete, such as an original print on a t-shirt.
Finally, task specifics and constraints constitute another important element
of the demand side (see Figure 1). For example, creativity is less needed for
producing a novel-based movie or a sequel of blockbuster movie than for an
original motion picture. In a similar vein, the constraint of a tight advertising
budget may lead to the recycling of a successful past campaign rather than
the development of a novel campaign. We come back to the demand side when
linking common marketing decisions to creative strategies and pathways (see
Figure 3) and the deployment of individual and organizational resources.
Consistent with the definition of creativity, the first decision that manage-
ment has to make concerns the relative importance of originality (or novelty)
versus usefulness (or effectiveness) for the creative task at hand. If one con-
siders the traditional marketing mix variables that are under the control of
the manager, namely product, promotion, price, and place (the 4P’s), then
product and promotion decisions arguably tolerate, or even demand, higher
levels of originality (e.g., to attract the consumer’s attention) than price and
distribution decisions, for which effectiveness is more important (see also
Figure 3).
However, within each element of the marketing mix, the demand for
originality versus usefulness can also vary. Take for example advertising.
To convey the speed of a new type of cordless electric screw driver, an ad
displaying a fly with one leg screwed onto a surface will draw attention and
may be perceived as highly original (see Althuizen 2017), but perhaps a more
informational ad, specifying the technical details concerning the power and
performance of the screw driver relative to existing products in the market,
would be more effective for persuading potential buyers. Differences in the
emphasis placed on originality versus usefulness may also be observed within
other types of marketing decisions. For example, when devising marketing
plans, effectiveness is likely to weigh more heavily for short-term plans, while
for long-term plans the balance may tip in favor of originality.
Besides the problem domain, the type of product, the task specifics, and
constraints, management objectives should also be taken into account when
determining the level of originality and usefulness needed for solving the
creative problem. For example, advertising research has shown that originality
fosters short-term ad recall, whereas usefulness or meaningfulness improves
short-term and long-term brand recall (Sheinin et al. 2011). In the context of
new product development, originality has been found to increase the amount
of buzz or word-of-mouth, while usefulness influences the valence of word-of-
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 135
Creativity Resources
The supply side comprises all the individual and organizational resources
that marketing managers have at their disposal for producing creative outcomes.
In the spirit of the aforementioned frameworks of Amabile (1988) and Woodman
et al. (1993), researchers have studied how creative performance in organizations
is influenced by (1) personal factors, such as cognitive abilities and skills (e.g.,
Scott and Bruce 1994), personality traits (e.g., Madjar et al. 2002), (domain)
knowledge (e.g., Cerne et al. 2014), and motivation (e.g., Amabile 1996), (2)
contextual factors, such as incentives (e.g., Ederer and Manso 2013), task
constraints (e.g., Rosso 2014), feedback and support (e.g., Gong et al. 2009),
teams and social networks (e.g., Sosa 2011), and (3) interactions between these
personal and contextual factors (e.g., Grant and Berry 2011).
On the supply side of creativity, we therefore distinguish two types of
resources that are under managerial control, namely the person (see Fig-
ure 1: “Individual Resources”) and his or her work environment (see Figure 1:
“Organizational Resources”). To obtain creative business ideas or solutions,
managers may either identify and assign highly creative individuals to the
task (Althuizen 2012; Althuizen et al. 2010) or, in line with the interactionist
perspective, put in place mechanisms to enhance the creative performance of
less gifted individuals (Althuizen and Wierenga 2014). In the next sections,
we discuss the factors associated with creative individuals, viz. abilities and
skills, (domain) knowledge, and motivation, and the organizational factors
that can promote (or kill) creativity, viz. management practices, training, and
(IT-enabled) creativity support systems.
Individual Resources
Abilities and Skills
generated ideas), flexibility (i.e., the diversity of the ideas), and originality (i.e.,
the statistical rarity of the ideas) (Guilford 1950; Torrance 1974). Although
divergent thinking is essential, creative production also requires convergent
thinking in order to evaluate, select, and work out the most promising ideas
(Plucker and Renzulli 1999).
Tests of creative ability, such as the extensively validated Torrance Tests of
Creative Thinking (Torrance 1974) or the 15-minute Abbreviated Torrance Test
for Adults (Goff and Torrance 2002), can be deployed to identify both creative
individuals and specific cognitive subskills (see Althuizen 2012; Althuizen and
Wierenga 2014; Althuizen et al. 2010). These tests typically ask subjects to
generate as many ideas as possible in response to an open-ended task, such
as listing alternative uses for a brick. Subjects are scored on their fluency,
flexibility, and originality in generating ideas, but also on elaboration, which is
the embellishment of ideas with details. Elaboration is a subskill that is more
closely associated with convergent thinking (Torrance and Ball 1984). These
creative ability tests can be complemented with tests of other, more specific
cognitive abilities that have been found to be conducive to creativity, such as
analogical or metaphorical reasoning (Burroughs and Mick 2004; Dahl and
Moreau 2002). These tests are not only valuable for identifying and selecting
creative employees, but they can also help determine the type of support that
the organization should offer to complement or strengthen the abilities of its
employees.
Domain Knowledge
Creative ideas may sometimes seem to come out of the blue (so-called
“aha” moments), but they are typically rooted in existing knowledge and
thus do not spring out of nothing (Ward 2004). Nonetheless, original ideas
cannot be retrieved from memory directly, but they have to be created by
combining existing concepts or knowledge in novel ways (e.g., Finke et al.
1992; Nijstad et al. 2002; Welch 1946). Smith et al. (2005), for example,
found a positive relationship between the ability of employees to exchange
and combine knowledge and the rate of new product introduction in high-
technology firms. In other words, existing knowledge provides fertile ground
on which creative ideas can grow. The knowledge base can be internal (i.e.,
personal or organizational memory) or external, such as (digital) knowledge
repositories or databases.
Knowledge can be acquired through education and previous experiences
within the target domain (e.g., Simonton 2003; Smith et al. 2005; Tierney
and Farmer 2002) or analogous domains (e.g., Althuizen and Wierenga 2014;
Franke et al. 2014). Experienced problem solvers, who have arguably developed
a more extensive knowledge base, have been shown to produce more creative
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 137
ideas (Csikszentmihalyi 1996; Sellier and Dahl 2011). Similarly, the amount
and diversity of knowledge present at the organizational level, such as patents,
white papers, reports, and best practices, have been found to be positively
related to creativity and new product performance (see, for example, Moorman
and Miner 1997). However, the possession of extensive domain knowledge can
also have an adverse effect on creativity, as it may inhibit switching perspectives
when a person is stuck in a creative rut (see, for example, Weisberg 1999).
This effect is also known as “cognitive inertia” or “fixation” (Dahl and Moreau
2002; Lamm and Trommsdorff 1973).
Personality Traits
Motivation
performance (see, for example, Amabile 1998). However, recent findings (see
the section on (financial) incentives) seem to call for a more nuanced view
on the role of extrinsic motivators. Management practices (see next section),
such as providing (financial) incentives, feedback, and performance monitoring
(Sethi et al. 2001), may influence an employee’s intrinsic motivation to perform
a creative task and, consequently, his or her creative performance.
Organizational Resources
Management Practices
better under time pressure in creatively solving the “scuffed shoes” problem,
i.e., quickly cleaning shoes without polish. Thus, input or time constraints can
be conducive to creativity.
Feedback and Support. Based on prior research, it seems important for
managers to strike a balance between providing feedback and support, on the
one hand, and leaving sufficient room for employees to take initiatives (and
let them fail), on the other hand (e.g., Zhang and Bartol 2010). Employee
creativity has been found to benefit from supervisors and coworkers who
provide developmental feedback and active support during the creative process
(e.g., Gong et al. 2009; Oldham and Cummings 1996; Shalley and Perry-Smith
2001; Zhou 2003). Transformational leadership, coupled with the provision
of constructive feedback, is likely to enhance an employee’s motivation to
perform the task and his or her perceived job autonomy, which can positively
influence creative performance (e.g., Gong et al. 2009; Zhou 1998). Conversely,
supervisors who monitor their employees closely run the risk of instilling a
fear to deviate from what is common, accepted, or expected, which is likely to
negatively influence intrinsic motivation and creativity (e.g., George and Zhou
2001; Sethi et al. 2001; Zhou 2003). Finally, exposure to creative coworkers may
enable individuals to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for boosting
their own creative performance (Shalley and Perry-Smith 2001; Zhou 2003).
Creativity Training
see Hoever et al. 2012). Dahl et al. (1999), for example, asked young engineers
to image what kind of problems seniors face while driving a car, which enhanced
the creativity of their ideas for a new type of car jack targeted at senior drivers
(Burroughs et al. 2011).
The growing attention for creativity in research and practice has also
spurred the development of IT-enabled Creativity Support Systems (CSS:
Garfield 2008). CSSs intend to aid individuals or teams in the process of gener-
ating creative ideas or solutions. Many CSSs, such as electronic brainstorming
tools (e.g., Dennis and Valacich 1993), analogical or case-based reasoning
systems (e.g., Althuizen and Wierenga 2014), and computer-guided fantasy
(see Couger et al. 1993), focus predominantly on activating knowledge that
can be brought to bear on the creative task. That is, these IT-enabled systems
stimulate individuals to explore their own memory more thoroughly and/or
provide access to an external knowledge base. Because people have a tendency
to search for ideas within easily accessible, but bounded areas of their knowl-
edge base, stimulating them to leave the path of least resistance (Ward 1994)
has been shown to boost creativity (Müller-Wienbergen et al. 2011). CSSs
therefore typically deploy cognitive “stimulation tactics” in order to deepen or
broaden an individual’s search for ideas (Smith 1998, p. 119).
An example of a CSS in marketing is the LEAPS system developed by
Althuizen and Wierenga (2014), which intends to aid marketers in exploring
the vast space of ideas for sales promotion campaigns more thoroughly. The
core of the LEAPS system is a knowledge repository in which cases of previous
(creative) sales promotion campaigns are stored. This repository serves as
an unbiased external memory that can be used as a source of inspiration by
retrieving past cases that are similar or analogous to the problem at hand.
The LEAPS system makes use of an artificial intelligence technique, called
Case-based Reasoning (CBR), which mimics human analogical reasoning (see
Kolodner 1993). Althuizen and Wierenga (2014) found that the use of the
LEAPS system enhanced the creativity of sales promotion campaign designs,
and particularly when the system’s knowledge repository contained a sufficiently
large and diverse set of sales promotion cases.
and knowledge that need to be taken into account in order to identify the
creative thinking techniques that are most useful to them”. However, research
investigating interaction effects between individual and organizational factors
is relatively sparse and inconclusive as to who benefits most from what type
of support (see Shalley et al. 2004).
In the context of creativity support systems, for example, MacCrimmon and
Wagner (1994) reported that a CSS, which provided external stimuli to spark
creative thinking, improved the performance of highly creative individuals
most, suggesting a reinforcement effect. However, Cheung et al. (2008) found
that providing access to a knowledge repository deteriorated the performance
of highly creative individuals, whereas Althuizen and Wierenga (2014) showed
that individuals with low to moderate levels of creative ability benefited most
from having access to a repository of sales promotion cases, which suggests a
compensatory effect. In the context of management practices, Zhou (2003) also
found a compensatory effect, such that employees with non-creative personality
traits benefited more from creative coworkers and non-controlling supervision
than those with creative personality traits, whereas Sellier and Dahl (2011)
showed that the practice of setting constraints worked best for boosting the
creativity of individuals who had substantial domain experience.
Before elaborating on our approach for matching the demand and supply
side of creativity, it is imperative to discuss the cognitive processes that
underlie the generation of creative ideas. Many marketing domains, such
as advertising, new product development, and marketing strategy, comprise
open-ended, weakly-structured problems that typically come with a vast space
of possible solutions (Reitman 1965; Kornish and Ulrich 2011; Voss and Post
1988). When confronted with such problems, one of the first things that people
will do is to search their long-term memory for knowledge that can be used
for generating ideas or developing solutions. However, as mentioned earlier,
creative ideas or solutions, however, cannot be retrieved from memory directly.
The Search for Ideas in Associative Memory (SIAM) model (Nijstad et al.
2002) distinguishes two essential phases in the process of generating creative
ideas: (1) knowledge activation and (2) idea production. Imagine, for example,
that a marketer is seeking creative ideas for conveying the speed of a new
type of new hard disk drive in a print advertisement. The problem description
provides clues for searching long term memory. For example, the problem
cue “speed” may activate related knowledge in long-term memory, such as the
concept of Formula 1 racing (see Althuizen 2017). If deemed relevant for the
142 Althuizen, Wierenga, and Chen
task at hand, the activated knowledge will enter working memory, where it
can serve as input for the production of new ideas. New ideas can be formed
by making novel connections between existing concepts, as in the example of
the color of a glass that varies based on the temperature of its content, or by
applying existing concepts in novel ways, such as using a smartphone as a
wallet (Mednick 1962; Nijstad et al. 2002).
The ease with which relevant knowledge can be retrieved from long-term
memory is largely dependent on the strength of association with the problem
cues (Rietzschel et al. 2007). The first ideas that people generate are therefore
usually not the most creative ones, since they are based on easily accessible
knowledge structures that are strongly associated with the problem (Rietzschel
et al. 2007; Santanen et al. 2004). If the cognitive effort to produce additional
ideas becomes too high, people will either attempt to switch perspectives and
search within other areas of one’s knowledge base (Lamm and Trommsdorff
1973) or stop generating ideas (Nijstad and Stroebe 2006). Following the
SIAM model, creativity-enhancing tools could thus provide support for: (1) the
activation of less accessible, more remote knowledge for stimulating divergent
thinking to enhance the originality of ideas; and (2) the production, selection,
and refinement of ideas in order to stimulate convergent thinking and enhance
the usefulness of ideas (cf. Müller-Wienbergen et al. 2011).
Concerning the knowledge activation phase of the SIAM model, the dual
pathway to creativity theory (Baas et al. 2011; De Dreu et al. 2008) identifies
two routes that can lead individuals to more novel ideas: (1) cognitive per-
sistence, i.e., by engaging in a deeper exploration of the idea space; and (2)
cognitive flexibility, i.e., by engaging in a broader exploration of the idea space.
A third route frequently mentioned in the creativity literature is cognitive
fluency (see, for example, Nijstad et al. 2010). Fluency concerns the generation
of a large number of ideas, following the brainstorming philosophy of “quan-
tity breeds quality” (see Osborn 1957; Rossiter and Lilien 1994). Persistence
concerns the number of ideas generated within a particular category, i.e.,
within-category fluency or “depth breeds quality”, whereas flexibility concerns
the number of categories in which ideas are generated, i.e., across-category
fluency or “breadth breeds quality”. Thus, fluency can be the result of persis-
tence, flexibility, or both, and the persistence pathway and flexibility pathway
are not mutually exclusive (Nijstad et al. 2010).
The rationale for the fluency pathway is that the larger the number of
ideas generated, the higher the likelihood of creative ideas (Osborn 1957). In
creativity research, the sheer number of generated ideas is therefore often used
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 143
as an outcome measure and proxy of quality (e.g., Briggs and Reinig 2010;
Dean et al. 2006; Massetti 1996; Wierenga and Van Bruggen 1998). Rossiter
and Lilien (1994) argue that in brainstorming sessions the primary focus should
be on the quantity of ideas generated, and thus not on quality, in order to
obtain the most creative outcomes. To increase the likelihood of creative ideas,
Rossiter and Lilien (1994) recommend an Individual-Group-Individual (IGI)
brainstorming procedure, in which individuals first independently generate as
many ideas as possible, then discuss the generated ideas in a group setting,
followed by an independent selection of the best ideas.
The fluency pathway may be most fruitful in the context of an initial
exploration of the idea space for identifying and selecting promising areas
that warrant further exploration. Examples of a fluency strategy are the in-
house suggestion scheme of Japanese car manufacturer Toyota, which allegedly
generates over 2 million ideas per year (Benders and Morita 2004), and the
conception of Pixar’s Oscar-winning animated film “Ratatouille”, which started
with the generation of thousands of movie ideas (Rao et al. 2008). However,
according to creative cognition research (e.g., Rietzschel et al. 2006), generating
a large quantity of ideas alone is unlikely to be sufficient. The relationship
between the quantity and quality of ideas depends on the depth and breadth of
exploration of the idea space (e.g., Rietzschel et al. 2007). Therefore, depending
on the managerial objectives, one could opt for a more focused strategy by
following a pathway of persistence or flexibility.
stimuli (e.g., Althuizen and Chen 2016) or by asking questions related to the
task (e.g., Rietzschel et al. 2007). To pre-activate easily accessible knowledge
and thus push people to explore the idea space more deeply, Rietzschel et al.
(2007) asked participants to answer a number of health- and sports-related
questions prior to the task of generating novel ideas for improving one’s health,
whereas Althuizen and Chen (2016) used a product prototype (of a tablet
computer holder) that already incorporated the most obvious features (e.g.,
making it foldable, adding LED lights, including a battery charger) to enhance
the novelty of ideas for product improvements. In a similar vein, Althuizen and
Wierenga (2014) and Dahl and Moreau (2002) asked individuals to retrieve
close cases or near analogies prior to generating ideas for solving the problem
at hand. An example from practice is the online “IKEA hacker” community
that encourages customers to generate ideas for product improvements based
on existing IKEA products.
its search for novel ideas for operating the iPhone to other domains than
touch screen technology, such as medical devices that are operated by speech,
vision, or even brainwaves; or (2) the scheduling trains in complex railway
systems could benefit from drawing an analogy with the scheduling of movies
in multiplex theaters (see Eliashberg et al. 2009).
After setting the managerial objectives for the creative task, the next step
is to assign resources. The resource that has been found to be most predictive
of creative success is the creativity ability of the individual (Althuizen 2012;
Althuizen et al. 2010; Kabanoff and Rossiter 1994). Divergent thinking abilities,
comprising fluency, originality, and flexibility, are conducive to the originality
of the generated ideas, while convergent thinking abilities, such as elaboration,
are conducive to the usefulness of the generated ideas. However, these cog-
nitive subskills are not directly observable and require the administration of
a validated test, such as the Torrance Tests mentioned earlier, or they could
be inferred from the individual’s portfolio of prior creative work. In case a
preferred pathway to creativity has been identified for the task, managers could
screen individuals more specifically on the basis of their fluency, persistence,
and flexibility in generating ideas.
Another important individual resource is the amount and diversity of
knowledge acquired through education and previous experiences. The amount
of domain-specific knowledge is particularly important for the persistence
pathway, whereas the diversity of knowledge will facilitate the flexibility
pathway. However, this knowledge does not necessarily have to reside in the
individual’s mind, but it also comprises the knowledge that one has access
to, for example via social networks or knowledge repositories (e.g., Baer 2010;
Moorman and Miner 1997). Of course, managers can also opt to outsource the
creative task to individuals or organizations with specialized knowledge, skills,
and abilities, such as advertising agencies, consultancy firms, or consumers
(so-called “crowdsourcing”).
Given that individuals who are highly motivated to perform the task,
whether it be intrinsically or extrinsically, are more likely to generate a larger
number of ideas and explore the idea space more thoroughly (Lucas and
Nordgren 2015), motivation should also be an important selection criterion
when assigning individuals to creative tasks. As for the “Big Five” personality
traits, individuals who score high on “openness to experience” are more likely
to have extensive and diverse knowledge bases from which they can draw
inspiration (cf. Homan et al. 2008), fostering the flexibility pathway and the
originality of ideas in particular. “Conscientiousness” is likely to be conducive
146 Althuizen, Wierenga, and Chen
to the persistence pathway and the usefulness of ideas (cf. George and Zhou
2001), because conscientious individuals tend to work meticulously and do a
thorough job (Costa and McCrae 1992).
Figure 2: Grid for selecting creativity support systems to support creative problem-solving.
To assess whether the match between the demand and supply side of
creativity has been successful, managers have various options to evaluate the
creative output. The first option, in line with the brainstorming philosophy, is
to simply count the number of generated ideas (Osborn 1957; Rossiter and
Lilien 1994), assuming that there is a positive relationship between the quantity
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 149
and quality of ideas (see Simonton 2003, 2004). However, research has shown
that this relationship is more complex, as it depends on the processes that
underlie the generation of ideas (see Nijstad et al. 2010). These findings have
led to a call for shifting the attention in creativity research from the quantity
to the quality of ideas (e.g., Briggs and Reinig 2010; Nijstad et al. 2010), but
the latter is difficult to assess objectively.
The creativity literature offers several methods for evaluating the quality
of ideas. Amabile’s (1983) consensual assessment technique (CAT) is probably
the most commonly used method. The tenet of the CAT is that if experts in
the domain of interest independently agree that something is creative, then
it must be creative (Amabile 1983). Judges can be asked to rate the overall
creativity of the ideas or solutions or to rate the originality and usefulness
dimension separately. The number of judges can vary from less than 10 in
case of expert judges (typically 2 to 4; see, for example, Burroughs et al. 2011)
or tens to hundreds in case of consumer judges (e.g., Dahl and Moreau 2002;
Kornish and Ulrich 2014).
With regard to the quality of ideas or solutions, we distinguish three
possible managerial perspectives. First, in some cases management might want
to know whether or not their decisions improved the average quality of the
generated ideas or solutions in terms of overall creativity, novelty, and/ or
usefulness (see, for example, Nijstad et al. 2010; Rietzschel et al. 2007). Second,
in other cases managers might be interested in whether or not their decisions
enlarged the pool of high-quality ideas. To identify the number of high-quality
ideas, a cut-off scoring procedure could be used (see Parnes 1961). For example,
ideas are considered creative if they score above the scale’s midpoint (or above
the sample average) on both originality and usefulness (see also Briggs and
Reinig 2010; Diehl and Stroebe 1987). And sometimes the only thing that
matters is whether or not the creativity of the best idea improved (Althuizen
and Chen 2016; Girotra et al. 2010).
Ultimately, management would like to know what the effect of creative ideas
or solutions is on sales or profitability (see, for example, Kornish and Ulrich
2014), i.e., how much value do they create for the organization? Marketers have
always been convinced that creativity (or “Marketing Imagination”, see Levitt
1983) is at a premium in marketing. Empirical research appears to confirm
that belief. For example, launching creative new products has been associated
with higher customer satisfaction (Im and Workman Jr. 2004; Moorman and
Miner 1997), higher competitive advantage (Andrews and Smith 1996), higher
market shares, and higher return on investment (Im and Workman Jr. 2004).
Based on our conceptual framework for matching the demand and supply
side of creativity, we will now develop practical guidelines for marketing
150 Althuizen, Wierenga, and Chen
managers. To this end, Figure 3 shows the marketing mix decision variables
(the 4P’s), subdivided into a selection of common marketing decision areas. The
order of the 4P’s reflects the relative importance of originality versus usefulness,
with “Promotion” decisions that generally demand higher originality at the top
and “Pricing” decisions that generally demand higher usefulness at the bottom.
For each marketing decision area, we indicate the most appropriate pathway to
creativity (i.e., FLUE: fluency; PERS: persistence; FLEX: flexibility) as well
as the relative importance of the originality (ORI) and usefulness (USE) of the
generated ideas. Figure 3 awaits further (empirical) validation, for example by
means of a survey among marketing managers.
Pricing Decisions
Pricing decisions involve setting the right price for a product or service
depending on the company’s objectives (e.g., maximizing sales or profits).
There are various pricing strategies, such as cost-driven, competitor-driven,
and demand-driven pricing (see Figure 3). The widely used cost-driven pricing
strategy concerns adding a fixed profit margin (e.g., 20%) to the production
costs. This is merely an accounting exercise, which leaves little room for
creativity. However, marketing managers use an original approach to commu-
nicate the price to customers, for example via creative (digital) price tags or
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 151
by using psychological pricing (e.g., $99 instead of $100) (see, for example,
Monroe 2003). Another example here is the creative bundling of prices by
manufacturers of razors, coffee machines, or printers, who charge relatively
little for the machines or holders but sell the cartridges at premium prices
(Stremersch and Tellis 2002). The online entertainment industry uses similar
creative pricing strategies by charging relatively little for monthly or yearly
subscriptions in comparison with one-time download or streaming options.
Creativity in cost-based pricing is most likely to emerge from a deeper ex-
ploration within existing pricing tactics and strategies, i.e., the persistence
pathway to creativity (see Figure 3).
A competitor-driven pricing strategy is often used when there is little
product differentiation and customers are highly price sensitive, e.g., for
commodities such as water, electricity, and oil. In such situations, setting a
price above the market will put the company out of business, while a price below
the market can evoke a price war that erodes profits. A common strategy is to
try to reduce switching behavior (see, for example, Burnham et al. 2003), which
may demand a certain level of creativity. Energy companies, for example,
nowadays provide free online metering systems, which allow customers to
monitor their gas or electricity consumption in real time. Familiarity with
the system of the current provider makes it less likely that the customer will
switch to a competitor with a different system. Likewise, many customers
do not switch easily between telecom or software providers because of the
(psychological) barriers that their current provider has put in place. Starbucks
solved the commodity problem in a different way. By establishing a premium
brand image, it successfully managed to turn a commodity (coffee) into a
luxury product, enabling the company to charge prices well above the market.
Creative competitor-driven pricing solutions are most likely to result from a
deeper exploration of the drivers of price sensitivity and switching behavior,
i.e., via the persistence pathway (see Figure 3).
A demand-driven pricing strategy means that the price fluctuates based on
consumer demand. A variable price setting of products or services arguably
allows for higher levels of creativity. A well-known example is “yield manage-
ment” (Jallat and Ancarani 2008), meaning that in order to maximize revenues
companies charge different prices for essentially the same product (with limited
availability) based on the customer’s willingness to pay. American Airlines
was the first to pioneer with a real-time yield management system (Smith
et al. 1992) that took into account the number of bookings and flight inquiries.
Other industries high fixed costs and limited capacity such as (movie) theaters,
also use demand-driven pricing by charging lower prices in the early afternoon
or just before the start of a show, for example. The use of big data analytics
may help enlarge the range of options for demand-driven pricing by offering
numerous possibilities to link willingness to pay to consumer characteristics,
such as the type of internet browser used and the consumer’s IP address, thus
152 Althuizen, Wierenga, and Chen
going beyond the usual suspects, such as gender, age, postal code, and income
level, following the pathway of persistence (see Figure 3).
Distribution Decisions
Product Decisions
Promotion Decisions
Despite being one of the top priorities of CEO’s worldwide (IBM 2012),
the number of publications on creativity in marketing journals is relatively
modest, with most articles focusing on the domains of new product develop-
ment and advertising. As should be clear from our discussion of Figure 3,
the importance of creativity is not limited to these marketing domains only.
This article provides a comprehensive, although non-exhaustive, overview of
creativity research in marketing and related domains and offers a framework
for guiding managers in matching their creative needs with the individual and
organizational resources that they have at their disposal. In the following
sections, we discuss the most important implications of our framework and
identify a number of research priorities. In addition, Appendix A provides a
summary of the key managerial take-aways based on extant research.
Managerial Implications
A Differentiated Approach Towards Creativity
Most creativity research has focused on practices and techniques that aim
to support divergent thinking in the idea generation phase (see, for example,
Müller-Wienbergen et al. 2011). This type of support is particularly suitable for
marketing decisions in areas such as advertising and new product development
where originality is important. However, highly original ideas, which are most
likely obtained via the flexibility pathway, are not always needed and can
sometimes even be counter productive, as several studies have found that
increases in the originality of the generated ideas may come at the expense
of their usefulness (e.g., Moreau and Dahl 2005; Rietzschel et al. 2007). For
most marketing decision areas displayed in Figure 3, we therefore identified
persistence as the most suitable pathway to obtain creative ideas that are
both original and useful, with usefulness being more important for the decision
areas that are displayed at the bottom part of Figure 3. We characterized the
persistence pathway as within-the-box thinking, i.e., searching for ideas within
areas of one’s knowledge base that are closely related to the target problem,
but going beyond those ideas that come to mind easily. Digging deeper within
existing categories of ideas or solutions or forming “new combinations of existing
concepts” (Finke et al. 1992) is more likely to result in novel ideas that are
also useful and feasible than trying to generate and implement “out of the box”
ideas (Coyne et al. 2007).
There are several instruments that managers can deploy to influence the
creative output of their employees (see also Appendix A). First, a creative
ability test could be included in the company’s recruitment and selection
procedures. If existing employees are found to lack specific creative skills
or abilities, creativity training programs or workshops can be organized to
strengthen these skills and abilities (Baruah and Paulus 2008; Burroughs
et al. 2011; Goldenberg et al. 1999a,b). In addition, domain-specific training
and exercises may be offered, such as familiarizing employees with the use
of Goldenberg et al.’s (1999a,b) “creativity templates” for developing new
products and advertisements.
When deploying feedback and monitoring instruments, managers should
keep in mind that close supervision may increase pressure and instill a fear
of leaving beaten tracks, which could prove counterproductive for enhancing
creativity. Although some companies allow employees to spend a limited
amount of their work time freely, research suggests that unlimited freedom
does not necessarily produce the most creative results. In certain situations,
setting input or time constraints may actually increase creativity by forcing
people to leave the path of least resistance (Burroughs and Mick 2004; Moreau
and Dahl 2005; Sellier and Dahl 2011). Providing incentives can also stimulate
creativity, i.e., if the reward scheme is thoughtfully designed and the evaluation
procedures and criteria are specified clearly (see the section “Assessing the
Creativity of the Outcomes”). Creativity awards of professional marketing
associations may also give a motivational boost to perform creatively.
Finally, managers can put in place (IT-enabled) creativity support systems
to aid employees in the creative process and stimulate them to explore the idea
158 Althuizen, Wierenga, and Chen
space more thoroughly (Garfield 2008; Seidel et al. 2010). To be most effective,
these tools ideally should offer support for both knowledge activation (to
stimulate divergent thinking and originality) and idea production (to stimulate
convergent thinking and usefulness) (Müller-Wienbergen et al. 2011). Even
though creativity support systems in marketing are still rare, Figure 2 may
offer guidance for managers who are interested in deploying or developing
(marketing-oriented) creativity support systems. Further research is nonethe-
less needed on the working and effectiveness of such creativity support systems
(for example, who benefits most: creative or non-creative individuals?), as
well as for other creativity-enhancing management instruments, which leads
us to the discussion of the research priorities that we identified based on our
framework.
Creativity research has not paid much attention to the actual production,
evaluation, and selection of ideas. These phases in the creative process require
convergent thinking and are important for the usefulness of the generated ideas
(see, for example, Müller-Wienbergen et al. 2011). As mentioned earlier, ideas
that are highly original also bring uncertainty, which may lead to substantial
resistance or even rejection within organizations (Mueller et al. 2012; Rubenson
and Runco 1995). Enhancing the perceived usefulness of highly original,
but risky ideas will facilitate their acceptance within organizations (cf. Baer
2012). Further research may focus on the development of creativity-enhancing
practices and techniques that are capable of stimulating divergent thinking as
well as convergent thinking (see Müller-Wienbergen et al. 2011), to enhance
both the novelty and usefulness of the generated ideas or solutions.
their own ideas and solutions or comment on those generated by others (Di
Gangi and Wasko 2009). Research has recently begun to address the question
as to how to effectively solicit consumer creativity and how to optimally design
crowdsourcing platforms (e.g., Afuah and Tucci 2010; Hildebrand et al. 2013;
Huang et al. 2014; Luo and Toubia 2015; Stephen et al. 2016). This emerging
stream of research has shown, for example, that consumer-generated ideas can
be (1) more original, because consumers are less hampered by knowledge of
existing solutions and technical limitations than professionals (Kristensson
et al. 2004), and (2) more useful, because consumers know best their unfulfilled
needs and wants (Poetz and Schreier 2012).
Based on our framework, we believe that the following questions in par-
ticular deserve further attention. First, what kind of tools or techniques can
managers deploy to steer the idea-generation process of consumers or the
“crowd” in the right direction in terms of the pathways to creativity and the
level of originality and usefulness of the outcomes? The literature offers some
suggestions in terms of the type of stimuli that could be used for cognitive
stimulation, such as letting consumers build on ideas generated by others
(e.g., Leimeister et al. 2009; Paulus et al. 2013), enrich or modify a prototype
(Althuizen and Chen 2016), or use a designated set of input materials (Moreau
and Dahl 2005; Metha and Zhu 2015). On its crowdsourcing platform, LEGO,
for example, highlights a broad variety of consumer-generated designs, which
is likely to stimulate potential idea contributors to explore the idea space more
broadly (flexibility pathway) and, hence, could enhance the originality of the
generated ideas (Schlagwein and Bjørn-Andersen 2014). Another example is
Starbucks’ cup design contest, in which consumers were invited to redesign
the prototypical Starbucks cup which arguably stimulates an in-depth explo-
ration of existing Starbucks cup varieties (persistence pathway). Second, what
role do social interactions, including (peer) rating and feedback mechanisms,
play in idea generation and idea selection processes within crowdsourcing
communities? (see, for example, Goncalo and Duguid 2012; Huang et al.
2014; Stephen et al. 2016). Research on the effects of social interactions in
crowdsourcing communities has shown that evaluation, feedback, and support
from peers can enhance the creativity of the generated ideas, for example by
increasing the cognitive flexibility of the community members (e.g., Chan et al.
2015). However, there can also be detrimental effects, for example when peer
evaluations affect one’s intrinsic motivation and satisfaction with the process
(e.g., Hildebrand et al. 2013).
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 161
Appendix A
Table A.1: Managerial questions and guidelines for matching creative demand and supply.
(Continued)
Managerial Decision-Making in Marketing 163
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