How the CTV Environment Impacts the Four P’s of Creativity

What Are Four P’s and How Do They Fit In With Connected TV?

Most are familiar with the four P’s of marketing, but in 1961, researcher James Rhodes published An Analysis of Creativity, where he created a separate framework to define creativity (which has long been a subjective and intangible matter) using the four P’s model. This can be applied to any creative endeavor across multiple platforms, including Connected TV:

• Person: What makes a person creative? We examine the person (or team) responsible for any creative endeavor, taking into account their expertise, skills and abilities, thoughts and motivation to create the product. In the case of Connected TV advertising, this would include storyboarding, editing, writing, production and other skills necessary to create a compelling commercial.
  

• Process: What process and procedures are used to develop the product? This applies as much to the thought process as the methodology itself, and is broken into four stages from problem recognition, idea generation and selection, and execution. Connected TV advertising has become as turnkey as other marketing channels like search and social, where adtech solutions have helped to streamline the execution—giving time back to creative teams and marketers to strategize and come up with their next idea.
  
• Product: This is the end product—such as the Connected TV commercial—combining the two above steps (people and process).
  

• Press: The environment where the creativity occurs, which could be within the workplace, friendships, classroom and so on. Connected TV’s environment is an amalgamation of workplace, where in-house teams might collaborate with agency, technology and/or creative partners.

How Connected TV Advertising Fuels Creativity

The digital environment has impacted on the four P’s of creativity—in fact, it has opened up the scope of creative roles (and decision-making) beyond the traditional creative director to fast-acting digital content writers, bloggers and artists who specialize in anything. Creative campaigns, including those in the Connected TV space, are developed in collaboration between a multidisciplinary group of specialists like content strategists and media planners. Therefore, the creative person is no longer a driving force, but a link in the whole creative process.

To further examine the impact of digital advertising environments on creativity, The Journal of Advertising Research conducted a Delphi Study. This gathers experts’ opinions and consensus on a complex topic, and is useful to explore questions that cannot be answered with empirical evidence. This particular study included a panel of 14 Cannes Lion winners, including experts across all geographic areas (North America, South America, Europe, Africa and APAC). The panel were asked a series of ten open-ended questions about the effect of the digital environment on the creative process.

Some of the key findings and responses included:

• 84% agree that the digital environment has made many changes to the creative process, both empowering and constraining creativity. The majority highlight time as a major constraint, since the digital environment “sped up many executional aspects but at the same time shortened deadlines.” Connected TV advertising has risen up to meet this pain point, by giving marketers the tools to create high-performing creative assets within these shortened timelines. Additionally, it has given time back to hone, craft and refine the creative process. 

• 81% agree that digital environments like Connected TV have brought a focus on measurability rather than creativity, with more pressure to generate quantifiable results rather than intangible ones. While other marketing channels battle with a trade-off between one or the other, Connected TV advertising meets the needs of both by supporting the creative process with efficient, turnkey solutions and measuring its success.
  
• 70% agree that the digital environment expands the capacity for advertising, which not only reduces its cost but “deflects the responsibility for bad advertising.” The very nature of Connected TV advertising is audience-first, giving marketers access to a wider range of audiences not possible on traditional forms of advertising (like linear TV and newspapers), but additionally matching content with the viewer most likely to engage with it.
  
• 75% agree that data is a necessary part of the creative process, which has empowered creative teams with insights and technology to conceive the next big idea. “Many can argue that data is king, but context is still God. Without context, data can only take your work so far,” said one panelist. Data-first digital environments like Connected TV advertising play a big role in fueling this feedback loop, by enabling A/B testing, market research and more for advertisers and creative teams alike.

Conclusion

The four P’s of creativity have been further molded through digital marketing channels like Connected TV. A Delphi study of leading creative experts revealed that digital advertising has led to a different (and more improved) approach to the creative process, including more time back to develop ideas and concepts, reaching larger and more precise audience segments, and fueling the next big idea with data.