Douglas C.

West Advertising Creative Article 2018

How Rhetoric Theory Informs the

Creative Advertising Development Process
Reconciling Differences
Between Advertising Scholarship and Practice

Alexander Tevi Advertising scholars have been hesitant to identify creativity as the heart and soul of
Macquarie University
advertising, and that has produced a chasm between themselves and practitioners. One
alexander.tevi@mq.edu
cause of this division is an erroneous perception that advertising is a subset of consumer
Scott Koslow
psychology. To solve this misidentification, the current authors offer rhetoric theory. Although
Macquarie University
scott.koslow@mq.edu.au many advertising academics believe that advertising theory is a discovery of 20th-century
scholars, the striking resemblances between canons of rhetoric (“invention,” “style,”
“arrangement,” “memory,” and “delivery”) and stages of the advertising-development
process (“message strategy,” “idea generation,” “execution,” “media,” and “production”)
clearly define advertising as a rediscovery of rhetoric.

INTRODUCTION Houston, 2016). Practitioners start with good

Contemporary advertising academics have it
wrong: They no longer serve practitioners (Nyilasy
and Reid, 2012). Many scholars avoid the central
topic of creativity (See Kover, 1995; Sasser and
Koslow, 2008) and buy into an academic men-
tality that thinks strategy is a “dirty” word (See
“strategy”; get a big, “creative” idea; “package”
that idea in an advertisement, campaign, or other
execution; then “produce” that work—all while
getting the “media” right. Yet academics use con-
sumer “mental-processing theories” (Kim, Hayes,
Avant, and Reid, 2014) to understand advertising

• Best agency practice in the creative advertising-development process follows the canons of
rhetoric, with creativity occurring at any of these stages.

• Creativity often is viewed narrowly as applying ideation techniques, but in keeping with rhetoric
theory, it spans the whole advertising-development process.

• Creative ideation techniques are a version of classical rhetoric’s figures of speech but still need to
be used in combination for skillful execution of ideas.

• Message-strategy development already is practiced in advertising, but rhetoric theory lays out
aspects it needs to address.

• Academics have much to offer managers about the role of executional factors, but this is only
one canon, or arrangement, and academics need to do more comprehensive work to embrace
creativity better in all its forms.

DOI: 10.2501/JAR-2018-012 March 2018  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  111

Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article 2018

Editors’ Note:
In the March 2017 issue of the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR), we introduced the annual “Douglas C. West Advertising Creative
Article,” a yearly contribution that salutes Dr. West’s quest for greater empirical evidence of how the process of creating advertising works.
Dr. West is professor of marketing at King’s College London Business School and visiting fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford.
The JAR series honors both his oversight of—and influence on—the pages of this journal as executive editor (2008–2014) and his distin-
guished scholarship in marketing research. In particular, Dr. West’s work in the field of creativity in advertising has included “Practitioner
and Customer Views of Advertising Creativity: Same Concept, Different Meaning” (with Arthur J. Kover and Albert Caruana, Journal of
Advertising, 2008); “360° of Creative Risk: An Agency Theory Perspective” (JAR, 2009); and the first article of this series in his name,
“Agency Creativity: Teams and Performance,” with Jacqueline Lynch (JAR, 2017).
This year’s contribution to the Douglas C. West Advertising Creative series is by Drs. Alexander Tevi and Scott Koslow of Macquarie
University. The paper is the theory chapter Tevi developed for his PhD thesis, which Koslow supervised. In addition to their careers in
academia, both share in-depth industry expertise: Tevi has worked with major international clients and won awards for his work with global
agencies. Koslow, a prolific and seasoned creativity scholar, has worked with most agency brands. The fruits of that knowledge appear in
the pages that follow.

“executional factors” (Armstrong, 2011;
Stewart and Furse, 1986). That is, each side
thinks about advertising differently.
Academics for too long have ignored
the marketplace context of how adver-
tisements must be developed and work
(McQuarrie, 1998; Preston, 1985). It is no
surprise that there is a growing chasm
between academics and practitioners—and
we need to resolve this division.
Some view the bifurcation of practice
and theory as a sign of a “healthy” aca-
demic field growing in sophistication,
but the current authors do not share this
perspective. The division only brings up
issues about advertising scholarship’s
identity, direction, and relevance (e.g.,
Dahlén and Rosengren, 2016; Schultz,
2016)—questions that would not be as dif-
ficult to answer had academics stayed true
to their roots. If the theories are genuinely
good, they should say much about who
we are, where we are going, and what rel-
evance we share (Laczniak, 2015).
Academics nonetheless lament that
the theories they use focus on consumer
responses to advertising, which makes
them a special case of consumer psychol-
ogy (Royne, 2012). There is a collective
sense that academics don’t want to be a
special case of another field, but the points
that appear to differentiate their field from
consumer behavior are painfully subtle
(Nan and Faber, 2004). Some advocate
integrated marketing communications
(Keller, 2016; Kitchen and Schultz, 2009) as
a framework that can define and differen-
tiate academics, but others remind us that
this approach has not influenced advertis-
ing theory much (Rose, 2012).
Advertising is a creative endeavor—and
it’s bigger than the creative department. To
know the what, how, when, and why of
advertising, one first must understand the
creative process at its heart. Unfortunately,
none of the creative process described by
advertising scholars (Stuhlfaut and Vanden
Bergh, 2012; Turnbull and Wheeler, 2017)
provides the deep structures that generate
the surface structure these scholars depict
(Pentland, 1999). Even the surface structure
academics describe fails to feature some
vital elements of the creative process, such
as its recursive nature and the micropro-
cesses that define each stage (Lubart, 2001).
Academics need a theory that fully explains
the creative process in order to have com-
plete grasp of the key constructs and con-
cepts they use in their research.
Against this background, advertising
researchers should welcome recent calls to
recognize classical rhetoric as fundamental
theory (See McQuarrie and Phillips, 2008).
Some are blunt, arguing that rhetoric should
take center stage in advertising: “Rhetoric
is persuasive communication; advertising
is rhetoric” (Pracejus, Olsen, and O’Guinn,
2006, p. 82). Another researcher asserted
that “the largest, most pervasive, and most
successful rhetorical enterprise on the
planet is advertising” (McKenna, 1999, p.
103)—and then showed frustration that
advertising scholars fail to recognize rheto-
ric’s centrality. There are explanations for
how rhetoric should work in advertising
(Phillips and McQuarrie, 2002), but rheto-
ric’s value still is questioned (Theodorakis,
Koritos, and Stathakopoulos, 2015).
Although rhetoric is central to advertis-
ing—especially the creative-advertising
development process—the exact way rhet-
oric relates to the advertising discipline is
more complex than to say “rhetoric equals
advertising,” as some scholars have.
Instead, a better characterization is that
advertising scholars unknowingly have
rediscovered many elements of classical
rhetoric—a pattern that’s remarkably com-
mon in academic thought (Niehans, 1995).
It has been argued that most academic dis-
coveries would have been uncovered by
someone else, albeit later and in different,
possibly less-comprehensive form. True to

112  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  March 2018


this pattern, advertising researchers have
rediscovered a less-comprehensive form
of rhetoric—and we would be served
well to incorporate more rhetoric theory
into advertising.
The current authors argue that
• advertising message strategy harks
back to “invention,” the first canon of
rhetoric;
• executional factors in advertisements are
largely a rediscovery of “arrangement,”
the second canon of rhetoric;
• ideation techniques in advertising
consist of figures, the critical factor in
“style”—the third canon of rhetoric;
• advertising media are a contemporary
information-storage mechanism operat-
ing similarly to “memory,” the fourth
canon of rhetoric;
• advertising production relates to “deliv-
ery,” the last canon of rhetoric.
This article calls for advertising scholars to
draw from better analytic tools than clas-
sical rhetors. In the early years of the 20th
century, the scientific-advertising move-
ment sought to find a rational basis for
advertising to make it more accountable—
and the tools of choice were psychology
based (Kreshel, 1993). This development
also has served advertising well, and it is
something classical rhetoric scholars—who
lacked experimental and survey-research
tools—could not execute.
The interplay of classical rhetoric’s and
consumer psychology’s influence on con-
temporary advertising is illustrated best
with an adoption analogy. Research over
half a century (Polderman, Benyamin, De
Leeuw, Sullivan et al., 2015) suggests that
who we are as human beings is a combi-
nation of both nature (genes) and nurture
(environment). For contemporary advertis-
ing research, the rediscovered “biological”
HOW rhetoric INFORMS the CREATIVE ADVERTISNG PROCESS  thearf.org
parent is classical rhetoric, but the proxim-
ity to consumer psychology comes from
“adoption” by business and communica-
tions studies early in the 20th century. The
consumer psychology tools that schol-
ars have gained from their environment,
therefore, will change over time, but their
genes—the role of rhetoric theory in adver-
tising research—will not.
This article calls for advertising scholars
to embrace rhetoric as their core theory
and offers three key benefits to
• the definition of their collective identity
as a discipline;
• their future research directions;
• their relevance to industry practitioners.
Advertising scholars evaluate rhetoric’s
effects using psychology’s tools. Confus-
ing consumer psychology as core theory
rather than an analytic tool leads to a
problem known as “consumer behavior
under the guise of advertising research.”
Consumer-behavior researchers often use
what they call “ads” as stimuli or treat-
ments, but sometimes these “ads” look
nothing like real advertisements, because
they are devoid of rhetorical content. That
is, advertising experimental stimuli still
need a basis in rhetorical theory.
A renaissance of rhetoric’s five can-
ons also would alter research direc-
tions. For the most part, the emphasis
on consumer-research tools has focused
scholars heavily on consumer reactions
to executional factors—that is, the canon
of arrangement—with less emphasis
on other canons. Returning to academ-
ics’ rhetoric roots should increase their
emphasis on invention and style, which
largely address both strategy and creativ-
ity; delivery, which dwells on production
for specific media platforms; and memory,
which explains the workings of these
media platforms to enhance creativity
March 2018  JOURNAL
and campaign effectiveness, especially
new media.
Finally, academics need to build use-
ful alignment with practitioners, and
rhetoric is a helpful direction—especially
given that the organizational structure
and practice of advertising agencies fol-
low the canons of rhetoric closely. The
current authors propose that practition-
ers see themselves as “doing” rhetoric,
and academics should think of themselves
as understanding rhetorical practice and
testing when, how, and why rhetorical
principles work on consumers.
To serve practitioners, this arti-
cle explains how the canons of
rhetoric encapsulate the creative
advertising-development process. It offers
an expansive view of creativity, not only
spanning the many parts of the agency but
also incorporating clients. Creativity isn’t
just a step in the advertising-development
process—it is the process—and failing to
recognize the many moving parts of crea-
tivity leaves one with only a jaundiced,
incomplete view.
THEORY DEVELOPMENT:
RHETORIC ON ALL MEDIA
One definition of rhetoric is “the art or the
discipline that deals with discourse, either
spoken or written, to inform or persuade
or motivate an audience, whether that
audience is made up of one person or a
group of persons” (Corbett and Connors,
1999, p. 1). Although this definition limits
rhetoric to its spoken and written modes,
its frontiers since have been extended
to its
• visual (Crowley and Hawhee, 2012;
Scott, 1994);
• sonic (Hung, 2001; Scott, 1990); and
• chromatic modes (Caivano and López,
2010; Courtis, 2004; Kress and Van Leeu-
wen, 2002).
OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  113
Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article 2018

For rhetoric to explain the advertising- Table 1

development process adequately, it has to Rhetoric–Message-Strategy Fit
perform the same functions in all modes of
Elements Elements of Means of Properties Properties
advertising media. In an attempt to show
of Strategy Invention Invention of Strategy of Invention
that rhetoric comprehensively explains
Elements Elements
advertising, the current authors next
juxtapose each of the five stages of the Challenge The arguer, the The argumentative Opportunity Logic
argument, and situation (kairos); Problem Dialogic
advertising-development process with its
the audience What is the Dialectic
equivalent among the five canons of rheto-
situation? (stasis)
ric. They then highlight the implications of
these similarities for advertising practice
and research.
Community The audience Who are we talking Motivations Emotional
to? (stasis) Logical
Advertising-Message Strategy:
Ethical
An “Invention” of Rhetoric
Just as one emphasizes sound strategy as Purpose The objective What do we wish to Effect Invitational
achieve? (stasis) Engagement Collaborative
the basis for creative work (Hackley, 2003),
Action Experiential
another argues that the success of an exer-
Persuasive
cise in persuasion should be based on the
first and crucial canon of rhetoric, inven- Connection Insight What “truth” do Insight Human
tion (Marsh, 2007). The means of invention we know about Convention Acceptable
the audience in “Truthful”
are kairos, stasis, topics, and common-
reference to the Argumentative
places. An understanding of all the means
issue at hand? Figurative
of invention suggests rhetoric theory as
(stasis)
the basis for advertising-message strategy,
which is encapsulated in an advertising Promise The issue Topics Attributes Propositional
brief (Sasser and Koslow, 2008). Benefit Controversial
Insight Argumentative
Most elements of strategy have been
Figurative
highlighted in different studies, albeit
only in clusters (Dahlén, Lange, and Smith, Support Proofs Commonplaces Attributes Accessible
2010; Laskey, Day, & Crask, 1989; Mey- Benefit Argumentative
ers, 1986). A qualitative study, however Personality Figurative
(Parker, Ang, and Koslow, 2018), has crys- Personality The arguer Who is talking? Tone Ethical
tallized the seven elements of advertising- (stasis) Argumentative
message strategy in a comprehensive Figurative
grounded theory. It is interesting to note
that the process of developing each of
these elements in praxis has its equivalent marketer, advertisement, and audience; in points of a speech (Sloane, 1989). The ques-
in invention (See Table 1). invention, the argumentative situation con- tions of stasis are about kairos, the situa-
Brand challenge, the first element of sists of arguer, argument, and audience. tion at hand. That is,
advertising-message strategy, presents The remaining six elements of
each peculiar situation that requires the advertising-message strategy—commu- • “Who is the speaker talking to?”
advertising-development process. This nity, purpose, connection, promise, sup-
• “What does the speaker wish to
is equivalent to kairos, an argumenta- port, and personality—are the subject of
achieve?”
tive situation in invention (Crowley and stasis in rhetoric. Stasis is a procedure by
Hawhee, 2012; Tindale, 2004). In advertis- which a speaker poses questions in order • “On what issue should the speaker base
ing, the argumentative situation consists of to clarify the main issues and persuasive his or her argument?”

114  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  March 2018


• “Why would the audience believe the
speaker’s argument?”
• “What ‘truth’ do we know about the
audience in reference to the issue at
hand?”
• “Does the audience see the speaker as
credible?”
These questions cover all the elements of
invention, and they are the same questions
an account planner attempts to answer in
developing an advertising brief (Parker
et al., 2018). Topics are issues. A proposi-
tion is a standpoint on an issue. A stand-
point requires arguments.
In advertising, a topic is an issue that a
brand addresses or should address. This
is usually a cause of contention between
agencies and their clients. Marketers and
their advertising agencies have to be clear
on the main issue the brand should address
before an agency brief can be written.
Once this is agreed, an account planner
obtains the right insight on that issue, then
the brand takes its standpoint on the issue.
That standpoint is the brand’s proposi-
tion to the target audience. Of course, the
brand must have arguments to back up
the proposition. Classical rhetoric posits
that arguments must be based on truth. In
modern times, however, there is the con-
vincing argument for acceptability rather
than truth as the basis of arguments (Tin-
dale, 2004). Insights are “human, cultural,
category, or brand truths” (Parker and
Koslw, 2015, p. 30). These “truths” may
not be facts, but they are acceptable in their
contexts (Parker et al., 2018).
Here again, there is a correspondence
between advertising-message strategy
and topics, a means of invention in rheto-
ric. Advertising agencies, in fact, are so
very well aware of this important element
of truth that McCann-Ericson prides itself
on the slogan “Truth Well Told.” There are
even regulatory bodies in many countries
HOW rhetoric INFORMS the CREATIVE ADVERTISNG PROCESS  thearf.org
that investigate the veracity of brand
claims in commercials.
“Commonplaces” refer to the culture of
the target audience. They are markers of a
people’s collective memory (Pruchnic and
Lacey, 2011) and sources of “truth” that
serve as the basis of arguments among
people. In other words, they are sources of
insight and unique selling points: sources
of a unique selling point when the truth is
about a brand, and sources of insight when
the truth is in reference to the audience.
They both correspond to emotional and
rational appeals (Bruner, 1986). Together,
they form brand proposition. All the
sources of insight listed in the qualitative
study (Parker et al., 2018) are represented
in rhetoric, plus even more (Crowley and
Hawhee, 2012; Corbett and Connors, 1999).
Rhetoric has a comprehensive list of the
sources of insights.
In the print campaign for Immodium,
a diarrhea treatment, the visual element
shows a man or woman strapped to a toi-
let seat. The copy reads, “Immodium—
sets you free.” It can be deduced from the
advertisement that the truth in reference
to the audience (insight) that served as the
basis for its argument is that “the right to
move around is fundamental to human
existence,” and the brand truth (selling
point) is something like “an effective relief
from diarrhea.”
The commonplace that provided this
insight is definitely human experience,
and that of the selling point is science. The
issue or topic at hand in the advertisement
is running stomach. The standpoint of
Immodium on that issue is that a person
should be cured of running stomach so
that he or she can regain freedom of move-
ment. That is why the brand’s proposition
to sufferers of running stomach is that it
can restore their freedom. The correspond-
ences between advertising-message strat-
egy and the means of invention are not
happenstance. They suggest that rhetoric is
March 2018  JOURNAL
the fountain of advertising-message strat-
egy. This is a more comprehensive and
complete picture of invention as message
strategy than shown in extant literature (in
Marsh, 2007, or anywhere else).
Advertising-Ideation Techniques:
Expressions of the Rhetorical Figures
In “Style”
Mastery of language use is one of the
defining qualities of rhetors. This is the
preoccupation in style, the third canon of
rhetoric. Figures of rhetoric are the most
crucial factor in style (McQuarrie and
Mick, 1996). A figure of rhetoric must ful-
fill three conditions:
• It must have “a repeatable structure.”
• It must have “a use that is different from
the normal manner of expression.”
• It must “attract attention.”
(Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969,
p. 168)
Many scholars have identified figures of
rhetoric in different modes of advertising
media (Durand, 1987; Leigh, 1994; Scott,
1994). It is remarkable that, in a compari-
son among figures, ideation techniques,
and ideation templates, there are striking
commonalities.
Overall, figures of rhetoric fit the
description of the ideation techniques
(Pricken, 2008) and ideation templates
(Goldenberg, Mazursky, and Solomon,
1999). For example,
• ellipsis, a figure of rhetoric, creates a
missing link in the form or content of
an element and expects the audience to
guess right;
• activation, an ideation template,
demands active participation of the
audience in order to get the full under-
standing of its message;
OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  115
Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article 2018
• interactive, an ideation technique,
requires an audience or something in
the environment to do something to
complete an idea; by so doing, the audi-
ence comes to a full understanding of
the advertising message.
By their descriptions, the three are essen-
tially the same. This sameness of descrip-
tion occurs among many figures, ideation
techniques, and template (See Table 2).
Figures all share the repeatability of
structure with ideation templates (Gold-
enberg and Mazursky, 2008; Perelman
and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969). Consistency
informs the nomenclature of both figures
and templates; figures have to fit a particu-
lar form or content, and templates have to
follow a particular scheme. Previous tech-
niques lack any such underlying principle
of structure (Pricken, 2008). They are simply
a set of tools for the use of creative profes-
sionals, and for these individuals, a descrip-
tion of each ideation technique suffices.
Figures, moreover, draw attention, just like
ideation techniques (Goldenberg et al., 2009;
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969).
Figures also perform the same opera-
tions in their contexts as ideation tech-
niques (Durand, 1987; Goldenberg et al.,
1999; McQuarrie and Mick, 1999; Phillips
and McQuarrie, 2004). Aside from struc-
ture, modern scholars have attempted to
categorize figures on the basis of the opera-
tions, such as
• addition, suppression, substitution, and
exchange (Durand, 1987);
• repetition, reversal, substitution, and
destabilization (McQuarrie and Mick,
1999);
• juxtaposition, fusion, and replacement
(Phillips and McQuarrie, 2004);
• “turn it right around,” repetition and
accumulation, exaggeration, analogy,
116  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  March 2018
double meaning, mixing and match-
ing, omission, and suggestion (Pricken,
2008);
• fusion, replacement, subtraction, mul-
tiplication, division, extreme analogy,
exaggeration, inversion, and more
(Goldenberg et al., 1999, 2009).
Executional Factors in Advertising:
An “Arrangement” of Rhetoric Theory
Arrangement is the stage at which argu-
ments are organized to make the most
aesthetic and persuasive impact. As
noted previously, this canon largely cor-
responds to executional factors in the
advertising-development process, where
the creative big idea is “packaged” into
a plan for a specific execution. It focuses
on ordering of arguments to make the
greatest impact. The arguments to be
selected, and the order in which they are
marshaled, largely depend on the situa-
tion (kairos). Rhetorical arrangements
usually are broken into six elements:
introduction (exordium), statement of
facts (narration), division (partitio), proof
(confirmatio), refutation (refutatio), and
conclusion (peroratio). Not all the ele-
ments of compositions are required in all
cases. The conclusion usually is infused
with emotional argument (Crowley and
Hawhee, 2012).
One could argue that the current
authors incorporate the narrative route
to persuasion (Dainton and Zelley, 2015;
Fisher, 1987; Phillips and McQuarrie,
2010) into modern rhetoric (Attea, 2008),
specifically in the canon of arrangement.
Although the rigidity of classical rheto-
ric on logic and truth tends to exclude
the narrative paradigm from it (Fisher,
1987), one body of work convincingly
persuades on “acceptability” as a premise
for arguments, rather than truth (Tindale,
2004). The current researchers argue that
this simply admits into modern rheto-
ric the narrative paradigm, which has
mythos or acceptable truth as the prem-
ise for its arguments. Whereas rhetori-
cal arguments based on truth are logos,
those based on acceptability are mythos.
The heart of modern rhetoric, therefore,
should consist of ethos, pathos, logos, and
mythos; the last two are alternatives to
each other.
Rhetoric has been shown as a theory
for visual-communication design (Mejia
and Chu, 2014). The classic print adver-
tisement is divisible into headline, visual,
body copy, and call to action. This fits the
statement of the issue (narration), confir-
mation (proof), and conclusion aspects of
arrangement in ancient rhetoric. The com-
position of television and radio commer-
cials consists of the same elements.
A piece of advertisement can project its
strongest argument only if that argument
is given the best place and the most prom-
inence (Attea, 2008): the several rough
layouts developed for a print advertise-
ment before one is selected for finished
art; the selection, ordering, and arrange-
ment of details (Stern, 1994; e.g., editing
of frames from a shoot to tell a television
story); the choice between either a mono-
logue or a dialogue in a radio commercial,
and considerations of the smooth flow of
either—all these are attempts at using
executional elements to create a powerful
impact on an audience. Most research into
the executional factors of advertisements
thus is an attempt at assessing the impact
of arrangement.
Comprehensive studies on executional
factors further illustrate the relationship
between arrangement and executional
factors. In one of the largest studies of its
kind, researchers examined 160 execu-
tional factors (Stewart and Furse, 1986).
Despite the scholars’ frustration that they
had no framework they could use to select
suitable executional factors, the elements
of the arrangement canon still are evident.
The 160 executional factors distilled down
 HOW rhetoric INFORMS the CREATIVE ADVERTISNG PROCESS  thearf.org

Table 2
Comparisons among Figures and Ideation Techniques
Durand (1987); Crowley and Hawhee Pricken (2008) Goldenberg et al. (1999)
(2012); Corbett and Connors (1999)
Figure of Figure description Ideation Technique description Ideation Template description
rhetoric technique template

Anacoluthon Exchange of form that Break out of Oversteps the physical boundaries of Unification Use of a conventional
breaks the rules of the the frame the advertising medium, integrating or an unconventional
original form the medium into message delivery medium, whereby
Hendiadys Similarity of form Alternative Turns anything into an advertising the medium is
between two elements, media medium involved actively in the
one abstract and one message delivery
concrete All the world’s Converts an open space into an
a stage advertising medium

Ellipsis Missing link in the Come and play Gets the audience involved in Activation Demands active
form or content of an a game—which is actually the participation of
element; expects the advertisement the audience in
audience to guess right Interactive Requires the audience or something order to get the full
media in the environment to do something understanding of its
to complete the idea; by so doing, message
the audience comes to a full
understanding of its message
Omission and Omits the words or letters of copy or Subtraction Omits an element
suggestion visual elements or medium of an advertisement
Replaces elements of copy or visual Replacement or replaces it with
with the product or something else another

Pun plus A combination of Making pictures with words or

allusion figures depicting parts of a picture with
words; integrating words with pictures,
logos, signs, and symbols to deliver a
message
Pun Creates double Double Uses double meaning in copy or visual
meaning meaning
Optical illusion Makes one visual appear as two; does
not require the active participation of
the viewer
Metaphor Implies comparison Metaphor and Expresses something in terms of Metaphor Connects the
(similarity of based on similarity in analogy another; usually done by making image of a product
content) content something seem like another that with a symbol
shares a similarity with it that represents its
Allusion Implies comparison Change the Makes the product or parts of it look message
(similarity of based on similarity in product like something else
form) form Reframing Changes the context of a story or
visual in order to give the story, saying,
or visual a new meaning
Take a look Reveals something hidden (or
inside that appears hidden) by taking its
proposition literally

continued …

March 2018  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  117

Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article 2018

Table 2 (continued)
Comparisons among Figures and Ideation Techniques
Durand (1987); Crowley and Hawhee Pricken (2008) Goldenberg et al. (1999)
(2012); Corbett and Connors (1999)
Simile Juxtaposes two Compare and Shows the similarity and differences
(comparison) elements that are contrast between two things and thereby
similar in content shows the benefit of the product—
for example, a “before and after”
treatment
Chiasmus Expresses contrasting Mixing and Combines two different things,
ideas in juxtaposed matching sometimes to produce something
structures completely new (e.g., merging a
product with something else or
incorporating something into a
product)
Take it literally A word-for-word translation of Extreme Exaggerates the
language into direct pictures consequence benefit of the product
Hyperbole Creates exaggeration Show the Shows the benefit of the product or or service or any
effects service in a more dramatic way than statement or question
ever before to an absurd extent

Extreme Exaggerates the effort

effort put into product
creation or service
delivery; alternatively,
the extent to which
the audience will go
to get or protect the
product or service
Irony plus A combination of Turn it right Does the opposite of what is expected Inversion Describes the
hyperbole figures around exaggerated, absurd,
plus ellipsis or and generally
chiasmus funny condition of
what happens to
the consumer in a
situation of need for
it or in a situation
brought about by lack
of use
Paradox Paradoxes When the existence of a thing Absurd Presents other ways
negates the conditions that make that alternative (silly and outlandish)
existence possible to get the benefit of a
Allusion plus A combination of Absurd, Shows how to get the benefit of the product
paradox plus figures surreal, bizarre product through an absurd, unrealistic
hyperbole means
Alternative Finds absurd alternative uses for the
uses product

continued …

118  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  March 2018

 HOW rhetoric INFORMS the CREATIVE ADVERTISNG PROCESS  thearf.org

Table 2 (continued)
Comparisons among Figures and Ideation Techniques
Durand (1987); Crowley and Hawhee Pricken (2008) Goldenberg et al. (1999)
(2012); Corbett and Connors (1999)
Anachronism Incongruity in the Playing with
juxtaposition of time
elements
Anaphora, Repetition of an issue Repetition and Repetition of one or more elements in
anadiplosis, or element accumulation an advertisement
epistrophe,
epanalepse, etc.
Accumulation Repetition and an
increasing sense of an
issue or element
Rhymes, Figures involving mostly In the Uses of wordplay, popular sayings,
alliteration, familiar verbal forms beginning was quotations, rhyme, catchphrases,
assonance, the word proverbs, or maxims
chiasmus,
personification,
synesthesia,
etc.
Proverbs, Applies figures to Spoofs and Created off a saying, someone, or
quotations, visuals that are already parodies something that is already in existence
sayings well known in the Signs and Uses well-known symbols and signs of
society or environment symbols either the product or other things in
unusual ways to deliver a message
Any figure that When figures are highly Wit and humor Uses words or visuals in a way that
can elicit the embedded in cultural gets across as clever or funny; could
desired outcome or societal worldview be based on any technique
Without words Gets message across in pictures only,
without words; could be based on any
of the other techniques
Telling stories Uses any of the previous techniques in
a narrative or dramatic form
Provocation Created by a literal execution that is
and shock shocking and provocative
tactics

to 24 statistical factors, and more than half
of these dimensions related to each of the
six elements of rhetoric’s canon of arrange-
ment. Several others related to the delivery
canon (casting and setting), and the rest
dealt with rhetoric’s persuasion appeals.
Although the researchers lacked a theo-
retical framework to identify executional
factors, it is uncanny that these findings
corresponded closely to classical rhetoric’s
cannon of arrangement.
Advertising Media: All That Exists
In the Rhetor’s “Memory”
The need to align advertising with rheto-
ric theory is more obvious in the canon
of memory than all other canons. Media
have been an integral element in the extant
definitions of advertising (Dahlén and
Rosengren, 2016; Schultz, 2016). With the
various changes taking place in the digital
sphere (Hoffman and Novak, 1996; Miles,
2010), some scholars have posited that
the definition and existence of advertis-
ing appear threatened (Schultz, 2016), and
some have proffered definitions that safely
do away with media inclusion (Dahlén and
Rosengren, 2016).
Unknown to scholars who nurse this
fear, they simply are reliving historical
antecedents of disquiet that happen when
a new and major advertising medium is
introduced. Isocrates and other rhetors
present in the transition from the spoken

March 2018  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  119

Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article 2018
Rhetoric has been shown
as a theory for visual-
communication design.
medium to the written medium also faced
the same dilemma with their audiences
and had to learn the peculiarities of the
“new media”—print (See Marsh, 2012).
The advent of the television medium
equally was intriguing to advertising prac-
titioners (See Kover, 2016). Major changes
in media always have caused disequilib-
rium in rhetorical enterprise.
The panic during media transitions
occurs because a fundamental miscon-
ception exists in the definition of media,
which, when corrected, can take us gradu-
ally back to equilibrium. We must agree on
what constitutes media to draw a parallel
between the canon of memory and adver-
tising media. From a historical perspective,
the spoken word was the first medium of
rhetoric (Corbett and Connors, 1999; Crow-
ley and Hawhee, 2012; Marsh, 2012). When
writing as a medium of rhetoric followed,
it was all letters without pictures.
Spoken words or language were a sys-
tem of sounds that served to convey mean-
ing. Writing was a system of letters that
had the same function. This suggests that
a medium is a system of creating and con-
veying meanings.
Rhetoric scholars have identified the
canon “memory” as media. In ancient
times, memory, the third canon of rheto-
ric, meant more than just passive recol-
lections. To make use of each medium,
rhetors first had to internalize their sys-
tems of expression.
Rhetors used systems of communication
modes in their memory to produce and
store content (Gossett, 2008; Pruchnic and
Lacey, 2011). Memory in preliterate rheto-
ric, therefore, consists of these systems
that produce content and the memorized
120  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  March 2018
content itself. This is internalized memory
(Pruchnic and Lacey, 2011). External-
ized memory is the content created with
these systems as internalized memory
and deposited on an appropriate channel,
whether this be television, radio, print, or
the computer. Media, therefore, are exter-
nalized memory, but the receptacle for
each medium is its channel.
There is a constant interaction between
internalized and externalized memory
(Pruchnic and Lacey, 2011). Modern
rhetors consume the content on various
media channels (including anything and
everything in society); combine this con-
tent with the content of their internalized
memory; and use all of these to produce
fresh content, which they deposit on
media channels.
Media channels form part of the collec-
tive memory of a people, because every-
one has access to those channels (Haskins,
2007; Hess, 2007). In other words, “the
medium is the memory” (Brody, 1998, p.
130). This applies to a channel that accom-
modates a medium that is made of a sys-
tem of conveying meaning, such as when
paper accommodates a system of let-
ters—the print medium. For the whole of
life, however, with no formalized system
of conveying meaning in many aspects,
memory is the medium.
The notion of media as externalized
memory rightly applies to both the sim-
plest and the most sophisticated present-
day media. The use of ancient texts shows
clearly that the canon of memory in medi-
eval times is a complex, multimodal use
of color, design, text, and image in learn-
ing and composition (Gossett, 2008). This
runs parallel to hypermedia, computer-
mediated environments (as described in
the seminal work of Hoffman and Novak,
1996). The only exception is motion pic-
tures, which were unavailable at the time.
The point, however, is that the canon
of memory has the capacity to explain
available media and their combinations.
Hypermedia are an externalized version
of what already exists in memory, but the
computer-mediated environment is just
the media channel.
Further to whether or not rhetoric is
capable of explaining present-day media
is the issue of interactivity. One study
went to great lengths to show a rhetoric-
based, constructionist model of interactiv-
ity that is devoid of the control that falsely
is assumed to be had in traditional media
(Miles, 2010). Although the study’s contri-
bution is noteworthy and would be most
appropriate for service brands, the ele-
ments of the model—invitation, explora-
tion, recursion, and coordination—echo
the attributes of rhetorical argumentation:
invitation, dialogue, and dialectics (Tin-
dale, 2004).
Practiced as rhetoric, advertising should
be devoid of control, especially because
it is usually based on truth that is accept-
able to all parties concerned. The above-
mentioned study (Miles, 2010), however,
nailed down an attribute of digital mar-
keting that already is being practiced in
advertising—the rapidly changing argu-
mentative situation that requires repeated
kariotic and static analysis to keep up with
refutations from consumers. In traditional
media, change in the argumentative situ-
ation seldom is observed until research is
carried out. Real-time interactivity is not a
peculiarity of modern media. Interactivity
between a rhetor and his or her audience
happens in real time, and the audience
ranges from one to many. Some take sides
with the rhetor and others against him or
her, so that what started as one to many
actually might end up being many to
many. This approximates the digital-media
experience in a previous model (Hoffman
and Novak, 1996).

Advertising Production:
A Rhetorical “Delivery” of Narratives
Delivery, the last canon of rhetoric, is
equivalent to advertising production,
the last stage of the advertising process.
The ethos of the rhetor is produced and
reflected in delivery. Voice and gesture
are the salient issues in delivery. The vol-
ume, pitch, pace, tone, and intonation of
a rhetor should be right at each point in a
speech. Facial and bodily gestures should
follow the rhythm of delivery. Stamping
of feet, clapping of hands, and similar
sound effects from bodily movements
also can be used where and when appro-
priate (Crowley and Hawhee, 2012). Most
important, rhetors should practice often,
out loud.
From the description above, classical
rhetoric demands more than a soulless
verbalization but requires a passionate
performance of the rhetor’s speech. Per-
formance is one of the key elements that
distinguishes drama from other genres of
literature. Other key factors are narration,
plot, and character (Stern, 1994). Televi-
sion commercials contain these key factors
and have been shown to be dramatizations
(Deighton, Romer, and McQueen, 1989;
Esslin, 1979; Stern, 1994).
One author (Wells, 1989) distinguished
between “lecture” and drama in television
commercials. Rhetoric covers both forms
of presentation and anything in between,
however, depending on the degree of
dramatization. All these also apply to
commercials on radio, which already is
referred to as the “theater of the mind.”
Print is no different. A set of fash-
ion advertisements to which research-
ers referred as “grotesque” (Phillips and
McQuarrie, 2010, p. 377) are quintessential
exemplars of “plotted drama” in a print
advertisement. Each shows (performs) a
story, as opposed to the other set, which
just tells it. Advertisements should have
inherent drama (Martin, 1989).
HOW rhetoric INFORMS the CREATIVE ADVERTISNG PROCESS  thearf.org
IMPLICATIONS: ADVERTISING’S
IDENTITY, DIRECTION,
AND RELEVANCE
Rhetoric Theory Establishes
Advertising’s Unique Identity
Many scholars in advertising make the
assumption that rhetoric is a topic within
advertising, rather than advertising being
an area within rhetoric. The result of that
error is that current academic advertis-
ing research is preoccupied with identity
problems that would seem ludicrous to
any outside observer.
With all due respect to Mark Twain,
reports of advertising’s death (e.g., Rust
and Oliver, 1994) have been exagger-
ated greatly. Current speculations that
advertising now is a zombie (Rust, 2016)
equally are overstated. That advertis-
ing would suddenly disappear seems
unimaginable despite the concern raised
among scholars.
What scholars are confused about is
that if advertising’s definition is tied to
specific media with traditional paid-
compensation methods, then certainly
the textbook definition will keep chang-
ing with every media innovation. The
practice of advertising, however, will
keep on going under any name (Schultz,
2016). Indeed, the term “advertising” is
itself new relative to our root paradigm
of rhetoric, which has been practiced for
millennia. On one level, it makes little dif-
ference whether we substitute terms such
as “advertising” or “brand communica-
tions” or “integrated marketing commu-
nications”—rhetoric is still rhetoric.
What’s Part of Advertising. The tripartite
heart of rhetoric consists of three types
of persuasion appeals: logos or mythos,
pathos, and ethos. Advertising scholars
would be more familiar with the names
rational appeals, emotional appeals, and
source credibility. Although scholars
have considered a wide range of appeals,
March 2018  JOURNAL
from scarcity (e.g., Eisend, 2008) to sex
(e.g., Reichert, LaTour, and Ford, 2011)
to global and local (e.g., Zhou and Belk,
2004), they generally fall into the three
rhetoric categories:
• Rational appeals focus on the benefit of
the brand or product in question, and
there are fairly close analogues between
rational appeals and logos or mythos.
• Emotional appeals (e.g., Bülbül and
Menon, 2010) are again another major
category of specific appeals and can be
further subdivided into categories such
as fear or humor appeals.
• Character-based ethos appeals draw
from brand personality and source
credibility.
Both classical rhetoric and advertising are
vexed by accusations of misrepresenting
the truth—that is, making appeals that
have no support. Whether hard sell, soft
sell, or somewhere in between, advertise-
ments always will have appeals (Okazaki,
Mueller, and Taylor, 2010).
What’s Not Part of Advertising but Is
Still Rhetoric. Instead of working hard
to differentiate ourselves from consumer
psychology or communications, the real
challenge should be what differentiates us
from personal selling. Before television,
we considered advertising to be “selling in
print” (Starch, 1923, p. 5), and since televi-
sion we developed the concept of Unique
Selling Proposition (Reeves, 1961). Dis-
tinguishing us from sales is the fact that
advertisers usually speak to and interact
with groups, but salespeople do the same
with individuals. Salespeople use more
than just rhetoric in their jobs in serving
customers, but using rhetoric (e.g., selling)
is probably the most critical part (Lam-
oureux, 1988). Personal selling is rhetoric
individualized.
OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  121
Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article 2018
What’s Neither Advertising Nor Rheto-
ric. Numerous published examples show
that some authors mistakenly think using
stimuli described as “advertisements” in
their manipulations means they are doing
advertising research. The problem is that
these experimental advertising stimuli
often don’t look or function like real adver-
tisements—which need to have a strong
basis in rhetoric theory. Often, the stimuli
never even use a brand name, nor is it clear
what, if anything, is being sold.
Furthermore, the research questions
and hypotheses are associated remotely
with advertising. They tend to be detached
from the persuasive rhetorical content nor-
mally expected in advertising research.
Such work may be perfectly acceptable,
or interesting consumer-behavior research
relating stimulus to response, but none-
theless may be presented inappropriately
under the guise of advertising research.
The work, however, still often claims to
be about “marketing communications” or
“advertising” in the first paragraphs.
Rhetoric Theory Widens
Research Directions
The rhetoric route to advertising research
can be as vast and varied as the contrib-
uting disciplines. Rhetoric affords each
discipline the opportunity to explore
all possible contributions to advertising
research, provided they stay faithful to
the distinguishing variables that it con-
fers on advertising. It will serve advertis-
ing research and practice well to see more
work done in the fields of philosophy
(argumentation and ethics), literary stud-
ies (narration, drama, and performance),
music (genres and translations), and per-
suasion (principles and practice), from rhe-
torical perspectives.
Widening Topics for Research. If what
allows rhetoric theory to further advertis-
ing research is rhetoric’s comprehensive
122  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  March 2018
nature, then researching canons other
than arrangement should widen the view
of advertising research. The canons also
can be used to push the limits of theoreti-
cal comparisons by systematically relating
the different canons.
The current authors organized top-
ics that could be suggested within each
canon and by crossing the canons with
each other. In a grid they created, along
the diagonal, are research directions that
involve one canon only, but in the upper
part of the matrix, canons are crossed with
each other (See Table 3).
The pattern that emerges is that one
more likely can assess cells along the
diagonal by measuring individual con-
sumer responses to estimate advertis-
ing effectiveness. Elsewhere, assessment
instead involves the judgments of profes-
sionals—clients and agencies—who are
the most likely to have valuable perspec-
tives to share. Yet the main theme is that
there are at least 15 cells full of research
directions beyond the single cell on execu-
tional factors that is advertising research’s
current focus.
Rhetoric Theory Ensures
Relevance to Practice lfaut and Vanden Bergh, 2012; Turnbull
If academic research is criticized for being
irrelevant to practitioners, the adoption
of rhetoric theory may serve to close the
gap between advertising academics and
practitioners. The rhetoric paradigm con-
firms the structure, process, and theories
of practitioners. For instance, advertising
agencies long were structured around the
canons of rhetoric:
• the account planning department, which
is responsible for message strategy;
• the creative department, which takes
care of ideation and campaign creation;
• the production unit, which is allied to
the creative department and is responsi-
ble for bringing campaigns to life;
• the media department, which ensures
campaigns get the most profitable
exposure.
This compartmentalization reflects an ori-
entation toward invention, style, arrange-
ment, delivery, and memory—the canons
of rhetoric. Other disciplines identified
in advertising simply help to manage the
process the canons describe. Adopting a
rhetoric paradigm will help align research
with practice.
Practitioners, themselves, have discov-
ered the rhetoric basis for advertising.
Tom Attea, award-winning former direc-
tor of Young & Rubicam’s creative school,
said, “In the Rhetoric and Poetics, Aristo-
tle provided many principles that apply to
creative advertising” (Attea, 2008, p. 45).
He emphasized invention to set the right
problem, style and arrangement to design
the right message, and media to find the
right place to put the advertisement. Attea
(2008) then goes on to discuss the only
thing left: production—the delivery canon.
With respect to more scholarly reports of
agency practice, models proposed for the
advertising-development process (Stuh-
and Wheeler, 2017) either fall far short of
the depth and width of rhetoric theory or
go overboard in their considerations. One
model (Stuhlfaut and Vanden Bergh, 2012)
focused too narrowly on metaphor, just
one idea-generation technique, to develop
a generalized advertising-development
process. Alternatively, another (Turnbull
and Wheeler, 2017) spread too widely
to contextual factors already captured
in social psychology (Amabile, 1996). If
one strips out contextual considerations,
the latter (Turnbull and Wheeler, 2017)
grounded theory model still approximates
the canons of rhetoric.
 HOW rhetoric INFORMS the CREATIVE ADVERTISNG PROCESS  thearf.org

Table 3
Rhetoric-Oriented Research Directions for Advertising Scholarship
Message Strategy Ideation Executional Factors Media Production

Message • What are the different • What is the most • How does message • How does message • What is the role of
Strategy types of strategic creative ideation strategy translate to strategy determine message strategy in
situations brands technique for each executional factors? media use? commercial drama and
face? message strategy? • What executional • How does media use other genres?
• Can we develop • What is the effect factors are critical for reflect advertising- • How do directors
typologies of message of insight quality on various brand-strategy message strategy? advance or hinder
strategy? creative output? situations? • What is the role of message strategy?
• What type of insight • What figures or • How is message media in messaging • How is photography
is used in various techniques are most strategy reflected in and advertisement different in each brand
strategic situations for appropriate for different executional factors? recall? category?
brands? appeals? • What are the • How do target
• How do brands • How does the differences between consumers influence
with more than one originality– agency and client media use?
attribute settle for the appropriateness trade- perspectives on
one to project? off happen? executional factors as
• How is a brand story • What ideation reflections of message
created? techniques work best in strategy?
• Why do we need a each brand category?
brand narrative? • How do creative
• How do advertising professionals convert
agencies take care propositions into
of consumers’ likely figures?
counterarguments?
• What informs clients’
choice of campaign
concepts for their
brands?

Ideation • How do figures • What are the • Do ideation techniques • Do all advertisements
combine to form new similarities in the perform equally well on created from repetition
ideation techniques? executional factors of all media? figures result in story
• What combinations of advertisements from • What are the drama?
figures result in quality the same figure or differences between • Do some techniques
creative output? technique? ideation techniques or figures apply only in
• Can all figures or • How can executional used in traditional and the production stage?
techniques create big factors change an social media? How effective are such
ideas? idea? • How does media techniques compared
• What is the difference • What are the effects of use limit or enhance with others?
in the effectiveness executional factors on ideation technique? • What is the role
of metaphors and the integrity of an idea? • How have changes of music in idea
allusions? in media affected generation?
• How do creative the development of • How does production
professionals come ideation techniques? enhance an idea?
about ideation
techniques?

continued …

March 2018  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  123

Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article 2018
Table 3 (continued)
Rhetoric-Oriented Research Directions for Advertising Scholarship
Message Strategy Ideation Executional Factors Media
Executional • What are appropriate • What executional
factors typologies of factors are common
executional factors? to all interactive
• What are the advertisements?
psychological • What is the effect of
mechanisms for why executional factors on
various executional the consistency of an
factors work on idea across media?
consumers the way • How are the
they do? executional factors of
• What moderates social media different
the effectiveness of from traditional media?
executional factors? • How does media
determine, limit, or
enhance executional
factors?
Media • Are all creatives equally
good across all media?
• What are the elements
of “paid,” “owned,” and
“earned” media?
• What is the role of
memory in consumer
response?
• What are the elements
of media strategy and
media buying?
Production
124  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  March 2018
Production
• What is the role of
a producer in an
advertising agency?
• What are elements
of the production
process for print,
radio, and television
commercials?
• What are the attributes
of quality voiceover
artists, actors, and
models?
• How does production
enhance executional
factors?
• How is production for
digital different from
traditional media?
• What are the elements
of the production
process?
• What production values
are used to assess
commercials?
• How do the principles
of photography apply to
advertising?
• What are the
characteristics of ideas
and executions?
• How well do promising
storyboards translate
into good commercials?

Practitioners’ theories are at once
similar and different from the views of
researchers (Nyilasy and Reid, 2009a,
2009b). Fortunately, on close examination,
rhetoric confirms practitioners’ theories
and, therefore, can help reconcile the aca-
deme and practice. The “it all depends”
philosophy of practitioners echoes rheto-
ric’s recognition of each “argumentative
situation” of arguer, argument, and audi-
ence as being unique.
Part of the uniqueness of each argu-
mentative situation is “commonplaces,”
or the cultural setting of the persuasive
effort. After exposure, each advertisement
becomes part of commonplaces. The differ-
ence in time, plus the clutter that exists in
the marketplace, becomes one more reason
to use a fresh strategy to break through the
refutations and defenses of target audi-
ences and engage them with novel ideas.
To be more relevant to practice, research-
ers need to incorporate the uniqueness of
the variables at play in each argumentative
situation, as recommended by rhetoric.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Does the path forward start in the past? As
advertising academics, if we keep remind-
ing ourselves that we are more similar to
sales than any other discipline, then surely
we will alter research directions such that
we can be more relevant to practition-
ers. Rediscovering our roots in rhetoric
will address most, if not all, the criticisms
raised regarding the chasm we uninten-
tionally have developed with practitioners
(Nyilasy and Reid, 2007).
Academics intuitively feel that devel-
oping theory is what is going to make
us relevant, such that we have power-
ful frameworks that we can apply to an
advertiser’s advantage. The core theory,
however, was developed millennia ago,
and much of this field has been rediscov-
ered. There is still much to be rediscov-
ered and developed.
HOW rhetoric INFORMS the CREATIVE ADVERTISNG PROCESS  thearf.org
The call to be relevant does not lie in
consumer psychology, although it cer-
tainly is a powerful tool in proving the
effectiveness of rhetorical theory. For
those trying to get a grip on advertising’s
identity, direction, and relevance, in the
beginning was the word, and that word is
rhetoric.  
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Alexander Tevi is a sessional lecturer at Macquarie
University in Sydney, Australia, where he recently
completed his doctorate degree on advertising creativity.
He won awards for his work in creative advertising, and
as a creative director, for many years with such global
agencies as McCann, Saatchi and Saatchi, and Grey.
Tevi also has worked for a variety of international clients,
including Unilever, Nestlé, British Airways, Coca-Cola,
Peugeot, and Western Union. His research interests
are creativity, strategy, and effectiveness in marketing
communications.
Scott Koslow is a professor at Macquarie University. He
specializes in research about advertising creativity, and
has worked with most major agency brands. His work
can be found in the Journal of Advertising Research
(JAR), Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Journal of Advertising (JA), and Journal of Consumer
Research. Koslow also serves as an associate editor
for both the JAR and JA, and he is a recipient of the
Advertising Research Foundation’s Great Mind Award for
JAR Best Reviewer.
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