Spot-on creativity: creativity biases and their differential effects on consumer responses in (non-)real-time marketing

A challenge in digital content marketing is to create meaningful messages on meaningful moments. To do so, brands frequently align social media messages with topical moments, also known as Real-time Marketing (RTM). While RTM aims to make meaningful connections, the creative development is subject to time pressure due to its real-time nature, which could have a negative effect on originality and craftsmanship, two other creativity dimensions besides meaningfulness which drive consumer responses. We address this tension by examining the creative crafting of RTM on Instagram and its consequences. Based on a content analysis of 516 Instagram messages, we indeed found a meaningfulness bias for RTM, such that meaningfulness comes at the expense of originality and craftsmanship. However, the findings from the content analysis, as well as an additional experiment (N = 245), showed that only craftsmanship and originality, and not meaningfulness, positively induced consumer responses. Implications are discussed.