Creative personalities, processes, and agency philosophies: Implications for global advertisers

This article examines the management of creativity facing international adv ertisers and agencies. There has been a substantial amount of research comp aring advertisements in different cultures but relatively little work on th e nature of the creative personalities, processes, and philosophies used in developing such advertising. The research question posed in this article i s whether the differences in advertising observed between "individualistic" and "collective" societies are mirrored by differences in creative people and practices. Australia is studied as a representative individualistic soc iety and Singapore as collectivist. Using a questionnaire, a sample of crea tives in each country was examined. Differences were found to exist between the 2 cultures, particularly with personal qualities, control of the proce ss, and use of philosophies. However, agency philosophy types were remarkab ly similar between the 2 cultures. Implications are identified along with d irections for future research.