Misplaced marketing Creating passion to engage versus enrage consumer co-creators with agency co-conspirators: unleashing creativity Sheila L. Sasser Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, USA Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a perspective on how new interactive media trends affect the creative process in agencies and engage consumers as co-creators, based on recently published research and observation. Design/methodology/approach – Interviews, participant observation, and secondary analysis of recently published qualitative and quantitative research (1996-2008) by the author and leading scholars in the field is used in this offering. A review of emerging trends and conceptual thinking in this area prompts the suggested perspective along with an empirical longitudinal global study on what drives creativity in advertising ADCRISPq . Findings – This contribution illustrates examples of how a passionate approach drives creativity and change for an iconic brand. Ethnographic methods are suggested for reconnecting with changing consumers and environments. This viewpoint recognizes the potential of engaging the consumer and unleashing creativity while pointing out potential pitfalls of misplaced marketing and misdirected creativity. Originality/value – This paper offers a creative viewpoint and a practical direction on how agencies might be more appropriate in engaging the target consumer. The consumer participates as co-creator and impacts the agency-client-consumer creative development process. Keywords Creative thinking, Information media, Advertising Paper type Viewpoint Baby, baby, where did our love go? The creative advertising journey now resembles a virtual minefield of issues and obstacles blocking the quest for the ultimate consumer seduction. Creative advertising has always been the sexiest and most controversial part of the marketing business, but lately, it seems as if the industry has truly lost its touch in connecting with consumers. Sadly, marketers are now more often accused of enraging rather than creatively engaging the new consumer co-creator and critic. Audience manipulation, offensive products and cultural destruction are among the social ills often laid at the feet of the marketing business and sometimes the shoe fits, so they wear it well (Rotfeld, 1998). Have advertisers lost persuasive creative passion, or did they just surrender in frustration along the new media path; choosing instead to try the latest creative gimmicks to impress other advertising peers? Customer relationship marketing models involving such constructs of passion, commitment, intimacy, and trust have been bypassed to latch on to the latest cool media technology trends, leaving some consumers feeling abandoned, deceived, or tricked by the brand. As creatives scurry to impress other creatives with such techniques, the customer is left out in the cold, wondering what happened to the brand relationship. There is nothing worse than a fickle brand lover scorned and there may be wicked retribution for such feckless forays in the future. In the digital divide, many long-term devoted agency partners have been the ones left out in the cold rather than enjoined as co-conspirators. The cyber culprits of technology, social media and interactivity have spawned disconnections for brand marketers and creative executives. Clients have been attracted to interactive digital firms who speak the new language of technology, often abandoning solid research and marketing principles, while trying the latest tricks of the trade. Experts have predicted that creativity will be freed from the agency’s grasp to be bought and sold online (e.g., Lindstrom, 2008). There has been a long time agency monopoly on creativity that will soon be broken unleashing new types of co- creation, outside the norm. Hopefully, there is still a flicker of a flame lurking beneath the surface to enable the reigniting of passion for innovative creativity research in advertising and marketing. Who is now thinking about the actual brand consumer, who has the leash, and who is the keeper of the brand? From a historical perspective, the battle for share of mind in the early golden era of mass marketing was characterized by centralized control of the brand, message and media. Subsequent evolutions of integrated marketing communications and computerized relationship dialogue marketing emerged prompted by digitization. More recently, rapid internet penetration facilitated interactive viral trends. Such early gyrations of placed paid media were hatched to The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0736-3761.htm Journal of Consumer Marketing 25/3 (2008) 183–186 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0736-3761] [DOI 10.1108/07363760810870680] 183