On Ads as Aesthetic Objects: A Thematic Review of Aesthetics in Advertising Research

Abstract

For an academic field to remain vital, it is necessary to reflect upon its conceptual foundations and learn from adjacent disciplines. On that note, aesthetics can provide significant insights into advertising. While aesthetic elements have received attention in advertising research, no systematic attempts have been made to provide a comprehensive overview of this literature. The purpose of this conceptual article is to bring different branches of aesthetic theory into advertising studies. Marketers have historically focused on product functionality and often appeal to consumers through explicit messages. This article fills an important gap by delineating and advocating the conceptual foundation of advertising aesthetics as a research area worthy of further attention. In short, we understand advertising aesthetics as the artlike properties of and sensory responses to ads. A review of 309 papers provides the thematic outline of the study. Seven key themes are identified: (1) the nature of advertising aesthetics, (2) advertising creativity, (3) textuality, (4) social aesthetics, (5) cross-cultural differences, (6) the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities, and (7) aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful and sublime. These themes offer a novel way of exploring contemporary issues in advertising. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Art keeps itself alive through its social force of resistance; unless it reifies itself, it becomes a commodity. (Adorno 2013, p. 380)

Today’s consumer society is saturated by ambivalence toward the mass-mediated commodities to which it gives rise. Advertising, in particular, is often seen as irritable and intrusive—as a symptom of the moral decline of modernism (Franke and Taylor 2017). In Sweden, a lively debate was sparked recently when business entrepreneurs launched Billboat as an attempt to turn Stockholm’s water into a site for ads and commercials (Ahlström 2021). However, advertising can also have a therapeutic social function (Botterill 2007), for example, by resolving acute cultural contradictions and anxieties (Holt 2004) or by crafting a sense of collective identity (Beverland et al. 2021). In his famous book The Hidden Persuaders, consumer critic Packard (1957) praised the advertising industry for its contribution to economic growth and aesthetic practices.

Through his insightful evaluations of Andy Warhol, Barbara Kruger, and Cindy Sherman, Schroeder (2005) insists that awareness of the interconnection between art, culture, and the market helps us better understand branding as a “strategic signifying practice” (p. 1292). Likewise, Bauman (2005) considers the relationship between commerce and culture a sibling rivalry. Perhaps the line between art and advertising—not unlike that of art and graffiti (Borghini et al. 2010)—blurs more often than we tend to think (e.g., see Muñiz, Norris, and Fine 2014). The mere fact that famous artists have over the years produced ads—film directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch, and Ridley Scott have directed commercials, not to mention artists like Toulouse Lautrec, Norman Rockwell and Salvador Dali, along with numerous well-known photographers who have done print ads—suggests that advertising may reasonably serve as the subject of aesthetic theories. Therefore, we propose the term advertising aesthetics to denote a field of theory and practice that deals with the artlike and sensory qualities in ads.

Aesthetic categories have rarely been singled out as primary objects of analysis in advertising studies (Charters 2006). As Hagtvedt (2022) points out, marketers have historically focused on product functionality. Consequently, little is known about advertising aesthetics. A search for the term aesthetic in the Journal of Advertising’s database yields 114 articles. However, this research domain has focused chiefly on its analogue in moral judgment. The advertisers described in these studies could be seen as ideologists who put forward an integrated set of positive and normative statements that describe what the world is and what it should be rather than artists who create primarily to express their subjective conceptions of beauty, emotion, or some other aesthetic ideal (Hirschman 1983). While the aesthetic judgment of beauty and the moral judgment of the good are interrelated, there is a need to explicate further how consumers form aesthetic judgments about ads. Further understanding of advertising aesthetics is required as multimodality in advertising is rapidly growing, for example, due to technological advances in machine learning.

As noted by MacInnis (2011), conceptual articles can bring new ideas into our discipline. We agree that conceptual articles are critical for the development of the advertising field. Therefore, this article fills an important gap by delineating and advocating the conceptual foundation of advertising aesthetics as a research domain worthy of further attention. Prior research has studied aesthetics and related concepts such as artistry (Koslow, Sasser, and Riordan 2006) in advertising in a limited way. There is a need to expand our perspective. For example, very few articles in the domain build upon aesthetic theory; hence, we offer a novel contribution. Our rationale is to bring different branches of aesthetic theory into advertising studies. This endeavor is necessary because aesthetics can provide significant insights into advertising. It can, among other things, help us understand how ads arouse consumer enjoyment and increase consumer experience. If successfully executed, aesthetic communication in advertising captures audience attention. From a practitioner perspective, it can also enhance the appeal of an ad by making it more eccentric, provocative, abstract, immersive, poetic, vulgar, and, in a word, irresistible. Hagtvedt (2022) argues that products and brands suffused by aesthetic impact transcend the realm of functionality and enter the realm of art.

The varying meanings of aesthetics in our conceptualization ranges from subjective assessments of taste (i.e., aesthetic judgment) to affective reactions to the beautiful and sublime (i.e., aesthetic categories). Nevertheless, even though “much (perhaps all) consumption behavior involves aesthetic aspects to some degree” (Holbrook and Zirlin 1985, p. 2), little is known about the aesthetic appreciation of advertising stimuli. A thematic review of previous research allows us to integrate existing findings, identify research gaps, and suggest avenues to advance theory and practice in meaningful ways. Our conceptual contribution consists of a position article where we advocate the benefits of more aesthetic perspectives in advertising.

The remainder of the article is organized as follows. We begin with an overview of aesthetic theory and its branches, followed by its relevance and implications for advertising studies. Next follows the methodological procedure of our data collection and thematic analysis. We then outline the domain of advertising aesthetics and identify seven key fields. We conclude with directions for future research.

Theoretical Background

In everyday usage, aesthetics designates a manifestation of the beautiful. The term itself is derived from the Greek word aisthetikos (which means “pertaining to sense perception”) and was first introduced in the late 1700s by German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten to emphasize the experience of art as a field of knowledge in which content is communicated in sensory form as opposed to strict reasoning or logic (Veryzer 1993). In other words, the aesthetic represents an affective faculty considering sensuous perceptions of the world rather than intellectual explanations. Aesthetics may concern individual arts such as literature, poetry, theater, film, video games, comics, photography, painting, architecture, design, music, and dance (Gaut and Lopes 2013).

Aesthetics entered the field of marketing with Hirschman’s pioneering article from 1983 and applies to many different advertising practices. Hirschman (1983) identified the nature of aesthetic products as being abstract, subjectively experienced, nonutilitarian, unique, and holistic. Elsewhere, Hirschman (1986) suggests that aesthetic appreciation consists of adjectives such as attractive, desirable, arousing, beautiful, and likability. Venkatesh and Meamber (2006) suggest that we live in an aesthetic consumer culture. Previous research has investigated a number of aesthetics-related concerns in relation to marketing, such as the influence of aesthetic aspects of products and ads (e.g., product design, attractive models) on the preferences or evaluations formed by consumers (Bower and Landreth 2001). We found various definitions in previous academic discourses. For example, Schmitt, Simonson, and Marcus (1995) define marketing aesthetics as “a company’s visual (and otherwise aesthetic) output in the form of packaging, logos, trade names, business cards, company uniforms, buildings, advertisements, and other corporate elements that have the potential of providing aesthetic gratification” (p. 83). Elsewhere, Mazzalovo (2012) defines brand aesthetics as anything brand-related that is perceivable by the senses. In other words, not only the visual aspects (e.g., forms, colors, textures) but also sounds, odors, and touch.

However, the literature lacks a systematic definition of advertising aesthetics. In advertising, aesthetics is usually used in reference to either a sensitivity to the beautiful or to the branch of philosophy that provides a theory of the beautiful and of the fine arts (Veryzer 1993). Following the notion of aesthetics as “the branch of philosophy that studies the principles of beauty, especially in art” (Oxford English Dictionary 2012), we define advertising aesthetics as the artlike properties of and sensory responses to ads. In other words, advertising aesthetics denotes those elements in an ad that has the potential of providing aesthetic gratification.

Branches of Aesthetic Theory

The framework postulates that advertising aesthetics originates from conflict between art and advertising or, in other words, culture and commerce. We provide an overview of the critical ideas of aesthetics and discuss their theoretical basis and implications for advertising. This section can be viewed as an invitation to aesthetics in general before recommending how aesthetics can be conceptualized for advertising theory and practice.

Philosophical Aesthetics

“Philosophical reflection,” Adorno (2013) points out, “is the justification of aesthetics” (p. 175). Advertising aesthetics could thus be seen as a philosophical reflection on what makes ads beautiful and appealing. While arts and aesthetics have been part of the history of philosophy since the writings of Plato, philosophical aesthetics is today most often associated with Kant (1724–1804) and his follower, Hegel (1770–1831), who represent two different approaches to aesthetic theory. One focuses on formal elements of arts and aesthetics and the other on its content. In Hegel’s (1993) view, the subject matter is the fundament of “artistic beauty” (p. 3). The Hegelian approach to aesthetic theory thus highlights the historical context of the artwork and the social relations that manifest in its content.

Formalism builds upon the premise that pleasure in the beautiful is owing to the perceived form of the object, in contrast to sensations or concepts of it. Kant’s (1790/2000) systematic elucidations of the formal properties of judgments of taste is the heart of his aesthetic theory. The distinction between formal and content aesthetics contributes to a philosophical reflection on advertising aesthetics, where formal properties may include how objects or events are organized to achieve expressive power, which, for example, denotes visual components such as color, line, shape, space, and texture (Schroeder and Borgerson 1998). Subject matter addresses the topic dealt with or the subject represented in the ad.

Aesthetic Judgment

Taste is firmly embedded in the discourse on art and aesthetic appreciation. According to Kant (2000/1790), aesthetic enjoyment results from a sensation of pleasure, which is the subject of the consumer’s taste. Aesthetic judgments of taste are highly subjective and based on feelings. They thus differ from logical ones that are universal and based on reason. Previous literature on aesthetic consumption has shown that consumers relate to aesthetic pleasure in various ways—from having intuitive, visceral reactions to objects in a museum (Joy and Sherry 2003) to the more sophisticated discernment of an acquired taste (Arsel and Bean 2013).

In addition to taste in the context of consumer enjoyment, Phillips, McQuarrie, and Griffin’s (2014) analysis foregrounds the creative processes inherent in advertising aesthetics, attending to how art directors use, assemble, and select the visual elements to construct campaigns, indicating that advertising practitioners also have to trust their taste and aesthetic judgment. As Strati (2007) points out, aesthetic judgment is an “important part of working” and concerns what is perceived, judged, produced and reproduced through the senses (p. 74). The aesthetic judgment of advertising practitioners when developing campaigns should also be the subject of aesthetic theory.

Aesthetic Categories

Beauty, alongside art and taste, is one of the main subjects of aesthetics. An object is considered beautiful if perceiving it is accompanied by aesthetic pleasure. For Plato, beauty is the rudimentary definition of what is aesthetically pleasing. Objects typically regarded as beautiful include landscapes, sunsets, humans, and works of art. In other words, beauty is a positive aesthetic category that contrasts with ugliness as its negative counterpart.

In addition to beauty, aesthetic theory emphasizes the sublime as an essential aesthetic category. The sublime is the quality of greatness most often found in nature. Kant (1790/2000) refers to the vast ocean disturbed by a storm, the starry heavens, and mountain peaks rising to great heights. In other words, the sublime inspires awe through an awareness of what is majestic or fearful. Our ideas of the beautiful and sublime are often drawn upon in advertising, where attractive models and the purity of nature are thought to increase the aesthetic appeal.

Recent Aesthetics

During the first half of the twentieth century, the New Criticism group of literary theorists questioned author intent (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1946). Intentionalism, which emerged as a counterpoint to formalism in aesthetic theory, holds that the artist’s intention is essential in fixing the correct interpretation of artworks. This shift holds importance for advertising aesthetics, where the advertisers’ intentions to make a profits or raise brand awareness may very well be complemented by aspirations to express themselves creatively (Hirschman 1983).

Postmodern thinkers influenced the course of aesthetic theory in the latter half of the twentieth century. Postmodern aesthetics question the notion of interpretation; specifically, the idea that there is and must be a single proper interpretation for any work of art (Barthes 1974). While formal aesthetics suggest that a work of art can be genuinely good and have intrinsic formal properties that make it so, postmodernists argue that what makes a work of art “good” or “beautiful” is not a set of intrinsic features of the work. No intrinsic features distinguish art from nonart or high art from popular art (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Björn Borg sports apparel brand incorporated elements of postmodern aesthetics in its “Chase the Exerhighs” advertising campaign.

More recently, the work of cultural critic Ngai (2012) casts light on the aesthetic categories of the interesting (Figure 2), the zany (Figure 3), and the cute (Figure 4), which she argues dominate the look of art and commodities in late capitalism. Relatedly, we have seen a rise in strategic attempts to draw on “gimmicky” aesthetics to increase consumers’ purchase intentions (Keh, Wang, and Yan 2021).

Figure 2. Swedish surrealist Roy Andersson utilized the aesthetic category of the interesting when he directed TV commercials.

Figure 3. Swedish pharmaceutical Ipren’s (ibuprofen) famous ad is filled with zany aesthetics.

Figure 4. Public transport in Stockholm recently incorporated a cute meme in one of its advertising campaigns.

To summarize, the role of advertising aesthetics is not a moral one to improve the lives of consumers (i.e., good, beneficial) but to gratify their senses (i.e., beauty, pleasure). Such gratification can include making the consumer feel inspired, which potentially masks the commercial motives to increase the desire to consume. The role of philosophical aesthetics is to bring us to a place where we can understand and evaluate advertising aesthetics akin to any other art form. Taste was theorized by Kant (1790/2000) as a judgment based on a feeling, ​especially concerning those feeling-based judgments in which an object is found beautiful. The beautiful and sublime signify two basic aesthetic categories (Burke 1987). Recent aesthetics inspired by literary theory and postmodern thinking highlights intentionalism and the gimmick as an aesthetic category reflecting the fundamental laws of capitalism.

Method

This article reviews advertising aesthetics following the principles suggested by MacInnis (2011). Specifically, we delineate the conceptual foundation of advertising aesthetics and advocate its merits for advertising research. “Advocacy,” MacInnis (2011) points out, “involves argumentation to justify or support a given conclusion. With advocacy, the researcher recommends or pushes for something, or speaks in support of a particular view” (p. 147). In our case, we advocate the benefits of applying more aesthetic perspectives to study advertising phenomena.

For the analytical process we followed a semisystematic review approach in line with Snyder’s (2019) guidelines for conducting a literature review as a research methodology. The semisystematic approach is a suitable strategy for mapping theoretical approaches and themes and identifying knowledge gaps. It is designed for topics that have been studied within diverse disciplines. This type of review approach aims to identify relevant research traditions that have implications for the studied topic and synthesize these using metanarratives (Snyder 2019). Accordingly, we used thematic analysis as a technique under this methodological approach. Our methodological approach involved three steps: (1) preparation, (2) selection, and (3) refining.

Finding relevant studies is an important and challenging task in any conceptual study, particularly when other value-laden terms synonymous to aesthetic are scattered across different journals. We started our expedition in October 2021 by looking at the Journal of Advertising with a search for the term aesthetic that yielded 114 articles. Of these, nine were book reviews and one a commentary on Hirschman (1986), which left us with 104 original articles. The Journal of Advertising is the premier journal devoted to developing advertising theory and its relationship to practice. Because of its focus on both theory and practice, the initial choice of this journal suited our aim to bring aesthetic theory into advertising studies and make it more accessible for practitioners. Due to its scope, which includes advertising effectiveness, advertising ethics, global advertising issues, and methodological issues, along with the economic, political, social, and environmental aspects of advertising, the journal is a suitable outlet for exploring the many different facets of advertising aesthetics.

As a second round preparation, from July to August 2022, we broadened our research by employing the Web of Science (WoS) database. The key search terms included advertising and the words artistic/artistry, beautiful/beauty, creative/creativity, and poetic. Following the Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) ranking list, we included marketing journals with higher impact scores (4*, 4, and 3 stars). We identified relevant and appropriate articles for our conceptualization. A search of the set of keywords noted previously in this paragraph yielded 1,990 studies from the WoS database. After pruning the results based on the criteria of peer-reviewed business articles in selected journals, we were left with 451 articles. To identify the relevance of the articles, the screening process initially looked through the titles and abstracts of all 451 studies. We then employed our inclusion/exclusion criteria, which left us with 309 articles. As a criterion, we included only those studies related to aesthetic issues in the advertising domain. Studies were excluded if they clearly did not meet that criterion. As the focus of our review is advertising aesthetics, we excluded articles that addressed aesthetic topics in marketing-related fields other than advertising. Likewise, we excluded articles solely contributing to advertising in general without particular emphasis on aesthetic issues. For example, we excluded one article on advertising awards on creative excellence from our analysis as it did not explicitly address any issues related to aesthetics. The articles included in our final sample were read thoroughly and then classified systematically by both authors in terms of bibliographical data, conceptual background(s), empirical context(s), and methodological framework(s) used in each study.

We began our thematic review to foreground aesthetics in advertising research. During our review of the selected articles, we focused on the definition of aesthetics in each article. Thematic areas were defined after an initial assessment of articles, then expanded and diversified as the reviewing progressed. Both authors read each piece of literature and classified them in terms of methodological perspectives, theoretical backgrounds, defined gaps, and future research directions. A review of the 309 articles led to the identification of seven key themes. These were identified through an iterative and reflective reading of the articles that developed over time where both researchers constantly went back and forth among the data, discussing the provisional themes in depth until we were satisfied with the fit between articles and themes. The themes are not mutually exclusive; at times, an article can fall under more than one of the themes we identified. For example, we found that an article under the advertising creativity theme could also bring insights into the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities. On that occasion, we discussed the article in question and decided to code it on the basis of the conceptual framework employed rather than its empirical setting. The findings are presented in the next section.

The Domain of Advertising Aesthetics

Heeding the call by Hagtvedt (2022) to move aesthetic topics in marketing “from the fringe to the mainstream” (p. 1), this article presents a thematic review of previous studies on how consumers respond to aesthetic stimuli in ads. As illustrated in Figure 5, the first article to appear in our data set was from 1973 and the most recent from 2022. Theories from art history (Feasley 1984), consumer research (Phillips, McQuarrie, and Griffin 2014), cultural production (Hirschman 1989), linguistics (Deng, Han, and Wang 2019), literary theory (Brown, Stevens, and MacLaran 1999), gender studies (Kates and Shaw-Garlock 1999), media studies (Deuze 2016), organizational studies (de Gregorio, Cheong, and Kim 2012), psychoanalysis (Nelson 2008), psychology (Sharma and Varki 2018), rhetorics (Borghini et al. 2010), semiotics (Puntoni, Schroeder, and Ritson 2010), social anthropology (Baker, Motley, and Henderson 2004), and sociology (Hirschman and Thompson 1997) were applied to examine advertising aesthetics. Surprisingly, only one article in the data set drew on aesthetic theory (Zarzosa and Huhmann 2019).

Figure 5. Timeline of publications in the domain of advertising aesthetics.

Among those studies that implemented a positivist paradigm, the majority were guided by previous advertising research or social psychological theories, such as social adaptation theory, schema theory, or psychological work on the components of creativity. Within those studies that adopted an interpretive approach, various theoretical foundations emerged, ranging from semiotics to literary theory. The majority of research here employed a social constructionist paradigm.

The reviewed articles featured varied methods and research designs. Most of the articles (n = 206; 66%) employed positivist research methods ranging from quantitative content analyses to experimental research designs. Interpretive research constituted 22% (n = 67) of the articles, including focus groups and consumer-response approaches. The remaining articles (n = 36; 12%) used some combination of methods or offered more conceptual commentaries. Table 1 provides a more detailed summary of the frequencies for each method and design. The relatively low number of conceptual articles on advertising aesthetics (n = 30) is worth mentioning, at least in comparison with the number of empirical articles (n = 279).

Table 1. Widely used methods in advertising aesthetics studies.

Method and Design	Number of Articles	Example
Quantitative	206
Content analysis	31	Biswas, Olsen, and Carlet (1992)
Experimental design	135	Edwards, Li, and Lee (2002)
Survey	38	McMillan and Hwang (2002)
Case study	2	Kennedy and McColl (2012)
Qualitative	67
Content analysis	21	Domzal and Kernan (1993)
Historical research	6	Stern (1999)
Grounded theory	27	Hirschman and Thompson (1997)
Interviews or focus group	3	Hirschman (1989)
Literary criticism	2	Stern (1992)
Ethnography	8	Ghaffari, Hackley, and Lee (2019)
Other approaches	36
Combined methods	6	Hung (2001)
Conceptual article	30	Puntoni, Schroeder, and Ritson (2010)

Themes in Advertising Aesthetics

Seven common themes were identified in the data. Table 2 summarizes the frequency of and key previous studies in each research theme.

Table 2. Frequencies of each theme.

Theme	Frequencies of Theme	Subthemes	Key Previous Studies
The nature of advertising aesthetics	22%	(a) intersections between the aesthetic and the beautiful; (b) artistic advertising dimensions	Hirschman (1986) examined perceptions of advertising stimuli presented in an all-verbal or all-visual format.
Advertising creativity	30%	(a) the creative work of advertising practitioners; (b) creative ways of facilitating advertising campaigns	Dahlén (2005) studied how creative media choice enhances the perception of target brand associations and increases brand attitudes.
Textuality	10%	(a) poetics; (b) narrative	Brown, Stevens, and MacLaran (1999) used literary theory as a starting point to offer three gendered readings of a postmodern ad for a champagne brand.
Social aesthetics	8%	(a) marginalized consumer segments; (b) other social causes	Stern (1999) presented an overview of feminist and multicultural criticism, defining the cross-disciplinary study of marginalized populations in advertising research.
Cross-cultural differences	11%	(a) culture-specific imaginaries; (b) resistance to prevailing Western ideologies	Biswas, Olsen, and Carlet (1992) extended the research on cross-cultural advertising by comparing print ads from the United States and France in terms of emotional appeals, information content, and use of humor and sex.
The role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities	14%	n/a	Deuze (2016) offered a futuristic exploration of the role of advertising in society using media theory.
Aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful and sublime	4%	n/a	Homer and Kahle (1986) investigated the persuasive impact of surrealistic ads in print media.

The Nature of Advertising Aesthetics

The first theme derived from our data is the nature of advertising aesthetics. This theme is highly visual and investigates consumers’ aesthetic responses to ads or products as an extension of emotional aspects, including evaluative reactions to an object as arousing, attractive, beautiful, and desirable (Hirschman 1986). Research within this thematic field has focused on (a) intersections between the aesthetic and the beautiful and (b) artistic advertising dimensions. This field constituted 22% (n = 67) of the reviewed articles.

Intersections between the Aesthetic and the Beautiful

The aesthetic and the beautiful are often used synonymously in advertising research; thus, we would like to further explore the artlike properties of and sensory responses to ads. For example, Stammerjohan et al. (2005) use the adjectives aesthetic and harmonic interchangeably. In her well-cited study, Zaichkowsky (1994), though she touches on aesthetics only tangentially, conceives the nature of advertising aesthetics as “affective involvement” (p. 60). Van Mulken, Van Hooft, and Nederstigt (2014) define the aesthetic as a pleasure arising from structural features of visual stimuli. Joseph (1982) delineates the effects of physically attractive models on commercial success, examining the myth that the beautiful enhances perception of credibility. Future research could study the relation between advertising aesthetics and brand credibility in more detail. For example, do aesthetics help increase the credibility of the advertising message? If so, to what extent?

Artistic Advertising Dimensions

Furthermore, Feasley (1984) discusses how commercials could be seen as art. There are parallels between certain commercials and a particular genre of paintings. This observation is in line with our working definition of advertising aesthetics, that is, that consumers can appreciate an ad as if it was a work of art. Elsewhere, Englis, Solomon, and Ashmore (1994) focused on diverse cultural ideals of beauty in advertising, indicating that what is perceived as aesthetically appealing differs across sociocultural contexts.

In total, it seems that research on the nature of aesthetics in advertising has focused, perhaps too narrowly, on intersections between the aesthetic and the beautiful or artistic advertising dimensions. By incorporating aesthetic theory, this view could be expanded. The field of advertising aesthetics should go beyond the issue of whether an ad is considered beautiful or artistic to explore sensory responses to ads more broadly in line with recent aesthetics.

Advertising Creativity

The second theme derived from our data is advertising creativity. Advertising creativity is the ability to develop fresh, unique, and appropriate ideas that can be utilized as solutions to communication problems. Research within the thematic field of advertising creativity has focused on (a) the creative work of advertising practitioners and (b) creative ways of facilitating advertising campaigns. This field constituted 30% (n = 93) of the reviewed articles.

The Creative Work of Advertising Practitioners

The manifestations of creativity studied in advertising theory are mainly commercialized, but, as most advertising creatives will agree, there are self-oriented and artistic elements involved in their profession as they often do seek to “satisfy an inner need for self-expression” (Hirschman 1983, p. 48). On that note, Phillips, McQuarrie, and Griffin (2014) investigate the visual brand identity concept and how commercial producers (e.g., art directors) navigate the overall visual elements. While commercial imperatives are present in their work, art directors also trust their aesthetic judgment about visual elements. Commercial imperatives and aesthetic judgment often go hand in hand in advertising practices (Hirschman 1983). Consider, for example, the creative persona, which is an archetype in advertising creativity (Rotzoll 1980).

Creative Ways of Facilitating Advertising Campaigns

Creative ads, Yang and Smith (2009) argue, stand out in ad clutter and therefore receive more attention from potential consumers. Dahlén (2005) notes that creative media choices can facilitate consumers’ perceptions of ads and thus enhance brand attitudes. For example, Borghini et al. (2010) examine the implications of street art for advertising creativity, noting that street art can be framed as advertising, promoting the artists as well as their ideologies. Moreover, it can be framed as an alternative template for advertising. Some street artists are employed in the advertising industry, and some aspire to become advertisers. Some street art is used for commercial advertising purposes, in both legitimate and faux forms. Further, from a practitioner perspective, digital media can bring new concerns of creative development to advertising. However, Koslow and Stewart (2022) caution that digital environments restrict advertising creatives as consumer control over their own attention is high.

In total, it would seem that research on advertising creativity has focused on either the creative work of advertising practitioners or creative ways of facilitating advertising campaigns. Further incorporation of aesthetic theory could shed light on sensory aspects of advertising creativity, especially drawing on the branch of intentionalism in aesthetic theory.

Textuality

The third theme derived from our data is textuality. The other themes focus mainly on visual aspects of advertising aesthetics. Textuality means that in addition to making judgments about the pictorial, consumers also make aesthetic judgments about the advertising text (Sarial-Abi and Ulqinaku 2020). Research within the thematic field of textuality can broadly be divided into (a) poetics and (b) narrative. This field constituted 10% (n = 32).

Poetics

Poetry, one of the oldest literary forms, in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm, has a role in consumer research (Sherry and Schouten 2002). In terms of the poetic aspects of advertising, Barbara Stern stated that even though advertising is often described as “the poeticizing of consumer goods” and that claims are made that “great ad lines are poems” (qtd. in Carlson, Grove, and Stafford 2005, p. 138), there is seldom any evidence offered to support the analogy. Consider, for example, the following interview excerpt from one of the informants in Borghini et al. (2010):

Advertising is a form of art, say, poetry, because it’s a means of linguistic-visual communication, which through linear, intuitive, emotional paths transmits messages that go beyond the literal meaning. Like a poem, when it tells you something, it’s telling you something else with regard to the literal meaning, the reverse. [. . .] So does advertising: it presents ideals, values and, especially of late, emotions. (p. 125)

This excerpt suggests poetics not only constitute a crucial aesthetic dimension of advertising copy; the aesthetic form of advertising can itself, at least to some extent and in some cases​, also be seen as poetry.

Narrative

In terms of narrative aspects of advertising aesthetics, Oyedele and Minor (2012) highlight plots and stories as textual elements in TV ads. Stern (1999) argues that “characters in fiction resemble those in mass-media artifacts such as television, cinema, and music video” (p. 6). Chang (2013) writes that the characters in an ad can be as influential as picture vividness in determining an ad’s effectiveness. Taking these studies into consideration leads to the conclusion that narrative interpretation of advertising text is a profoundly aesthetic concern. Moreover, the textual distinction between poetics and narrative resembles the difference between formal and content aesthetics, at least in the sense that the former focuses mainly on the formal properties of the ad, while the latter points to its subject matter.

In total, it would seem that that research on textuality can be divided into poetics and narrative. Further incorporation of aesthetic theory could help us unpack what is meant by a poem in an advertising context (Carlson, Grove, and Stafford 2005). In a way that is similar to poems and other literary forms, all ads are created works and are, therefore, amenable to the aesthetic approach.

Social Aesthetics

The fourth theme derived from our data is social aesthetics. As a theoretical domain, social aesthetics help study how modern art can be political and have implications for society. Following the Marxist tradition of Marcuse (1978), social aesthetics denotes the radical function of art (and, in our case, ads) to contribute to social change. Research within this thematic field can broadly be divided into two categories: (a) marginalized consumer segments and (b) other social causes. This field constituted 8% (n = 26) of our sample.

Marginalized Consumer Segments

Stern (1999) writes that social aesthetics might begin with the question of whether a text presents an authentic experience. In keeping with Marcuse (1978), an artwork is authentic not by virtue of its content (i.e., the “correct” representation of social conditions) or its pure form but when its content has become form. Accordingly, Stern (1999) highlights minority perspectives as the keystone of social aesthetics. More precisely, she raises the following questions, “What is . . . the minority experience? What is their alternative knowledge? How do . . . minorities see, know, and relate to the world?” (p. 8). Research in social aesthetics often reflects the dynamic and interactive process between advertising, politics, cultural values, and consumers. For example, Kates and Shaw-Garlock (1999) note how certain ads have co-opted feminist themes (e.g., the lone woman) to market to women. Gulas and McKeage (2000) studied how aesthetic stimuli (e.g., ideal images) can harm consumers’ self-esteem. Baker, Motley, and Henderson (2004, p. 39) demonstrate how advertising can contribute to the development of collective memory and consumers’ perceptions of and prejudices against African Americans. More research is needed on this theme, as marginalized consumer segments are increasingly included in advertising and mainstream media.

Social Causes

Social aesthetics advocate that advertising has a societal role beyond promoting materialism. For example, Bush and Boller (1991) studied the ability of TV ads to reduce AIDS phobia. Elsewhere, Coleman, Royne, and Pounders (2020) highlight the aesthetics of charities and health-related product ads. Other social causes thus range from environmentalism and health promotion to charity organizations. The subfield of social aesthetics fits nicely into Gurrieri, Zayer, and Coleman’s (2022) recent proposition of transformative advertising research, with its goal to transform the world to a better place and increase well-being on an individual, institutional, and societal level.

In total, we suggest that advertising research on social aesthetics can be divided into research on marginalized consumer segments and other social causes. Further incorporation of aesthetic theory can shed light on how ads, akin to artworks, can change the world and its dominant norms.

Cross-Cultural Differences

The fifth theme derived from our data is cross-cultural differences. The term cross-cultural implies interaction with people of different cultural, ethnic, age, and class backgrounds. Research in this stream often draws on cultural values (e.g., individualism/collectivism) or cultural contexts (e.g., high/low cultural context) to study aesthetic dimensions. Research within the thematic field of cross-cultural differences can broadly be divided into two categories: (a) culture-specific imaginaries and (b) resistance to prevailing Western ideologies. This field constituted 11% (n = 35) of our sample.

Culture-Specific Imaginaries

The studies under this theme focus on cultural values. Biswas, Olsen, and Carlet (1992) suggest that ads produced in one country cannot simply be standardized or directly translated for use in another. Previous research has found that Japanese ads are evaluated as more emotional and less comparative than American ads (Okazaki and Mueller 2011). Likewise, Taylor, Hoy, and Haley (1996) demonstrate that French advertising is different from American advertising in terms of four descriptors (la seduction, le spectacle, l’amour, l’humor). In their content analysis of anti-smoking campaigns, Paek, Yu, and Bae (2009) found that South Korean websites use metaphoric styles and aesthetic expressions more than American websites do.

Resistance to Prevailing Western Ideologies

Previous studies have focused on the local understanding of dominant Western ideologies reflected in ads. For example, Oyedele and Minor (2012) suggest that ads from sub-Saharan Africa reflect a romanticized view of middle-ground politics. Their results show that advertisers highlight the global market through overwhelmingly Western aesthetic attributes (e.g., Western music, Western-style design, furnishings, images of Western cities, architecture). Elsewhere, Domzal and Kernan (1993) drew from a dominant market ideology and acknowledged that advertising was an integral part of that culture. More precisely, they argued that some products such as food and fashion enable the universally held need for self-expression. Thereby, their perceptions are driven by common ethos. Relatedly, Cho et al. (1999) called for further studies as to the changing nature of cultural values, particularly in the rapidly changing economies of East and Southeast Asia, which appear to be adopting Western symbolism at a rapid rate. Moreover, in light of emerging trends to decolonize marketing, future research in advertising aesthetics should question its basis in a mainly Western philosophical tradition.

In total, extant research on cross-cultural differences in advertising aesthetics has mainly focused on culture-specific imaginaries and resistance to prevailing Western ideologies. Hagtvedt (2022) suggests that further incorporation of aesthetic theory can bridge cultural divides and contribute to the growth of empathy between diverse communities.

The Role of Media in Creating Aesthetic Opportunities

The sixth theme derived from our data is the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities. Media is central to our understanding of advertising aesthetics. Meanwhile, Deuze (2016) defines aesthetic opportunity as “a chance to tell better stories, using multiple media in complex and exciting ways, integrating the co-creativity of consumers. In other words, taking advertising as an art form as well as a craft seriously” (p. 329). In total, this thematic field constituted 14% (n = 44) of the reviewed articles.

Media plays a significant role in associating genres with consumption patterns (Englis, Solomon, and Olofsson 1993). However, as Deuze (2016) points out, media is not just the technologies we use; as consumers, we are completely immersed in media (“media is to us as water is to fish”; p. 326), which will likely affect our aesthetic judgment profoundly. Technology and aesthetics are deeply intertwined. Additional research is needed on how aesthetic advertising appreciation takes different forms among users of different media devices (e.g., smartphones, laptops, TV screens). In our present consumer culture, for example, we are ​exposed to multiple media simultaneously, which seems to create new aesthetic opportunities at an unprecedented speed.

Studies within this research theme have investigated advertising aesthetics in contexts such as music videos (Englis, Solomon, and Olofsson 1993), television commercials (Feasley 1984), product placement in movies (de Gregorio and Sung 2010), billboards (Franke and Taylor 2017), social media (Pentina, Guilloux, and Micu 2018), and pop-up ads on the Internet (Edwards, Li, and Lee 2002). Drawing on Aristotle’s aesthetics, Stern, Zinkhan, and Holbrook (2002) write that the Internet is “the latest medium for education and entertainment” (p. 22). Likewise, McMillan and Hwang (2002) suggest that a new aesthetic will emerge by which we judge interactive advertising messages. They believe that traditional criteria such as “attracting attention” and “simple, orderly layout” (p. 39) will have limited application to interactive mediascapes. Accordingly, further incorporation of aesthetic theory could develop an aesthetic that involves concepts such as real-time conversation, loading speed, and ability to engage consumers. Interactivity also needs to be studied in relation to the challenges of our increasingly algorithmic world of marketing based on artificial intelligence (AI) and its possible implications for advertising aesthetics (Puntoni et al. 2021). Nevertheless, Geissler, Zinkhan, and Watson (2006) note that many users seem to prefer relatively simple home pages compared with more elaborate aesthetic designs.

Aesthetic Categories Beyond the Beautiful and Sublime

The final theme derived from our data is aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful and sublime. The current repertoire of marketing studies, particularly in the advertising domain, has essentially equated aesthetics with the beautiful and sublime. Only a few studies have focused on aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful and sublime. These studies constituted merely 4% (n = 12) of the reviewed articles. The aesthetic categories highlighted in this research stream include surrealism (Homer and Kahle 1986), mild erotica (Pope, Voges, and Brown 2004), iconoclasm (Rotzoll 1980), and naturalism (Hartmann, Apaolaza, and Eisend 2016). Consequently, the multiplicity of aesthetic advertising responses is overshadowed in favor of a general understanding of aesthetics as beautiful, attractive, and pleasing. Future research drawing on aesthetic theory should look into minor aesthetic categories; Ngai’s (2012) proposition of the zany, the cute, and the interesting offer promise.

Practical Implications of Advertising Aesthetics

We now apply the seven themes that constitute our conceptual model for advertising aesthetics to illustrate its practical relevance, drawing on a recent example from the Swedish context (Figure 6). A video ad, starring Congolese-Swedish singer Tousin Michael Chiza, known widely as Tusse, was made for Sweden for Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and is featured on the agency’s social media channels (https://www.instagram.com/tv/CfnxL1Rps2v/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=). First, it questions the nature of advertising aesthetics. The ad itself is not necessarily beautiful or artistic but is still the subject of aesthetic appreciation. In terms of advertising creativity, it illustrates the creative work of advertising practitioners. In this case, the creative agency enlisted Tusse, a singer with a refugee background, as a brand ambassador to remake a classic Swedish ballad. In addition, they launched a podcast where they invited refugees to speak about their experiences to further facilitate the advertising message. In terms of textuality, it depicts a narrative where children cannot get in touch with their fathers, which is reiterated by the lyric, “Pappa, kom hem till mig” (translated as “Daddy, come home to me”). The narrative thus mirrors Tusse’s own experience as a refugee who was separated from his father at a young age. In terms of social aesthetics, the ad promotes a social cause to increase the well-being of refugees. Moreover, in terms of cross-cultural differences, the ad could be said to bridge cultural divides between refugees and citizens, thus contributing to the growth of empathy between diverse communities. In line with the subtheme addressing the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities, the campaign relies heavily on aesthetic opportunities offered by social media and digital marketing. Finally, in terms of aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful and sublime, it utilizes a wide range of digital media channels to create an interactive aesthetic beyond the aforementioned aesthetic categories that typically dominate advertising research.

Figure 6. A recent campaign by Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Sweden integrates the different themes from our conceptual model of advertising aesthetics. Photo: Gustav Ike/Universal.

Even though a lot has been written about aesthetics in advertising, extant research tends to equate aesthetics with visual stimuli in ads (Hirschman 1986). As the theme of textuality indicates, that is a limitation. Furthermore, the nature of advertising has often been defined as the beautiful or artistic properties in ads, which is highly subjective (Charters 2006). Our conceptual model for advertising aesthetics provides a novel way of understanding contemporary issues and topics in advertising.

Directions for Future Research

All articles that contribute conceptually should be generative. In other words, conceptual contributions must “guide future research by indicating novel research questions fostered from identification” (MacInnis 2011, p. 143). Therefore, we now draw attention to some emerging trends and directions for future research in the domain of advertising aesthetics. However, we emphasize that emerging trends are based not necessarily on previous studies within the field of advertising aesthetics but on topics we find relevant in contemporary advertising practice.

New trends and technological advancement will undoubtedly guide future advertising. AI, augmented and virtual realities, and cryptocurrency ads are emerging topics that inform at least how we envision the future of advertising to be. In addition, the recent marketization of “wokeness” suggests that the theme of social aesthetics will be increasingly important in the coming years. To explore promising pathways for future research on advertising aesthetics, the following sections foreground avenues that call for further attention in terms of “woke” advertising copy, the politics of digital and social media advertising aesthetics, and AI aesthetics and the rise of cryptocurrency ads.

“Woke” Advertising Copy

First, future research on social aesthetics should take an interest in “woke” advertising copy. More precisely, this trend denotes the creative ways advertisers can use textual elements in advertising copy (i.e., poetics and narrative) to show that the brand takes a stand on sociopolitical issues.

In an advertising context, the term woke means consumers are alert to social injustices, especially racism (Sobande 2019). Over the past few years, consumers have shifted toward expressing how conscious they are of social and political discrimination. Especially younger consumers seek to support their beliefs with their purchase decisions, thus backing brands aligned with their values and avoiding those that are not. However, failure to convince the public that their virtue-signaling efforts are authentic can lead to consumer backlash, thus carrying significant risks (Mirzaei, Wilkie, and Siuki 2022). We argue that brands can gain legitimacy among “woke” consumers through creative advertising copy.

Theoretically, the “woke” advertising copy trend follows the recent interest in brand activism in marketing literature. Sarkar and Kotler (2018) define brand activism as brand efforts to promote, impede, or direct sociopolitical, economic, or environmental reform and contribute toward improvements in society. They elaborate that today, brands are increasingly oriented toward progressive activism, are interested in impacting the most significant societal problems, and have a brand purpose beyond making a profit. Especially in the past few years, there has been an explosion of brand activism campaigns where companies join discussions about pressing sociopolitical problems and support ideological movements and protests. Little is known about the aesthetics of “woke” activist brands as focus has mainly been on their moral authenticity (Vredenburg et al. 2020).

As an example of this advertising trend, consider the “This Veganuary, Adopt a Carnivore” campaign by Oumph! (Figure 7). Veganuary is an annual challenge run by a U.K. nonprofit organization that promotes and educates about veganism by encouraging people to follow a vegan lifestyle for the month of January. Oumph! is a Swedish food company making a range of plant-based products from soybeans. Their brand purpose is “to decrease our climate impact drastically, while increasing the health of as many people as possible.” The ad thus illustrates how “woke” advertising copy incorporates elements of advertising creativity (i.e., facilitating a campaign that aligns with the Veganuary challenge), social aesthetics (i.e., taking a stand for veganism), and textuality (i.e., the advertising copy itself).

Figure 7. Advertising practitioners who want to employ “woke” advertising copy as a brand strategy could learn from Oumph!

Numerous artists have used text as the central communication vehicle in their artistic expression to make a statement or evoke emotion. For example, surrealist René Magritte famously wrote “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” across his 1929 painting The Treachery of Images. Cubists such as Georges Braque were also known for incorporating text into their artwork, often highlighting its graphic quality. Arguably, the most famous example is Barbara Kruger’s iconic artwork Untitled (I Shop Therefore I Am) (Figure 8). Clever wordplay, we argue, can be used to intertwine advertising and political activism.

Figure 8. Untitled (I Shop Therefore I Am) by Barbara Kruger illustrates the aesthetic role text can have in an artwork.

The Politics of Digital and Social Media Advertising Aesthetics

Second, future research should study the politics of digital and social media advertising aesthetics. For example, influencer marketing has emerged as a form of social media marketing that uses the influence of key individuals or opinion leaders to drive brand awareness and purchasing decisions. It would be interesting to study the different aesthetics that social media influencers use in their posts to increase follower engagement. Here both visual (i.e., images) and rhetorical (i.e., captions) cues would be useful objects of analysis. Given the many intersections between the aesthetic and the beautiful in advertising aesthetics, future scholarship could draw on Södergren and Vallström’s (2022) research on social media influencers with disabilities to study how different types of aesthetics can be used to question traditional beauty norms.

More generally, further research is needed on sensory perception and how advertisers appeal to consumers on different social media platforms. Visual components are essential in digital advertising environments. However, the other senses (among them touch) also need scholarly attention. On that note, it would be interesting to study advertising aesthetics in multisensory experiences derived from digital screens, for example, among iPhone and Android users. Optimizing ads to be aesthetically pleasing on digital screens is an everyday task among practitioners today, less so among academics. From such a perspective, future research could study the aesthetics of music and sound snippets in digital and social media advertising. With the arrival of virtual and augmented reality headsets, other senses might also become more prominent in the digital advertising of the future.

Social media is gaining prominence as a vehicle for artistic expression. Consider the book Pics or It Didn’t Happen: Images Banned from Instagram by digital artists Byström and Soda (2017). One image depicts a fully clothed woman wearing jogging pants stained with menstrual blood, lying with her back to the camera in a nondescript bedroom (Figure 9). Bringing the pictures Instagram have removed back into the spotlight, Byström and Soda (2017) demonstrate how taboo very ordinary elements of female bodies, such as hair, fat, and blood, have become. This provides an interesting topic for future research on the politics of digital and social media advertising aesthetics.

Figure 9. One of the banned Instagram photos in Byström and Soda (2017) included period blood but no nudity.

Artificial Intelligence Aesthetics and the Rise of Cryptocurrency Ads

Third, future research should pay attention to how the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities promotes aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful and sublime. A recent special issue of the Journal of Marketing envisions future technologies in marketing, including augmented reality, avatar marketing, and anthropomorphized chatbots. However, another trend worth mentioning here is AI aesthetics and the rise of cryptocurrency ads.

In 2022, several major sports arenas were named after crypto companies. Most notably, the Staples Center became known as Crypto.com Arena as part of a new 20-year deal between the Singapore cryptocurrency exchange and AEG (Dean 2021). Meanwhile, American actor Matt Damon is one of many A-list celebrities to star in a crypto ad (Rosen 2022). Cryptocurrencies also took center stage during the 2022 Super Bowl ad breaks, cheekily referred to as the “Crypto Bowl” (Maidan 2022). From Dogecoin to the Bored Ape Yacht Club, we argue that this digital environment has promoted the aesthetic category of cuteness. Ngai (2012) defines cuteness as the aestheticization of powerlessness, whereby its epitome is “an undifferentiated blob of soft doughy matter” (p. 64). Cute is a dominant aesthetic category in digital culture (e.g., online casinos, crypto markets). The affective power of cuteness makes gambling, or asset markets, look and feel harmless, masking the risks and danger by incorporating elements that infantilize the players of games of chance. That advertisers utilize the aesthetic category of cuteness to make their crypto ads more appealing seems like a promising avenue for future research on advertising aesthetics (Figure 4).

DALL·E 2 has recently emerged as a deep learning model developed by OpenAI to generate digital images from natural language descriptions. Future research should study the implications of AI on advertising aesthetics and its embeddedness in visual culture. Moreover, in light of our increasingly algorithmic consumer culture, so-called deepfakes of celebrities have begun appearing in ads with or without their permission (Campbell et al. 2022). The term deepfake was first coined on the Internet in 2017 by combining the terms deep-learning and fake (Chitrakorn 2021). A 2018 Zalando campaign featuring model Cara Delevingne was achieved using deepfake technology. This technology calls for rejuvenated interest in the concept of authenticity and its near synonym—brand trust in digital consumer culture.

Additional Topics for Future Research

The Nature of Advertising Aesthetics

There is a need to further disentangle synergies between the pictorial and the rhetorical as well as other sensorial aspects in aesthetic advertising stimuli. The role of aesthetics in assessing rhetorical figures is a promising avenue for future studies. It would also be interesting to study how advertising aesthetics may affect consumer attitudes toward products and corporations (Kim, Haley, and Koo 2009).

Advertising Creativity

We encourage further broad research on advertising creativity. Creative manifestations in advertising have been directed to commercial aims, yet it is relevant to inquire about the self-oriented motivations and artistic elements involved in the works of advertising creatives. An aesthetic perspective to explore how advertising agency personnel are involved in creative message development throughout the various steps of making a commercial would fill the blind spots in organizing creativity (Hirschman 1989). Coupling the commercial imperatives of creative message development with feeling-based judgments would serve to grasp the whole process of creative productions. Here, it would be exciting to study the intellectual property of those creatives whose role is often neglected in advertising studies—for example, copywriters, who more or less remain invisible (Rockett 2019). Agency creatives are usually anonymous. Even if they are named, they may be uninterested in commenting on their work.

Textuality

There is a need for future research that takes advertising text as the primary unit of analysis. A clearer understanding of how different literary genres can be employed in advertising text would be enlightening (Fowler, Das, and Fowler 2022). This endeavor could help researchers and practitioners assess how advertising messages shape consciousness. It would also be interesting to investigate cases where controversial issues are verbally demonstrated in the ad (Theodorakis, Koritos, and Stathakopoulos 2015), including offensive language.

Social Aesthetics

Stern’s (1999, p. 6) formulation of a “multiverse” seems like a rich entry point to future social aesthetics research. For example, in breaking down the monolith of sex or class, the research assumption of a multiverse rather than a universe, a world in which each individual determines his or her own meaning based on numerous interwoven factors, would bring sharpness and precision to the framing of questions. Future research could also look at aesthetic dimensions of social marketing. For example, Feldman, Bearden, and Hardesty’s (2006) call for future research to consider the role of advertising aesthetics in the context of marketing job openings seems like a promising avenue for future research.

Cross-Cultural Differences

Future research should also take into consideration recent calls to decolonize marketing. Decolonization is the ongoing critique of Western worldviews and the uplifting of indigenous forms of knowledge. Aesthetic theory is founded upon a Western philosophical tradition. From a theoretical perspective, it is thus necessary to promote aesthetic thinkers that challenge Western hegemony. In other words, decolonial advertising aesthetics should not merely criticize issues such as cultural appropriation, exoticization, or the incorporation of Oriental imagery, which are overwhelmingly present in contemporary media and advertising practice, but challenge the philosophical tradition upon which it is founded.

The Role of Media in Creating Aesthetic Opportunities

Technological structures shape the market orientation toward advertising practices. As such, digital platformization of consumer culture encourages the advertising industry to embrace computer-generated images (CGIs), visual effects, and animation capabilities, as well as the metaverse, the hypothesized next iteration of the Internet, which is on the rise. To that end, studying the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities seems an extremely timely endeavor. Future studies could investigate how different product categories may benefit from aesthetic opportunities in various media platforms (Geissler, Zinkhan, and Watson 2006). An aesthetic perspective would be instrumental in elucidating how such technological infrastructures may play a role in producing an advertising atmosphere.

Aesthetic Categories beyond the Beautiful and Sublime

Future research should look into minor aesthetic categories. Ngai’s (2012) proposition of the zany, the cute, and the interesting offer promise.

Other Recommendations

A majority of the previous studies on advertising aesthetics have been quantitative, employing an experimental research design (Table 1). Stern, Zinkhan, and Holbrook (2002) propose the adaptation of interpretive methods such as ethnographic interviews, long depth interviews, and onsite observation to discover consumer responses, followed by qualitative data analysis to interpret response themes (also Belk 2017). We agree there is an urgent need for more qualitative studies within this research domain, especially because aesthetic judgment is a form of consumer interpretation (Hirschman and Thompson 1997). We call for more ethnographic research studying aesthetic consumer movements and more visual methods to critically assess the cultural or ideological context in which ads are imbued with aesthetic meaning (Schroeder 2006). Finally, it would be useful to study how different aesthetic elements, both visual and textual, may serve to impact various advertising objectives such as attention, brand recall, brand beliefs or perceptions, ad and brand liking, affect and attitudes, and purchase behaviors. Unlike arts marketing, which can be “taken as developing marketing tools in order to help the art world achieve market-based goals” (Bradshaw 2010, p. 8), we propose that ads themselves can be seen as aesthetic objects, whereby future researchers should draw on other aesthetic-related fields, such as photography, literature, and music, to advance the domain of advertising aesthetics.

Limitations

This study is not without limitations. Most of our examples are situated in the context of Nordic consumer culture. It would be useful to examine ads from other geographical contexts. As we have used data spanning 50 years of research, some articles are outdated; this is especially the case in the theme about the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities, where some arguments regarding the Internet are no longer relevant. Finally, our data are limited to advertising studies, whereas our theoretical framework is rooted in aesthetic theory. Further insights could be gained from other aesthetic disciplines.

Conclusion

This article offers a novel way of theorizing advertising. Following the suggestion by MacInnis (2011, p. 151) that “authors should be emboldened to write conceptual papers,” this article has sought to delineate and advocate advertising aesthetics as a research domain worthy of further examination. Advertising researchers and practitioners can profit by tapping into the aesthetic disciplines to enrich their field.

Theoretical Contributions

This article broadens our perspective on how advertising can appeal to consumers. While aesthetic elements have received attention in advertising research, there are no systematic attempts at providing a comprehensive overview of this literature. We thus approached contemporary advertising theory and practice from an aesthetic angle. Our semistructured review of the advertising domain identified seven key themes: (1) the nature of advertising aesthetics, (2) advertising creativity, (3) textuality, (4) social aesthetics, (5) cross-cultural differences, (6) the role of media in creating aesthetic opportunities, and (7) aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful and sublime. These themes offer a novel way of exploring contemporary issues in advertising. This conceptual exercise also helps us move beyond the present and see what topics we may encounter in the future in the domain of advertising aesthetics.

Practical Implications

Advertising constitutes a major part of modern society. The average American is exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day (Simpson 2017). Given the sheer volume of ads we are exposed to daily, more aesthetic approaches to advertising are likely to improve the general quality of everyday life. For practitioners, aesthetics can enhance the consumer experience and the pleasure derived from ads. We suggest that advertising aesthetics can elevate commodities in terms of their artlike properties and aura. This is especially important for luxury brands, which can employ advertising aesthetics to stand out from the crowd (Berthon et al. 2009). Further, this article offers specific guidance for advertising practitioners who wish to implement elements from our conceptual model of advertising aesthetics to amplify the aesthetic appeal of their work.

Advertising aesthetics can rejuvenate a domain of modern life that is often seen as irritable and intrusive and make it irresistible. In terms of the theoretical background, it is surprising that the field of advertising aesthetics lacks articles that directly draw on aesthetic theory to study advertising phenomena. Psychological perspectives remain predominant in the field. This article contributes to previous research by bringing aesthetic theory into advertising studies, especially in regard to the seven themes that constitute our conceptual foundation of advertising aesthetics.

Feasley (1984) concludes that while not all ads fall under the heading of art, there are those that should be thought of in this light. Pop artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg have all used advertising images in their work. Likewise, film directors like David Lynch, Ridley Scott, and Wong Kar-wai have all tried their hands at advertising.

Expressing a view that is representative of many contemporary advertising academics, Hirschman (1989) commented that “the artistic elements of advertising are viewed as so commercialized as to preclude serious study as an aesthetic medium” (p. 43). However, we have shown that the aesthetic nature of advertising still thrives despite its concurrent commercial focus. Ads may be seen as aesthetic objects worthy of deeper exploration, but to understand advertising fully we need to understand both their commercial and aesthetic natures.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ileyha Dagalp

Ileyha Dagalp (PhD, Gothenburg University) is a post-doctoral researcher at Stockholm University.

Jonatan Södergren

Jonatan Södergren (PhD, Stockholm University) is an independent researcher.