'Audience As The New Creative: A Study of the Co-creation Role Audience play in a participatory environment to create effective advertising campaigns with the creative in the context of Singapore.

As digital technology has profoundly changed the way people communicate and interact with each other, there is a need to also change the way in which advertising communicates with its audience. Thus, a good advertising campaign should be one that lever­ages on digital communication and co­-creation to enable active engagement, participation and reaction from the Audience. It is about creating a participatory environment for the target audience to co­-create successful advertising with the Creative in order to increase its effectiveness. Besides examining past successful Consumer Generated Advertising (CGA) campaigns to study the interaction and engagement of the Audience which had made them effective and led to their success, a series of interviews with key creative professionals in Singapore were conducted to provide insights into the co­-creator role the Audience play in a participatory environment to create successful participatory advertising campaigns with the Creative in the context of Singapore. All in all, the findings gathered affirmed that the shift in the way people communicate due to the digital revolution has called for a collective effort between the Creative and the Audience to produce effective advertising campaigns that can break through ad clutter. This study would benefit agencies, brand owners, brand strategists, marketers and communications professionals by offering them a better understanding of the shift in the changing advertising practices today, and in return create a more vibrant and creative advertising industry.