Creatives’ Brand Attitudes Affect Forecasting Accuracy
(A2022-107789)

AUTHORS

Cátia Alves, Nova School of Business and Economics; Irene Consiglio, Nova School of Business and Economics

ABSTRACT

Creatives need to propose their best ideas to clients, and they select these ideas by forecasting consumers’ responses to their work. Despite current research suggesting that creatives overestimate how much consumers will like their work, we show that this forecasting bias is not inevitable. Specifically, we propose that creatives with negative brand attitudes more accurately predict the extent to which consumers will like the commercials they have created for that brand, compared to creatives with positive brand attitudes. Two studies using professional and non-professional creatives provide evidence for this prediction. We propose that creatives with negative brand attitudes will experience conflicting thoughts regarding their performance, triggering rational and systematic thinking. Our findings challenge the idea that individuals do not correct bias spontaneously in an effective way; we propose that creatives with negative brand attitudes engage in rational thought and self-correct their forecasts without the need to use external interventions.