Topical advertising The role of timing and creativity in understanding its effectiveness

Associating brand messages with public events happening in the moment a practice that is also known as topical advertising– is a popular strategy for advertisers to hitch on the attention that these events garner and place themselves at the centre of public conversation. Although topical advertising is a commonly adopted advertising strategy, in particular on social media, it is unclear whether it is an effective strategy to stimulate engagement. The focus of this dissertation is to examine topical advertising effectiveness on social media – the context that fueled the possibilities of this advertising strategy –, and to gain a better understanding of its effectiveness, it investigates the role of two essential characteristics of topical advertising: timing and ad creativity.