Yang and Smith (2009) test two routes by which creative ads change viewing and purchase intentions: a persuasive route and an emotional route.
Across three experiments, creative ads influence viewing and purchase intentions through a desire to postpone closure and through positive affect. Involvement with the ad moderates the postpone-closure path. It does not moderate the emotional path.
Method
The authors build one model of ad creativity and test it with structural equations on three experiments. Desire to postpone closure is the persuasive mechanism. Positive affect is the emotional mechanism. Involvement is allowed to moderate only the first of those two paths.
Main findings
- Two routes. Creativity works through a desire to postpone closure and through positive affect.
- Involvement is selective. It moderates the postpone-closure effect, not the emotional impact.
- The model holds. Structural equations on the three experiments support the overall account.
Why this is in the Darwin index
This is the mechanism paper beside Smith, MacKenzie, Yang, Buchholz, and Darley (2007), which treats perceived creativity as divergence interacting with relevance. Yang and Smith ask what that creativity does to viewing and purchase intentions once the viewer is in the ad.
Source of record: doi:10.1287/mksc.1080.0460.