Smith, MacKenzie, Yang, Buchholz, and Darley (2007) separate what people mean by a creative ad into two ingredients, then show how those ingredients move processing and response.

Perceived ad creativity is the interaction of divergence and relevance. Overall creativity mediates the effects of those two ingredients on consumer processing and response.

Method

A series of studies develops a creativity scale and then tests a full model of how perceived creativity is formed and how it affects processing and response.

Main findings

  • Divergence alone is not creativity. People judge an ad as creative when divergence and relevance interact, not when the ad is merely unusual.
  • Creativity is the mediator. Overall perceived creativity carries the effect of divergence and relevance onto processing and response.

Why this is in the Darwin index

Later creativity papers in this index, including the 2020 meta-analysis, inherit this split. The record is the measurement paper underneath those results.

Source of record: doi:10.1287/mksc.1070.0272.