Toward a General Theory of Creativity in Advertising: Examining the Role of Divergence

Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of creativity in advertising by practitioners and scholars, no systematic research has been conducted to define ad creativity or examine how it relates to ad effectiveness. The present research attempts to fill this gap by reviewing past literature in psychology, marketing and advertising. From this base, a model is developed which defines a creative ad as both divergent (i.e. novel or...