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IIMS Journal of Management Science
Vol. 10, No. 3, September-December, 2019, pp- 149-159
DOI: 10.5958/0976-173X.2019.00012.5
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IIMS Journal of Management Science 149
Role of Divergence and Relevance in Advertising Creativity
Pravin Chandra Singh and Amit Gautam
ABSTRACT
Creativity helps to increase the effectiveness of advertising, but advertising research has put minimum emphasis
on creativity. Hence, the rationale of this study is to examine the role of divergence and relevance because
divergence and relevance are the pillars of overall advertising creativity. The data for this study were collected
from consumers of north India. A total of 384 respondents filled the questionnaire properly, so 384 questionnaires
were taken into consideration for analysis and were analysed through SPSS 20.0. The finding of this study
indicates that divergence and relevance both are significant for the formation of a positive consumer attitude
towards creativity. As far as the sub-dimensions of divergence and relevance are concerned, sub-dimension of
divergence, that is, artistic value, has the strongest relationship with the attitude towards creativity, whereas
flexibility has the weakest relationship with the attitude towards creativity
Keywords: Advertising creativity, divergence, relevance, artistic value, flexibility
JEL Classification Code: M3, M37
Biographical Note: Pravin Chandra Singh is the Research Scholar of IM-BHU Varanasi. He can be reached
at pravinchandrasingh@fmsbhu.ac.in
Amit Gautam is presently working as a Professor at IM-BHU Varanasi. He can be reached at
amitgautam@fmsbhu.ac.in
INTRODUCTION
Creativity helps to expose the advertising message to
the targeted audience in a more effective manner by
creating a long-lasting, memorable impression.
Nothing is more effective and efficient than creative
advertising, as it lasts longer in the memory of the
targeted consumers and helps to build a fan community
faster as compared with other advertisements. There
are lots of researches done in the past showing that
creativity is a vital force in the development and design
of effective advertisements (El-Murad and West, 2004;
Klebba and Tierney, 1995; Ogilvy, 1995; Sasser and
Koslow, 2008), helps to enhance the level of awareness
along with favourable attitude towards ad and brands
(Till and Baack, 2005; Yang and Smith, 2009). This
is the creativity that gives life to the messages of
advertisements; otherwise, the advertisement messages
seem to be irritating and without worth, and creativity
is the combined effect of divergence and relevance,
which further bifurcated into their sub-dimensions
(Smith et al., 2007). In advertising, creativity needs
innovation, and all the related elements of the creativity
should have woven into an integrated theme, one
related to another to communicate the message
effectively. The motivation for creativity comes from
within the person, an intrinsic motivation, on the
contrary, some of the motivation comes from external
forces to find out new creative ideas.
Creativity helps to create a positive attitude concerning
brands (Sheinin et al., 2011) and that is why now-a-
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150
Pravin Chandra Singh and Amit Gautam
days companies start producing more creative
advertisements (Ang et al., 2007) to pursue the targeted
consumer. The findings to (Till and Baack, 2005)
suggest that creative advertisements help to create more
recall than no creative advertisements. There are lots
of brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc. who have
utilised the creativity element in their respective
product advertisements, and it gave them a better
response in terms of persuasion. It has always been an
issue of debate on whether creativity is effective in
persuasion or not. Smith et al. (2008) found out that
a creative way of executing the advertising will enhance
its effectiveness, maintains a purposeful relationship
with the consumers, along strengthen the impact of
communication through all the stages of ‘hierarchy-
of-effect’ (HOE). However, it has been seen that
advertising research has put minimal emphasis and
defined creativity in narrow point of view and it is
very subjective in nature (Young, 2000; Batey and
Furnham, 2006; Koslow et al., 2003, 2006). So, the
major goal of this study is to provide an answer to the
following questions. RQ.I–What are the determinants
of ad creativity, and which determinant of creativity is
more influential in creating a positive consumer
attitude? RQ.2–What role does divergence and
relevance play in overall ad creativity? To get the answer
to the discussed questions, we first go by discussing
the theoretical background to define and creativity;
after defining the ad creativity, finally, at last, we
conclude by discussing the significance of the study
along with the necessity of future research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Consumer Attitude towards Advertising
Creativity
Ang and Low (2000) examined the association between
ad creativity and effectiveness, in their study
effectiveness of ad creativity was calculated concerning
attitude towards advertising reason being it is the vital
indicator show advertising effectiveness (Mehta,
2000). The outcome of their study was creative
advertisements were more liked by the participants,
and it helps to enhance favourable attitudes towards
particular advertisements. Till and Baack (2005)
examined the relationship between creativity and ad
effectiveness, and the variable considered for the study
was ad towards the ad, brand and purchase intention.
They finally stated that those advertisements which
are creative have a high recall, but somehow the same
results are not for the attitude towards brand and
purchase intention (Dahlen et al., 2008). Conducted
a study to find out whether creativity in advertising is
useful or not. It was an experimental study of 1,284
respondents. They were asked to fill the questionnaire
after exposed to advertisements. The study finally
concludes that creative ad creates a positive image of
the brand, and consumer perceived the brand to be of
higher quality. Kover et al. (1995) have studied
creativity and advertising effectiveness, and they try to
find out how the consumers respond to different kinds
of advertising executions along with whether the
consumers respond to ads according to the
expectations of advertising professionals. They
surprisingly found that the ads that were creative were
not essentially professed as persuasive or creative.
Further Kover et al. (1997) continued their study; they
found that viewers were responding to those
advertisements, which engenders them the feelings of
personal enrichment. In a quasi-experimental study of
creativity in advertising by (Altsech, 1996) on 65 items,
which is related to relevance or appropriateness,
originality, exciting or boredom, liking (p. 29). He
finds out and concludes that originality and creativity
are the same, but on the contrary, appropriateness is a
‘qualifier’ for creativity (p. 42). It means if the
advertisement is not fit for the product/brand or target
audience, then originality and creativity do not work
(Stone et al., 2000). After a thorough literature review
regarding the effectiveness of creativity in advertising,
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IIMS Journal of Management Science 151
Role of Divergence and Relevance in Advertising Creativity
he has found that advertising creativity is not explored
up to a significant extent. In his review study, he has
found that the most common factor/feature, which is
supported by advertising practitioners is a novelty.
Ad Creativity
According to El-Murad and West (2004, p. 190), it is
the process of building up new and significant
connections between already irrelevant things in a way
that is pertinent, authentic, and in great taste, but the
product must be somehow present in a new light. The
primary distinction in past definitions is whether
advertising creativity is dictated by a couple of
variables. Generally, there are two approaches to
defining advertising creativity.
The first approach is to characterise creativity as
divergence. Divergence can be defined as the degree to
which an advertisement contains brand or execution
components that are extraordinary, novel, unusual,
unique, one of a kind and so on. According to Till
and Baack (2005, p. 49), ‘creative advertisements have
been again and again defined, at least in part, as novel
and original’.
The second approach of defining advertising creativity
is that it consists of two determinants, namely
relevance and divergence, and this approach is
supported by many researchers (Haberland and Dacin,
1992; Smith and Yang, 2004; Thurson and Zhao,
1997; Tellis, 1998). In the second approach, divergence
is defined as originality and relevance is defined as
extent to which brands/ad are appropriate, meaningful
and useful from the consumer point of view, both are
determinants of creativity but relevance has received
an extensive focus in literature under the term
‘involvement’ (Laczniak and Muehling, 1993;
MacInnis and Jaworski, 1989; Mishra et al., 1993; Petty
and Cacioppo, 1986; Petty et al., 1983; Thurson and
Zhao, 1997); on the contrary, divergence have not
received that much treatment and has presented
minimal theoretical development of divergence.
Creative advertising helps to attract more consumers
concerning less-creative ads reason being the divergent
factor of creativity creates a difference with less-creative
ads (Smith and Yang, 2004). They further explained
that creativity occurs only when divergence and
relevance are high.
Ad Divergence
The basic property of advertisement creativity is
divergence–the advertisements must contain some
aspects of novelty or advertisements that should be
standout in some way. The divergence concept has
always been the central point in case of ad creativity,
but contrary to this, it has acknowledged very slight
advancement in advertising. Generally, it has been seen
through the one-dimensional construct, that is,
originality or novelty, and there is slight conceptual
development of it. This is one of the significance matter
which been left out because divergence always play a
major role in advertising effectiveness and it a complex
construct as well and that is why divergence must be
given proper understanding and significance, and there
is a need to better modelled the concept of divergence.
It is believed that ad having divergence will create more
favourable affective and cognitive responses from
consumers, and this is because of the primary value of
stimuli of divergence. Even researches have long
recognised that there is more inclination of consumers
towards creativity.
In the literature concerning creativity, Guilford (1950,
1956) was the first researcher who has focus and gave
importance to the divergence concept development
in advertising and proposed many aspects of creativity
that show divergence and relevance concept. Torrance
(1972, 1987, 1988, 1990) have an interest in
divergence and spent many years to empirically test
the components of Guilford’s (1950, 1956, 1967)
model. Torrance developed a test to find out the main
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152
Pravin Chandra Singh and Amit Gautam
indicators of creativity and test developed by Torrance
get one of the best widely used creativity tests (Baer,
1993). The dimension divergence used in both the
elements execution (celebrity endorsement, design,
etc.) and brand/product informational elements
(unusual transformational of the product) of
advertisements. As far as psychology literature is
concerned, most of the studies done concerning
advertising have limited investigations of divergence.
Smith and Yang (2004) examined and reviewed the
work done by Guilford (1950, 1956, 1967) and
Torrance (1987) in the area of advertising creativity,
and they identify seven primary indicators of divergence
and seven secondary indicators of divergence. (Smith
et al., 2007) after reviewing the work of Guilford
(1950, 1956, 1967) and Torrance (1987) they came
up with five factors of divergence and two factors of
relevance, a major goal of this research is to empirically
study five factors of divergence and two factors of
relevance in an advertising context with respect to
consumer attitude.
Ad Relevance
While talking about the dimensions of creativity, the
divergence has always been a central point, but on the
contrary, the ad must be relevant, appropriate and
meaningful. Thus, we can say that relevance is where
some feature of the advertisement is meaningful,
important or valuable to the consumers. Generally,
relevance is related to the informational/brand
properties of the advertisement.
Ad-to-Consumer Relevance: It generally refers to the
condition where the advertisement that has those
execution elements which are relevant or meaningful
for the consumers. This kind of relevance is achieved
when the advertisements have stimulus property to
create a connection in between the advertisements and
potential consumers. For instance, advertising
campaigns of Coca-Cola in India for their product
Thumbs Up a kind of soft drink, especially focus on
the young generation. Thus the ad of Thumbs Up has
relevance to the younger generation.
Brand-to-Consumer Relevance: It is generally a
condition where a brand or product category which is
advertised is relevant to the potential consumers. This
situation can be achieved if the advertisement creates a
meaningful connection between brand and consumer.
The advertisements could show that the brand which
is being advertised or advertising is familiar to the
potential consumers (Mishra et al., 1993; Thurson and
Zhao, 1997).
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THIS
STUDY
Hypothesis:
HO1: Originality in ad creativity is positively related
to consumer attitude towards ad creativity.
HO2: Flexibility in ad creativity is positively related
to consumer attitude towards ad creativity.
HO3: Elaboration in ad creativity is positively related
to consumer attitude towards ad creativity.
HO4: Artistic value in ad creativity is positively related
to consumer attitude towards ad creativity.
HO5: Synthesis in ad creativity is positively related to
consumer attitude towards ad creativity.
Conceptual development in ad divergence
Jackson and Messick (1965) Unusualness
Sobel and Rothernberg (1980) Originality
Besemer and Trefinger (1981) Novelty
Besemer and O’Quinn (1986) Elaboration and synthesis
Haberland and Dacin (1992) Originality
Amabile (1993) Novelty
Thurson and Zhao (1997); Originality
Wells (1989)
Duke (2000); Duke and Imaginativeness
Sutherland (2001)
Source: Smith and Yang (2004)
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IIMS Journal of Management Science 153
Role of Divergence and Relevance in Advertising Creativity
Originality
Flexibility
Elaboration
Artistic value
Synthesis
Relevance
Ad to consumer
Ad to brand
Attitude towards
advertising creativity
1.06
.129
1.01
1.08
0.298
.957
.998
Figure 1: Divergence
Source: Smith et al. (2007) and Ramaprasad and Thurwanger (2000)
HO6: Ad to consumer in ad creativity is positively
related to consumer attitude towards ad creativity.
HO7: Ad to brand in ad creativity is positively related
to consumer attitude towards ad creativity.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Data Collection
A survey instrument was prepared for this study the
instrument mainly consisted of close-ended questions
by using 7-points Likert–a type of scale because scaling
helps to measure the intensity of the respondent’s
answers (Churchill and Brown, 2004, p. 329). The
language used in the questionnaire was in English, and
it is sent to the respondents through e-mail, and some
questionnaires filled up through personal interviews
as well. The total number of respondents who
completed the survey was 462 out of these 78 were
not included in the study reason being the respondents
did not complete all the given questions in a proper
asked manner. Thus, the study consists of 384
consumers from north India. A convenience sampling
technique was used for data collection.
Construct Measures
The items considered for this research were taken from
different sources that are available in the literature. The
dependent variable consumer attitude towards
advertising was adopted from Ramaprasad and
Thurwanger (2000). Items for independent variable
divergence and relevance were adopted from Smith et
al. (2007).
Respondent’s Profile
The sample of this study consist of consumers of north
India who show interest in purchasing the products
after watching the advertisements in the different
available media were considered for the questionnaire
filling. The advertisement chosen for this study was
the ad of Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), a subsidiary
company of Unilever; based on the survey, the male
respondents were 52.7% and female respondents were
47.3%. As far as age distribution is concerned,
consumers between the age of 18–45 years were
considered for the study. The majority of the
respondents were between the age of 25 and 35 years
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154
Pravin Chandra Singh and Amit Gautam
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
For this study, it was an essential need to test the
discriminant and convergent validity and reliability.
For measuring the reliability of each construct,
Cronbach’s alpha was used as it has been a popular
and accepted test to measure the reliability, and values
above 0.70 were considered for this study (Nunnally,
1978). The principal component method was applied,
and varimax rotation is used; those factors having the
eigenvalue more than one were retained. The eigenvalue
of these seven factors is in an acceptable range, and
these factors contributed to 90.30% of the total
variance. After applying the required test, the
Cronbach’s alpha values of the items were oscillated
between 0.90 and 0.93 (Table 2). The relationship
between the factors, that is, originality, artistic value,
synthesis, elaboration, flexibility, ad to the consumer
(81.6%), followed by 18–24 years (12.6%). For
sample adequacy, the KMO test was conducted and
the value of the KMO was found 0.753, which proves
the sample was adequate (Table 1).
Table 1: KMO and Bartlett’s Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.757
Bartlett’s test of sphericity Approx. chi-square 7659.475
df 210
Sig. 0.000
Table 2: Factor Loading and Cronbach’s Alpha
Construct Items Factor loading
Flexibility
〈 = 0.91 The ad contained ideas that moved from one subject to another. 0.95
〈 = 0.91 The ad contained different ideas. 0.94
〈 = 0.93 The ad shifted from one idea to another. 0.94
Originality
〈 = 0.91 The ad broke away from habit-bound and stereotypical thinking. 0.95
〈 = 0.92 The ad was ‘out of the ordinary’. 0.94
〈 = 0.92 The ad was unique. 0.94
Elaboration
〈 = 0.90 The ad finished basic ideas so that they become more intricate. 0.95
〈 = 0.92 The ad contained numerous details. 0.94
〈 = 0.93 The ad contained more details than expected. 0.94
Artistic value
〈 = 0.91 The ad made ideas come to life graphically/verbally. 0.95
〈 = 0.91 The ad was visually/verbally distinctive. 0.95
〈 = 0.92 The ad was artistically produced. 0.93
Synthesis
〈 = 0.91 The ad contains unusual connections. 0.95
〈 = 0.93 The ad brought unusual items together. 0.94
〈 = 0.92 The ad connected objects that are usually unrelated. 0.95
Ad to consumer relevance
〈 = 0.90 The ad was appropriate to me. 0.95
〈 = 0.92 The ad was very meaningful to me. 0.93
〈 = 0.93 The ad was useful to me. 0.93
Ad to Brand relevance
〈 = 0.91 The product or brand was appropriate to me. 0.95
〈 = 0.91 The product or brand was meaningful to me. 0.94
〈 = 0.92 The product or brand was useful to me. 0.94
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IIMS Journal of Management Science 155
Role of Divergence and Relevance in Advertising Creativity
and ad to brand, was strong and significant enough.
The variance between the factors was strong, which
shows that the factors have good explanatory power.
After the varimax rotation, all the total amount of
variance is redistributed over seven extracted factors in
which the weighted of synthesis is more than the rest
of the extracted factors.
It estimates the linear relationship between multiple
independent variable and dependent variable. It is used
to test the hypothesis. The results of multiple
regression analyses were presented below.
Table 3: Model Summary
Model RR
2Adjusted Std. error of
R2the estimate
1 0.879 0.773 0.769 2.24488
The estimation of ‘R,’ that is, the coefficient of
correlation was 0.879, which reflects a significant level
of the forecast for the consumer attitude towards
Table 4: ANOVA
Model Sum of squares Df Mean square FSig.
1 Regression 6458.114 7 922.588 183.072 0.000
Residual 1894.844 376 5.039
Total 8352.958 383
Table 5: Regression Coefficients
Model Unstandardised Standardised TSig.
coefficients coefficients
BStd. error Beta
1 (Constant) 3.014 0.741 4.067 0.000
Originality 1.062 0.065 0.405 16.334 0.000
Artistic value 1.081 0.065 0.411 16.547 0.000
Flexibility -0.129 0.065 -0.049 -1.980 0.048
Synthesis 0.298 0.064 0.116 4.684 0.000
Elaboration 1.014 0.065 0.382 15.515 0.000
Ad to consumer 0.957 0.066 0.362 14.599 0.000
Ad to brand 0.998 0.066 0.376 15.197 0.000
Dependent variable: consumer attitude towards advertising creativity
Predictors: (constant), ad to brand, originality, ad to consumer, synthesis, elaboration, artistic value, flexibility
creativity. The segment R2 known as the coefficient of
determination, which uses to explain the variability
between the independent and the dependent variables.
The estimation of R2 = 0.773 this estimation implies
that the 73.60% variability of the dependent variable
(consumer attitude towards creativity) is explained by
the independent variable (originality, artistic value,
flexibility, synthesis, elaboration, ad to consumer and
ad to brand).
Table 5 was used to check and analyse the overall
regression model whether the model is a good fit for
the data or not. In Table 5, it is illustrated that the
considered independent variables are statistically
significant enough, and it can predict the dependent
variable, that is, consumer attitude towards ad
creativity. F (7, 384) = 183.072, P < 0.05. Thus, we
can conclude that the above discussed regression model
is a good fit for data.
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Vol. 10, No. 3, September-December, 2019
156
Pravin Chandra Singh and Amit Gautam
The P-value of the T-test (P = 0.000) of all the seven-
factors (five sub-dimension of divergence and two sub-
dimension from relevance) originality, artistic value,
synthesis, elaboration, ad to the consumer and ad to
the brand is less the alpha value of 0.05. Therefore, all
seven factors are positively related to consumer attitude
towards creativity. Hence, the null hypothesis is
accepted here and this finding it is also supported by
the extant literature (Smith et al., 2007).
Thus, the equation for multiple regressions for this
study:
Attitude towards creativity in advertising = 3.014 +
1.081 (artistic value) + 1.062 (originality) + 1.014
(elaboration) + 0.998 (ad to brand) + 0.957 (ad to
consumer) + 0.298 (synthesis) - 0.129 (flexibility)
In the above regression coefficient table, the value of
the unstandardised beta coefficient among the
independent variable oscillates in between the weakest
relationship of -0.129 (between flexibility and
consumer attitude towards advertising creativity) to
the strongest relationship of 1.081 (between artistic
value and consumer attitude towards advertising
creativity). Therefore, these findings suggest that
‘Artistic value’ is the most significant antecedent in
influencing consumer attitude towards advertising
creativity followed by originality (1.062), elaboration
(1.014), ad to the brand (0.998), ad to consumer
(0.957), synthesis (0.298) and flexibility (-0.129).
Hence, it can be concluded that in case of attitude
towards advertising greater the significance given to
the above discussed factors, that is, originality, artistic
value, elaboration, flexibility, synthesis, ad to the
consumer and ad to brand more positive will be the
attitude towards creativity.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
The finding of this research brought implication to
various stakeholders, and these implications are divided
into two parts theoretical and managerial implications.
As far as theoretical implications are concerning, the
current empirical research reaffirms the notions that
the factors of consumers’ attitudes towards advertising
creativity are highly significant and can be applied in
India under a highly media regulated environment.
On the contrary, in terms of managerial implications
of the study, this research provides some significant
insight into advertising professionals/agencies to
formulate the strategies for better and favourable
consumer attitudes towards advertising creativity. To
make an effort to create a favourable attitude towards
advertising creativity, some strategies are suggested (1)
ensuring that the advertising must have an ‘artistic’
attribute as according to the findings of this research,
artistic value attributes have the strongest relationship
with consumer attitude towards advertising creativity.
(2) The advertising professionals must focus on the
divergence as research finding shows that divergence is
the strongest indicator of creativity (Table 5 or Figure
1). On the contrary, relevance has a lack of main effects,
and that is why researches do not include relevance
while defining ad creativity. (3) While making any
creative advertising, advertising professionals/agencies
must focus on the following factors, namely artistic
value, elaboration, originality and ad to consumer for
positive attitude inclination towards advertising
creativity as they have the strongest relationship with
consumer attitude. (4) The finding suggests that the
role of divergence and relevance is vital in overall
creativity, and it is also supported by the findings of
(Smith et al., 2007).
The implication of the study is that it will provide a
framework for advertising professionals/agencies to
formulate their strategy while making any
advertisement. This study suggested that the
advertisement, which has more ‘artistic value’
attributes, will make a significant and long-lasting
impression towards attitude.
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IIMS Journal of Management Science 157
Role of Divergence and Relevance in Advertising Creativity
LIMITATION AND RECOMMENDATION
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Although the research finding provides us some
significant insightfulness, there are few limitations of
this research as well. This study is primarily based on
cross-sectional data and it could only reveal the net
effects of predictor variable at certain point of time
(Cavana et al., 2001) and due to the inherited
limitation of cross-sectional data this study could not
explain data satisfactorily the observed changes in
patterns and causality of ‘consumer attitude towards
advertising creativity’ (Easterby-Smith et al., 2003, p.
45). The advertisement selected for this study was the
advertisement for ‘lifebuoy’, and that is why the
finding of this research cannot be generalised to other
advertisement across other products. As far as
recommendations and suggestions for future research
are concerned, future research is needed to examine
the relationship between divergence and relevance, and
this variable can be tested in many different situations,
that is, new product development (Im and Workman,
2004) or idea development process itself (Toubia,
2006). The final suggestion is currently, there is no
study/research which compares the process of ad
creativity and its effects across significant demographic/
psychographic factors (Smith et al., 2007).
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How to cite this article: Singh, P.C. and Gautam, A. (2019) ‘Role of Divergence and Relevance in Advertising Creativity’, IIMS
Journal of Management Science, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 149-159.
