A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Audience's Perceptions of Creativity in Online Advertising

Authors

Andrew McStay, London College of CommunicationFollow

Abstract

In this paper I seek to inquire upon audience's perceptions of creativity in online advertising - a heretofore poorly understood area. This paper initially outlines current academic understanding of creativity in online advertising, mainly derived from quantitative assessments. It then advances a qualitative methodology including diary-interviews and ethnographic online interviews across 41 participants. My starting point is a critique of the most comprehensive conceptual intervention in the area of advertising creativity - Smith and Yang's (2004) typology of "relevance" and "divergence". I assess to what extent this typology emerges from my participants' data. Two key features of relevance - contextual relevance and intrusiveness - are explored in depth, producing deeper insights into their nature as perceived by participants.

Keywords

Online, Advertising, Creativity, Qualitative, Typology, Diary, and Relevance

Publication Date

1-1-2010

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2010.1139

Recommended APA Citation

McStay, A. (2010). A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Audience's Perceptions of Creativity in Online Advertising. The Qualitative Report, 15(1), 37-58. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2010.1139