Contributions of Consumer-perceived Creativity and Beauty to Willingness-to-pay for Design Products

Consumer perception of creativity in design products equivalent in function was measured using global single-item ratings of creativity. The measure was found to have a high level of agreement between raters and have discriminant validity to another aesthetic construct, that of beauty. In two experiments using designer lamps and wrist watches as stimuli, the present study shows how creativity and beauty both positively influence consumer willingness-to-pay (WtP) for the designed product, but each explains different parts of the variance. The results show that it is essential to develop separate models of creativity and beauty evaluations in consumer psychology, in that they seem to be distinct factors, explaining different parts of the variance in their consequences on WtP.