Thematic Product Assortment Displays Enhance Appreciation of Creativity in the Marketplace: The Spillover Effect of a Relational Processing Mind-Set

The authors propose and offer evidence that exposure to thematic versus more conventional taxonomic product assortment displays induce consumers to engage in predominately relational processing, which gives rise to a relational processing mind-set. This mind-set may then carry over and prompt consumers to exhibit heightened appreciation of creative goods and communications in the marketplace. Specifically, not only do consumers evaluate more positively creative products and ads that they later encounter in the market, but they also report a willingness to pay more for creative goods. In contrast, these effects are absent on consumers’ appreciation of and willingness-to-pay for conventional noncreative products. Importantly though, these downstream effects produced by exposure to thematic product assortments are more likely to occur among consumers with an interdependent versus an independent self-construal.