Designing the Solution: The Impact of Constraints on Consumers’ Creativity

Across a variety of domains, consumers often choose to act as the designer of their own solution, sourcing the necessary components and assembling the parts to meet their specific goals. While thinking creatively is an integral part in the daily life of every consumer, surprisingly little research in marketing has examined the factors influencing such processes. In our research, we examine how input and time constraints influence the way in which consumers process information during a creative task and how those processes, in turn, influence the creativity of the solution. Paradoxically, we find that input constraints encourage more creative processing, provided the individual is not under significant time constraints. Almost exclusively, consumer behavior researchers havefocused on understanding the ways in which consum-ers learn about, construct preferences for, and choose among existing products or services designed to meet their previ-ously identified needs. However, in many situations, con-sumers ’ needs are more specific and unique and thus require the consumers themselves to play an integral part in creating their own solution. While thinking creatively is an integral part in the daily life of every consumer, surprisingly little research in marketing has examined the factors influencing such processes. In our research, we employ theories from cognitive psychology to examine the factors influencing consumers ’ information processing strategies during a cre-ative task and how those strategies, in turn, influence the creativity of the outcomes produced. We wish to begin to establish an initial theoretical basis for understanding this aspect of consumer behavior and to stimulate additional research in the area. Our research focuses on the effects of both input and time constraints on consumer creativity. The importance of con-straints in creative tasks has been identified by researchers in cognitive psychology (e.g., Costello and Keane 2000;