Creativity and E-Advertising: A Qualitative Study of Art Directors' Creative Processes

An interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews with 33 creators of advertising banners for the Internet, combined with retrospective protocols on the creation process, reveals that they hold implicit theories about the potential impact of their work on different audiences. These audiences intervene in the form of intraindividual imaginary dialogue partners who, throughout the creative process, give their reactions to the message being created. Creation and evaluation are therefore intertwined and not, as the literature on creativity has suggested, two sequential steps of the creative process.