The development of creative industries in the context of socio-economic relations generates the need to comprehend a creative product, not only as a result of intellectual labor, but also as a market category, which is associated with the complexity of determining its value and the subjectivity of perceived usefulness by consumers. The article presents the results of a study of some existing definitions, as well as the public's understanding of the characteristics of creative goods and services, which, according to the authors, expands the idea of creative product in the framework of commercial activity. Researchers approach the understanding of the category both from the point of view of political economy, focusing on the procedural nature, including the stages of production, reproduction, distribution, exchange and consumption, and from the point of view of marketing models, pointing to such mandatory properties of a creative product as utility, originality (including synonyms) and novelty. Moreover, usefulness is singled out as a mandatory characteristic regardless of the system of coordination of analysis. The conducted quantitative research, the results of which are partially described in this article, gave grounds to assume that the usefulness (benefit from the use) of creative goods and services is not so significant in the eyes of consumers. At the same time, strangeness (taking into account all definitions that are close in meaning), on the contrary, is seen by respondents as a mandatory property. Thus, more than 40% of respondents indicated "unusual" and similar words in the answers, and less than 1% - "benefit" and "useful". Based on the data obtained, a working definition of creative goods and services was formulated.