Abstract

Purpose This research investigates when and how brands influence attribute importance weights. Most past studies modelling consumer decision processes treated the brand of a product as an attribute parallel to the price, color or size of a product, and as a result, those studies assigned an equal (i.e. non-contingent) importance weight across brands for each attribute. In contrast, this study introduces a brand-contingent attribute-weighting process, in which brand is a higher-order construct that influences attribute importance. Design/methodology/approach This study presents a multi-level choice model in which the importance weight of an attribute can vary across brands. This study then estimates the model using real purchase data and survey data from an airline industry. Findings This study finds that attribute importance weights are contingent upon two aspects of a brand - the perceived relative position of the brand and consumers' brand usage experiences. Specifically, when consumers perceive a brand to be inferior to its competitors in a given attribute, they generally place greater weight on that attribute for that brand. In contrast, when consumers perceive a brand to be superior to its competitors in a given attribute, only consumers with extensive brand usage experiences place greater weight on that attribute for that brand. Practical implications The findings provide managerial insights on brand positioning and segmentation strategies using consumers' brand usage experiences. Originality/Value This study advances the literature on consumer decision processes by modeling an attribute-weighting process that is contingent upon brands. The present study models this process based on consumer behavior theories and estimates the model using real market data.

Keyword

Brand experience ;  Brands ;  Importance weight ;  Modeling consumer behavior ;  Negativity effect ;  Positioning

Abstract

Purpose: Anger has become one of the dominantly experienced emotions in recent years, particularly under the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the critical role that anger plays in consumers' lives, the present research examines how feeling angry about money influences consumers' spending and money distribution decisions. Research design and methodology. Three experiments were conducted using different emotion induction methods (i.e., dictator game, autobiographical recall, and scenario). Results. Feeling angry about money decreased pro-social spending (i.e., less money distribution to the others), but it did not affect virtuous or utilitarian spending for the self-unlike past finding on negative feelings that increased utilitarian spending. Furthermore, whereas anger-tainted money decreased pro-social spending of that money, guilt-tainted money increased pro-social spending. However, the effects of guilt versus anger were not completely symmetrical. The antagonistic effect of anger was diffusive across spending on distant and close others, whereas the pro-social effect of guilt was limited to distant others. Conclusions: These findings help policy makers and financial institutions forecast how money will be distributed or circulated when it is likely to be dampened by anger under the pandemic. They also highlight the importance of examining the effects of discrete emotions (e.g., anger vs. guilt) beyond valence.

Keyword

Anger ;  Consumer Spending ;  Guilt ;  Mental Accounting ;  Money Distribution

Abstract

This research investigates when and how brands influence attribute importance weights. Most past studies modelling consumer decision processes treated the brand of a product as an attribute parallel to the price, color, or size of a product; and as a result, those studies assigned an equal (i.e., non-contingent) importance weight across brands for each attribute. In contrast, we introduce a brand-contingent attribute-weighting process, in which brand is a higher-order construct that influences attribute importance. We present a multi-level choice model in which the importance weight of an attribute can vary across brands. We then estimate the model using real purchase data and survey data from airline industry. We find that attribute importance weights are contingent upon two aspects of a brand—the perceived relative position of the brand and consumers’ brand usage experiences. Specifically, when consumers perceive a brand to be inferior to its competitors in a given attribute, they generally place greater weight on that attribute for that brand. In contrast, when consumers perceive a brand to be superior to its competitors in a given attribute, only consumers with extensive brand usage experiences place greater weight on that attribute for that brand.Our findings provide managerial insights on brand positioning and segmentation strategies using consumers’ brand usage experiences. We advance the literature on consumer decision processes by modeling an attribute-weighting process that is contingent upon brands. We model this process based on consumer behavior theories and estimate the model using real market data.

Keyword

Abstract

Past research offers conflicting findings on whether sadness-evoking charity appeals help solicit a donation. To reconcile these findings, we introduce prospective donors' regulatory focus as a moderator for understanding when and why sadness appeals motivate or demotivate giving. Specifically, we propose that the sense of helplessness or loss of control associated with sadness appeals increases donors' sensitivity to advertiser's manipulative persuasion tactics, as those tactics can threaten donors' control over their donation decision. As a result, sadness appeals are more likely to activate persuasion knowledge among prevention- (vs. promotion-) oriented donors who tend to be vigilant against manipulative persuasion attempts. Across six main studies and two supplementary studies, we find that a prevention (vs. promotion) focus discourages charitable giving when it is solicited using a sadness appeal, whereas regulatory focus does not affect the giving when other emotion appeals (e.g., happiness appeal or guilt appeal) are used. We find that a prevention (vs. promotion) focus demotivates donation solicited by a sadness appeal because it activates persuasion knowledge that evaluates solicitor's motive behind the sadness appeal, resulting in increased skepticism, dampened feelings of sympathy, and consequently, reduced charitable giving. However, when persuasion knowledge is deactivated (e.g., when donors' cognitive capacity is constrained or the soliciting charity has a reliable reputation), regulatory focus no longer affects donor skepticism, sympathy, and charitable giving, even when a sadness appeal is used to call for donation.

Keyword

Charitable giving ;  Persuasion knowledge ;  Regulatory focus ;  Sadness ;  Skepticism ;  Sympathy

Abstract

The present research investigates how purchase motives (hedonic vs. utilitarian) influence the effectiveness of partitioned versus combined pricing. Across four studies, we find that compared to combined pricing, partitioned pricing increases hedonic purchases, but not utilitarian purchases. We find this happens because consumers considering a hedonic purchase tend to feel anticipated guilt associated with their hedonic spending, and partitioned pricing is used as a guilt-mitigating justification for the spending. Specifically, consumers with a hedonic purchase motive underprocess a surcharge, which enables them to perceive the price of the product as lower than the actual, combined price. This lower price perception helps consumers justify their hedonic purchase as an act of saving money, and as a result, alleviates guilt. These effects are magnified among consumers who have high disposition to feel consumption guilt. When a price discount is offered, it attenuates the effectiveness of partitioned pricing because the price discount serves as a more effective justification by offering actual saving, not just the perception of saving. Our findings contribute to the pricing literature by uncovering a motivational factor influencing the effectiveness of partitioned (vs. combined) pricing, and offer a useful pricing guideline to product managers based on the product-pricing fit revealed in our research. (C) 2019 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword

Guilt ;  Hedonic/utilitarian motivation ;  Justification ;  Partitioned pricing