Effects of Promotion Type on Future Purchase Intentions Through Different Types of Consumer Response: A Structured Abstract

Abstract

The effectiveness of a marketing strategy does not only depend on effects during the implementation period but also on future effects (Mela et al. 1998; Pauwels et al. 2002). Promotions often produce positive consumer responses such as higher purchase intentions during the promotion period (Alford and Biswas 2002; Gupta 1988), but can also have negative future effects on sales (Kalwani and Yim 1992; Lattin and Bucklin 1989) due to a reduction of consumers’ reference price (RP) (Bambauer-Sachse and Massera 2015; Grewal et al. 1998), which leads to a lower willingness to pay (WTP) (Ranyard et al. 2001). Previous studies did not analyze possible future effects of promotions on purchase intentions through mediator variables such as attitudes toward the ad, which represent important determinants of ad strategy effectiveness (Mehta 2000) and which influence product attitudes as well as purchase intentions (Spears and Singh 2004). Thus, the objective of this study is to propose a model that examines effects of promotion type (promotions that directly reduce the price customers have to pay vs. promotions that do not directly reduce the price to be paid) on future purchase intentions (PIfut) through reductions of consumers’ RP and WTP on the one hand and through attitudes toward the ad/the product and purchase intentions during the promotion period (PIprom) on the other hand. The findings of our study provide marketers with strategically important insights into the processes triggered by different types of promotions as well as with knowledge on which types of promotion have the least negative effects on PIfut.