A benefit congruency framework of sales promotion effectiveness

Are monetary savings the only explanation for consumer response to a sales promotion ? If not, how do the different consumer benefits of a sales promotion influence its effectiveness ? To address the first question, this research builds a framework of the multiple consumer benefits of a sales promotion. Through a series of measurement studies, we find that monetary and non-monetary promotions provide consumers with different levels of three hedonic benefits (opportunities for value-expression, entertainment, and exploration), and three utilitarian benefits (savings, higher product quality, and improved shopping convenience). To address the second question, this research develops a benefit congruency framework which argues that a sales promotion's effectiveness is determined by the utilitarian or hedonic nature of the benefits it delivers, and the congruence these benefits have with the promoted product. Among other results, two choice experiments show that as predicted for high-equity brands, monetary promotions are more effective for utilitarian products than for hedonic products. We then discuss the implications the multi-benefit and the benefit congruency frameworks have for understanding consumer responses to sales promotions, for the debate about the value of everyday-low-price policies, and for designing more effective sales promotions.Sales promotions; consumer benefit; benefit congruency

Unseen is Unsold: Assessing Visual Equity with Commercial Eye-Tracking Data

In today’s cluttered retail environments, creating consumer pull through memory-based brand equity is not enough; marketers must also create “visual equity” for their brands (i.e., incremental sales triggered by in-store visual attention). In this paper, we show that commercial eye-tracking data, analyzed using a simple decision-path model of visual attention and brand consideration, can separately measure memory-based and visual equity of brands displayed on a supermarket shelf. In the two product categories studied, juices and detergents, we find that instore visual attention doubles on average the memory-based probability of consideration. Additionally, our empirical applications and normative analyses show how separating memorybased and visual equity can help improve managerial decisions about which brands to select for enhanced point-of-purchase marketing activities

Effects of front-of-pack labels on the nutritional quality of supermarket food purchases: evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial

To examine whether four pre-selected front-of-pack nutrition labels improve food purchases in real-life grocery shopping settings, we put 1.9 million labels on 1266 food products in four categories in 60 supermarkets and analyzed the nutritional quality of 1,668,301 purchases using the FSA nutrient profiling score. Effect sizes were 17 times smaller on average than those found in comparable laboratory studies. The most effective nutrition label, Nutri-Score, increased the purchases of foods in the top third of their category nutrition-wise by 14%, but had no impact on the purchases of foods with medium, low, or unlabeled nutrition quality. Therefore, Nutri-Score only improved the nutritional quality of the basket of labeled foods purchased by 2.5% (−0.142 FSA points). Nutri-Score’s performance improved with the variance (but not the mean) of the nutritional quality of the category. In-store surveys suggest that Nutri-Score’s ability to attract attention and help shoppers rank products by nutritional quality may explain its performance

Effects of front-of-pack labels on the nutritional quality of supermarket food purchases: evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial

To examine whether four pre-selected front-of-pack nutrition labels improve food purchases in real-life grocery shopping settings, we put 1.9 million labels on 1,266 food products in four categories in 60 supermarkets and analyzed the nutritional quality of 1,668,301 purchases using the FSA nutrient profiling score. Effect sizes were 17 times smaller on average than those found in comparable laboratory studies. The most effective nutrition label, Nutri-Score, increased the purchases of foods in the top third of their category nutrition-wise by 14%, but had no impact on the purchases of foods with medium, low, or unlabeled nutrition quality. Therefore, Nutri-Score only improved the nutritional quality of the basket of labeled foods purchased by 2.5% (-0.142 FSA points). Nutri-Score’s performance improved with the variance (but not the mean) of the nutritional quality of the category. In-store surveys suggest that Nutri-Score’s ability to attract attention and help shoppers rank products by nutritional quality may explain its performance

When Does the Past Repeat Itself? The Interplay of Behavior Prediction and Personal Norms

Does asking people about their future behavior increase or decrease the likelihood that they will repeat their past behavior? In two laboratory and two field experiments, we find that behavior prediction strengthens behavior repetition, making people more likely to do what they normally do, when personal norms regarding engaging in a behavior are weak or not easily accessible. However, when personal norms are strong or made accessible at the time of the prediction request, behavior prediction weakens behavior repetition and increases the likelihood that people do what they think they should do-even if it's not what they normally would do. These findings provide new tools for influencing behavior repetition, reconcile some seemingly contradictory past findings, and contribute to the debate regarding the relative importance of habits and intentions in guiding behavior. T he repetition of unhealthy behaviors (such as overeating) and the lack of repetition of healthy behaviors (such as exercising) are leading contributors to preventable deaths in developed countrie

Does Red Bull give wings to vodka? Placebo effects of marketing labels on perceived intoxication and risky attitudes and behaviors

Why sexual assaults and car accidents are associated with the consumption of alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AMED) is still unclear. In a single study, we show that the label used to describe AMED cocktails can have causal non‐pharmacological effects on consumers’ perceived intoxication, attitudes, and behaviors. Young men who consumed a cocktail of fruit juice, vodka, and Red Bull felt more intoxicated, took more risks, were more sexually self‐confident, but intended to wait longer before driving when the cocktail’s label emphasized the presence of the energy drink (a “Vodka‐Red Bull cocktail”) compared to when it did not (a “Vodka” or “Exotic fruits” cocktail). Speaking to the process underlying these placebo effects, we found no moderation of experience but a strong interaction with expectations: These effects were stronger for people who believe that energy drinks boost alcohol intoxication and who believe that intoxication increases impulsiveness, reduces sexual inhibition, and weakens reflexes. These findings have implications for understanding marketing placebo effects and for the pressing debate on the regulation of the marketing of energy drinks.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142148/1/jcpy456.pd

Promotion des ventes, psychologie de l'achat et comportement de consommation

Sales promotions have experienced considerable growth over the past twenty years. Paradoxically, a growing number of academics and marketers argue that sales promotions are a sub-optimal by-product of price competition without any intrinsic utility for the consumer beyond reducing prices. In the first section of this dissertation, we re-examine the utility of sales promotions from the consumer's perspective. In so doing, we enlarge the currently dominant model of consumer response to sales promotions which is mainly focused on the economic dimension of sales promotions and on their effects on consumer purchase behavior. In the second section, we develop scales measuring the multiple consumer benefits of sales promotions and experimentally study their effects on brand choice. Our results show that consumers evaluate sales promotions on the basis of their utilitarian benefits: savings, but also quality and convenience. Sales promotions also provide consumers with hedonic benefits: entertainment, exploration and self-expression. We then show that monetary promotions are more effective for utilitarian products and that non-monetary promotions are more effective for hedonic products. In the third section, we examine the effects of sales promotions on consumption behavior. Field and laboratory experiments show that promotional stockpiling accelerate the consumption of the promoted product. They also show that this effect is partially due to the higher visibility and lower price of the promoted product. A scanner data analysis further shows that the effects of promotional stockpiling on consumption are only significant for substitutable products consumed on impulse. Overall, our results suggest to reconsider the utility of sales promotions for they can have an intrinsic utility for the consumer and they can increase primary demand by accelerating product consumptionLa promotion des ventes a connu un développement considérable au cours des vingt dernières années à tel point que les sommes investies dans les opérations promotionnelles représentent aujourd'hui le double de celles investies dans la publicité. Pourtant, le bienfondé des politiques promotionnelles mises en place par les entreprises est profondément remis en cause. Bien qu'on leur reconnaisse une efficacité réelle sur le court terme, on s'interroge sur leur capacité réelle à augmenter les ventes sur le long terme. Selon la vision dominante, les promotions sont une pure conséquence du jeu concurrentiel et n'ont aucune utilité intrinsèque pour les consommateurs au delà de leur impact sur les prix. Dès lors, un nombre croissant d'entreprises cherchent à diminuer la pression promotionnelle en faveur d'une politique de bas prix constants. Dans la première partie de cette thèse, nous réexaminons la question générale de l'utilité des promotions en nous plaçant du point de vue du consommateur. Ce faisant, nous élargissons le modèle dominant des recherches sur les promotions qui se focalise sur leur dimension économique et sur leurs effets sur le comportement d'achat. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, nous examinons ainsi l'ensemble des bénéfices utilitaires et hédoniques des promotions pour les consommateurs en développant des échelles de mesure de ces bénéfices et en examinant expérimentalement leurs effets sur le comportement d'achat. Nos résultats montrent que les consommateurs évaluent les promotions sur la base des économies, certes, mais aussi de la qualité et de la commodité qu'elles procurent. Les promotions offrent également des bénéfices de nature hédonique : le divertissement, l'exploration de l'environnement d'achat et l'expression de soi. Nous montrons ensuite que, parce qu'elles offrent des bénéfices différents, les promotions monétaires (coupons, offres de remboursement, etc.) sont plus efficaces dans des catégories de produits utilitaires alors que les promotions non monétaires (jeux, cadeaux gratuits, etc.) sont plus efficaces dans des catégories de produits hédoniques. Dans la troisième partie de la thèse, nous examinons l'impact des promotions sur le comportement de consommation. Des expérimentations sur le terrain et en laboratoire montrent, d'une part, que le stockage promotionnel accélère significativement le rythme de consommation et, d'autre part, que cet effet est dû à la plus grande visibilité du produit stocké et à la réduction de son prix d'achat. Une analyse de données de scanner révèle ensuite que les effets du stockage promotionnel sur la consommation ne sont significatifs que pour les produits substituables et consommés par impulsion. Au total, en étudiant la psychologie de l'achat de produits en promotion et les effets des promotions sur le comportement de consommation, nos travaux nous incitent à reconsidérer l'intérêt des promotions dans la stratégie marketing des entreprise

Dix ans de recherches sur la mesure des effets des promotions

La très forte croissance des recherches en promotion des ventes est due en grande partie à l'apparition des données issues des panels scannérisés. Ces données sont à l'origine de plusieurs traditions de recherche que l'on peut distinguer par leur variable dépendante: les modèles de mesure sur données agrégées, dont l'objectif est de fournir aux praticiens un outil leur permettant de quantifier les effets des promotions sur les ventes; les modèles de mesure sur données individuelles qui permettent de connaître et de quantifier les effets des promotions sur le choix de la marque, la quantité achetée, la date d'achat et la décision d'acheter; les modèles d'aide à la décision, dont l'objectif est d'aider les décideurs à concevoir des actions promotionnelles rentables. Cet article présente la spécificité de chaque tradition de recherche, ses principaux résultats et ses pistes de recherches les plus prometteuses. </jats:p