The Studies Of The Effects Of Promotional Framing On Consumers’ Responses

Sales promotion acting as one of marketing tools is very useful to stimulate consumers’purchasing behavior. Although some sales promotions have the same promotional savings,they have different effects on consumers’ responses because of different presentation.Therefore, the effect of sales promotion on consumers is worthy to be studied further.Meanwhile, with the increasing multinational management and consumer behavior on global shopping, multinational corporations should consider consumers with different culture when adopting sales promotions strategies. Therefore, the cross-cultural examination of the effects of promotional framing on consumers becomes more and more important. Therefore, this thesis further explores how consumers respond to different promotional framing with different presentation. This thesis also explores consumers’ different responses to promotional traming in different circumstances, and how consumers with different cultural background respond to promotional framing.Based on the framing effect, this thesis explores the effects of promotional framing on consumers’ responses through two studies. Study one mainly explores the effects of two types of sales promotion (the promotion framed as a reduced loss and the promotion framed as a gain) on consumers’ responses and the boundary conditions. There exist many studies about the effects of sales promotional framing on consumers’ responses. Two types of sales promotions (the promotion framed as a reduced loss and the promotion framed as a gain) are studied by many scholars, but the conclusions are inconsistent about which one is more useful to stimulate consumers’ purchasing behavior. Therefore,it is worthy to be studied further. Based on current literature, this thesis selects products characteristic, consumer characteristic, time pressure and spatial location as moderating variables to investigate the moderating effects on sales promotional framing to address the gap in the fields of the sales promotional framing effects. Study two mainly explores the effects of "buy one get one free promotion" and "buy two get fifty percent off promotion" on consumers’ responses from cross-cultural perspective, further extending the promotional types and promotional environment to examine the sales promotional framing effects, and supplementing relative studies of the sales promotional framing effects.Study one explores the effects of the promotion framed as a reduced loss and the promotion framed as a gain on consumers, responses and the moderating effects of products characteristic, consumer characteristic, time pressure and spatial location. Study one constructs a framework model of the impact of different promotional frameworks on consumers and proposes some hypotheses. Study one uses three experiments to verify the hypotheses. The results show that the promotion framed as a reduced loss is better than the promotion framed as a gain in consumers, responses, and consumer perceived quality,perceived value and anticipated regret are the mediating variables in the relationship between promotional framing and purchase intention. Meanwhile, study one verifies four moderating variables in the relationship between promotional framing and consumers, responses. That is,the promotion framed as a reduced loss is better than the promotion framed as a gain in consumer perceived value and purchase intention in high level of product involvcement,while the effect is not significant in low level of product involvement. The promotion framed as a reduced loss is better than the promotion framed as a gain in consumer perceived value and anticipated regret for consumers with the prevention focus, while the promotion framed as a gain is better than the promotion framed as a reduced loss for consumers with the promotion focus. Meanwhile, the promotion framed as a reduced loss is better than the promotion framed as a gain in consumer perceived value and anticipated regret when the promotion time constraint is high, while the promotional framing effect disappears when the promotion time constraint is low. The promotion framed as a a reduced loss is better than the promotion framed as a gain in consumer perceived value and purchase intention when the promotion information displayed in the right and above of the advertisement content, while the result is opposite when the promotion information displayed in the left and below of the advertisement content.Study two explores how cross-cultural differences moderate the effects of "buy one get one free promotion" and "buy two get fifty percent off promotion" on consumers’ responses across China (lower uncertainty avoidance) and Pakistan (higher uncertainty avoidance)through an experiment. The results show that "buy one get one free promotion" is better than"buy two get fifty percent off promotion" in consumers’ responses,and the impact of "buy one get one free" and "buy two get fifty percent off’ on consumer perceived risk, perceived quality, perceived value and purchase intention are significantly larger in Pakistan than in China. Meanwhile, study two also verifies that consumer perceived risk and perceived quality are the mediating variables in the relationship between promotional framing and perceived value, and perceived value is the mediating variable in the relationship between promotional framing and purchase intention.This thesis explores the effects of sales promotional framing on consumers’ responses,the mechanisms underlying the effects and boundary conditions systematically and comprehensively through two studies. This research extends the single cultural background to different cultural background. Meanwhile, this research extends offline sales promotional framing to online sales promotional framing. The results have theoretical and managerial implications. The conclusions theoretically fill the gap in the fields of the sales promotional framing effects and reveal a number of novel boundary conditions for the promotion framing effect. The findings contribute to the cross-cultural study about the effects of promotional framing on consumers’ responses. Meanwhile, our study conclusions also provide suggestions to enterprises when they formulate promotional strategy in practice.