The Influence Of Different Psychological Distance And Product Attributes Of The Gifts On The Effectiveness Of Free-gifts Promotion

The fierce competition of commodity economy era motivates merchants have to find the optimal marketing strategy to seek survival and development. Gift-promotion is one of the most popular marketing mode adopted by the merchants. The effects of sales promotion are influenced by various factors. What kind of product is considered more during the shopping? Why the same gift-promotion is effective to some products while is not to the others? How is the consumer’s psychology when they are choosing commodities? Objectives:Many researches found that the psychological distance affects consumer’s cognitive process. Consumers pay more attention to the abstract features of the commodity and represent it with high construal level when their psychological distance is far, while concerns more about the specific features and represent with low construal level when the psychological distance is near. The present study explored the effect of the three dimensionalities of psychological distance on the consumers’ psychological mechanism during the sales promotion and the way affecting consumers’ perception of the gifts. Methods:This thesis took advantage of graduates as research subjects by the methods of questionnaire and experimentation in the form of 2 * 2 mixed design to observe psychological distance and the gifts of product attributes on the effectiveness of free-gifts promotion. Results:The results showed that:1 Under the circumstance of time distance, the utilitarian gift is more effect than the hedonic gift when consumers feels near psychological distance of the promotion-activity time, but the hedonic gift is better than the utilitarian gift when consumers feels far psychological distance of the promotion-activity time.2 Under the circumstance of spatial distance, the utilitarian gift is more effect than the hedonic gift when consumers feels near psychological distance of the place hosting promotion-activity, but the hedonic gift is better than the utilitarian gift when consumers feels far psychological distance of the place hosting promotion-activity.3 Under the circumstance of probability distance, the utilitarian gift is more effect than the hedonic gift when consumers feels high probability of getting the gift, but the hedonic gift is better than the utilitarian gift when consumers feels low probability of getting the gift.