How Do Price and Quantity Promotions Affect Hedonic Purchases? An ERPs Study

Abstract

Due to consuming hedonic products unnecessary to basic well-being, consumers need justifications for pleasure. However, different justifications have differential influences in promoting hedonic purchases, such as price and quantity promotions (PP and QP), the difference being that the latter requires purchasing additional units to get the same discount as the former. In the present study, even-related potentials (ERPs) was applied to reveal the timing of brain activities to further understand how promotion information consisting of promotion type (PP and QP) and discount depth, deep and shallow discounts (DD and SD) on hedonic products was processed. Behaviorally, consumers were more willing to purchase items in PP and DD conditions than QP and SD conditions, respectively, and spent more time making final purchase decisions in QP and DD condition or PP and SD condition compared to PP and DD condition. Neurophysiologically, DD automatically recruited more attentional resources than SD and led to a higher P2 amplitude. QP and DD condition or PP and SD condition evoked a larger N2 amplitude and enhanced perceptual conflict compared to PP and DD condition. During late stage, PP and DD elicited a more positive LPP amplitude in contrast to QP and SD, respectively, indicating that people have stronger purchase intention and positive affect in PP and DD contexts. These findings provided evidence for the differential influences between PP and QP and what ultimately made consumers buy hedonic products or not.

Symbolic Product Superiority in the Neural Salience of Compensatory Consumption Behavior

“…A mismatch between actual and expected stimulus elicits an N2 component at 200-350 ms, implying cognitive control in decision-making processes. In the late cognitive stages, LPP is an effective indicator of motivation and emotional arousal, occurring 300-500 ms after stimulus onset and lasting hundreds of milliseconds (Nieuwenhuis et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2014;Jin et al, 2017;Jing et al, 2019). As in the marketing literature, LPP amplitude was positively correlated with sustaining attention involvement and purchasing motivation (Ma et al, 2018).…”

“…This cognitive function of P2 might contribute to the relationship between purchase intention and variation in attention involvement. The anterior N2 component has also been used to investigate the role of conflict detection (Folstein and Van Petten, 2008;Ma et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2014;Jin et al, 2017;Jing et al, 2019). A mismatch between actual and expected stimulus elicits an N2 component at 200-350 ms, implying cognitive control in decision-making processes.…”

An Investigation of a Frontal Negative Slow Wave in a Virtual Hedonic Purchase Task

“…Our examination gained us a significant main effect of promotion type for the N2 component. Consumer neuroscience studies indicated that the component is positively related to perceptual conflict (e.g., Wang et al, 2016 ; Jing et al, 2019 ). The result for N2 has provided the argument about reaction time with evidence.…”

“…A total of (50) images of snacks (i.e., a small meal, like a chocolate bar) as hedonic items whose hedonic score is higher than utilitarian score ( Jing et al, 2019 ) were chosen and manipulated to a similar size, 300 × 300 pixels. As shown in Figure 1 , in order to have enough trials and acceptable signal to noise ratio, the following amounts of discount, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, or 5.5 yuan, and 0 yuan donation was considered as pure price promotion, while 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 yuan discount and a fixed 0.5 yuan donation was done as a mixed promotion.…”

“…On the basis of the grand average waveforms and some literatures on consumer neuroscience ( Wang et al, 2016 ; Goto et al, 2017 ; Jing et al, 2019 ), F3, Fz, and F4, as a frontal cluster, were selected for the N2, measured by the mean amplitude of the 270–330 ms time window, respectively. Similarly, the time window of 400–800 ms was analyzed for the FNSW including F3, Fz, and F4, as a frontal cluster ( Matsuda and Nittono, 2015b , 2018a ).…”