The Effect of Price Promotional Information about Brand on Consumer's Quality Perception: Conditioning on Pretrial Brand

품패개격촉소신식대소비자질량인지적영향(品牌价格促销信息对消费者质量认知的影响)

Price promotion typically reduces the price for a given quantity or increases the quantity available at the same price, thereby enhancing value and creating an economic incentive to purchase. It often is used to encourage product or service trial among nonusers of products or services. Thus, it is important to understand the effects of price promotions on quality perception made by consumer who do not have prior experience with the promoted brand. However, if consumers associate a price promotion itself with inferior brand quality, the promotion may not achieve the sales increase the economic incentives otherwise might have produced. More specifically, low qualitative perception through price promotion will undercut the economic and psychological incentives and reduce the likelihood of purchase. Thus, it is important for marketers to understand how price promotional informations about a brand have impact on consumer's unfavorable quality perception of the brand. Previous literatures on the effects of price promotions on quality perception reveal inconsistent explanations. Some focused on the unfavorable effect of price promotion on consumer's perception. But others showed that price promotions didn't raise unfavorable perception on the brand. Prior researches found these inconsistent results related to the timing of the price promotion's exposure and quality evaluation relative to trial. And, whether the consumer has been experienced with the product promotions in the past or not may moderate the effects. A few studies considered differences among product categories as fundamental factors. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of price promotional informations on consumer's unfavorable quality perception under the different conditions. The author controlled the timing of the promotional exposure and varied past promotional patterns and information presenting patterns. Unlike previous researches, the author examined the effects of price promotions setting limit to pretrial situation by controlling potentially moderating effects of prior personal experience with the brand. This manipulations enable to resolve possible controversies in relation to this issue. And this manipulation is meaningful for the work sector. Price promotion is not only used to target existing consumers but also to encourage product or service trial among nonusers of products or services. Thus, it is important for marketers to understand how price promotional informations about a brand have impact on consumer's unfavorable quality perception of the brand. If consumers associate a price promotion itself with inferior quality about unused brand, the promotion may not achieve the sales increase the economic incentives otherwise might have produced. In addition, if the price promotion ends, the consumer that have purchased that certain brand will likely to display sharply decreased repurchasing behavior. Through a literature review, hypothesis 1 was set as follows to investigate the adjustive effect of past price promotion on quality perception made by consumers; The influence that price promotion of unused brand have on quality perception made by consumers will be adjusted by past price promotion activity of the brand. In other words, a price promotion of an unused brand that have not done a price promotion in the past will have a unfavorable effect on quality perception made by consumer. Hypothesis 2-1 was set as follows : When an unused brand undertakes price promotion for the first time, the information presenting pattern of price promotion will have an effect on the consumer's attribution for the cause of the price promotion. Hypothesis 2-2 was set as follows : The more consumer dispositionally attribute the cause of price promotion, the more unfavorable the quality perception made by consumer will be. Through test 1, the subjects were given a brief explanation of the product and the brand before they were provided with a $2{\times}2$ factorial design that has 4 patterns of price promotion (presence or absence of past price promotion * presence or absence of current price promotion) and the explanation describing the price promotion pattern of each cell. Then the perceived quality of imaginary brand WAVEX was evaluated in the scale of 7. The reason tennis racket was chosen is because the selected product group must have had almost no past price promotions to eliminate the influence of average frequency of promotion on the value of price promotional information as Raghubir and Corfman (1999) pointed out. Test 2 was also carried out on students of the same management faculty of test 1 with tennis racket as the product group. As with test 1, subjects with average familiarity for the product group and low familiarity for the brand was selected. Each subjects were assigned to one of the two cells representing two different information presenting patterns of price promotion of WAVEX (case where the reason behind price promotion was provided/case where the reason behind price promotion was not provided). Subjects looked at each promotional information before evaluating the perceived quality of the brand WAVEX in the scale of 7. The effect of price promotion for unfamiliar pretrial brand on consumer's perceived quality was proved to be moderated with the presence or absence of past price promotion. The consistency with past promotional behavior is important variable that makes unfavorable effect on brand evaluations get worse. If the price promotion for the brand has never been carried out before, price promotion activity may have more unfavorable effects on consumer's quality perception. Second, when the price promotion of unfamiliar pretrial brand was executed for the first time, presenting method of informations has impact on consumer's attribution for the cause of firm's promotion. And the unfavorable effect of quality perception is higher when the consumer does dispositional attribution comparing with situational attribution. Unlike the previous studies where the main focus was the absence or presence of favorable or unfavorable motivation from situational/dispositional attribution, the focus of this study was exaus ing the fact that a situational attribution can be inferred even if the consumer employs a dispositional attribution on the price promotional behavior, if the company provides a persuasive reason. Such approach, in academic perspectih sis a large significance in that it explained the anchoring and adjng ch approcedures by applying it to a non-mathematical problem unlike the previous studies where it wis ionaly explained by applying it to a mathematical problem. In other wordn, there is a highrspedency tmatispositionally attribute other's behaviors according to the fuedach aal attribution errors and when this is applied to the situation of price promotions, we can infer that consumers are likely tmatispositionally attribute the company's price promotion behaviors. Ha ever, even ueder these circumstances, the company can adjng the consumer's anchoring tmareduce the po wibiliute thdispositional attribution. Furthermore, unlike majority of previous researches on short/long-term effects of price promotion that only considered the effect of price promotions on consumer's purchasing behaviors, this research measured the effect on perceived quality, one of man elements that affects the purchasing behavior of consumers. These results carry useful implications for the work sector. A guideline of effectively providing promotional informations for a new brand can be suggested through the outcomes of this research. If the brand is to avoid false implications such as inferior quality while implementing a price promotion strategy, it must provide a clear and acceptable reasons behind the promotion. Especially it is more important for the company with no past price promotion to provide a clear reason. An inconsistent behavior can be the cause of consumer's distrust and anxiety. This is also one of the most important factor of risk of endless price wars. Price promotions without prior notice can buy doubt from consumers not market share.

典型的价格促销是指降低一定数量产品的价格或以相同的价 格获得更多数量的产品, 从而增加价值和创造经济的激励购买. 价格促销经常用来鼓励没有消费过产品或服务的用户试用产品或服务. 因此, 理解价格促销对那些从来没有使用过促销品牌的消费者的此品牌质量认知的影响是很重要的. 然而, 如果消费者通过价格促销获得的产品的质量不好, 促销可能达不到用经济的刺激方法来增加销售的效果. 相反则有可能发生. 具体来说, 通过价格促销消费者产生低的质量的认知会削弱经济的和心理上的激励, 减少购买的可能性. 因此, 对市场营销人员来说理解品牌的价格促销信息如何影响消费者对此品牌的质量的不良认知是非常重要的. 先前的有关价格促销对质量认知的影响的研究有不一致的解释. 一些是关注价格促销对消费者认知的不利影响. 但是其他的研究显示价格促销并没有提高消费者对品牌的不良认知. 之前的研究发现这些不一致的结果和价格促销曝光的时机以及相关的试验得出的质量评估有关. 而且, 消费者是否经历过产品促销都可能会调节这些影响. 一些研究把产品类别的不同作为基本的因素. 本研究的目的是探讨在不同的情况下, 价格促销信息对消费者的不良的质量认知产生的影响. 作者控制了促销曝光的时机, 过去的各种促销形式以及信息发布的方式. 与以往的研究不同, 作者通过控制以前个人使用此产品的经验的潜在调节作用来测试事先设定限制的价格促销的影响. 这样的操作可以解决相关的有可能产生的争议. 这种方法对实际工作方面也是有意义的. 价格促销不仅适用于已存在的目标消费者, 而且可以鼓励没有使用过产品和服务的消费者尝试此产品或服务. 因此, 对市场营销人员来说理解品牌的价格促销信息如何影响消费者对此品牌的质量的不良认知是非常重要的. 如果没有使用过这个品牌的消费者通过价格促销获得的产品的质量不好, 促销可能达不到用经济的刺激方法来增加销售的效果. 相反则有可能发生. 另外, 如果价格促销结束, 购买了这个产品的消费者可能会出现明显的减少再购买行为. 通过文献回顾, 假设1用来探讨消费者通过过去的价格促销获得的质量认知的调节作用. 消费者对没有使用过的品牌的价格促销而产生的质量认知的影响会被此品牌过去的价格促销活动所调节. 换句话说, 消费者会对没有进行过价格促销的没有使用过的品牌产生不良的质量认知. 假设2-1:未使用过的品牌进行首次价格促销的时候, 价格促销的信息发布的方式将影响价格促销的成败. 假设2-2:消费者越不在意价格促销的原因, 越容易对产品的质量产生不良的认知. 通过测试1, 简要地解释了产品和品牌在提供四种价格促销形式之前并解释说明了每种价格促销形式. WAVEX这个虚拟品牌的质量的认知被评估为7. 网球拍被选中的原因是由于选定的产品组必须过去几乎没有价格促销活动来消除促销的平均次数对价格促销信息的影响, 正如Raghubir和Corfman(1999)所提出的. 测试2也用网球拍作为产品组, 主持测试2的管理者与测试1相同. 随着测试1, 选择了对产品组熟悉而对产品不熟悉的受访者. 每个受访者被分配到代表WAVEX价格促销的两种不同信息发布方式的两组中的一组. 在评估WAVEX的质量认知为7以前, 受访者看了每个促销信息. 不熟悉的实验品牌的价格促销对消费者的质量认知的影响被证明为会被以前有过或没有价格促销活动所调节. 与过去的促销行为一致是使品牌评估变得更糟的不良影响的重要变量. 如果此品牌从未进行过价格促销, 价格促销活动会对消费者的质量认知产生不良的影响. 第二, 不熟悉的品牌进行首次价格促销时, 促销信息的发布方式会影响公司促销的成败. 当消费者进行性格归因和情境归因的比较时, 质量认知的不良影响会更大. 与先前主要关注具有或不具有情境/性格归因中良好或不良的动机的研究不同, 本研究的焦点是检验如果公司提出了具有说服性的理由, 即使消费者在价格促销行为中有性格归因, 情境归因也可以被推断出的事实. 这种方法, 在学术方面取得了很大的成果, 意义在于它运用非数学的问题来解释固定和调整过程而不像以前的研究大部分是把它用于数学问题来解释. 换句话说, 根据基本属性错误, 有很大的倾向去性格地归因其他的行为. 当这种情况出现在价格促销时, 我们可以推断出消费者很有可能性格地归因公司的价格促销行为. 反而, 即使在这种情况下, 公司可以调整消费者的锚定性来降低性格归因的可能性. 另外, 不像多数对价格促销的长/短期影响的以往的研究, 只考虑价格促销对消费者的购买行为影响, 本 研究测试对质量认知的影响, 一个影响消费者购买行为的因素. 这些结果在实际工作方面有重要启示. 本研究的结果可以作为新产品有效的提供促销信息的指南. 如果品牌要避免错误的暗示, 比如在施行价格促销战略时被认为是产品的质量不好, 一定要为促销提供清晰合理的理由. 尤其是对那些以前没有进行过价格促销活动的公司来说, 提供明确的理由尤其重要. 不一致的行为可以导致消费者的不信任和焦虑. 这也是无止境的价格战的风险的重要因素之一. 没有事先通知的价格促销会使消费者怀疑, 但不会影响市场份额.