The Effects of Bundle Price Discount Framing and Message Framing on Consumers' Evaluation of Bundle Component (번들가격할인 프레이밍과 메시지 프레이밍이 소비자의 번들구성제품에 대한 평가에 미치는 영향)
-
- Asia Marketing Journal
- /
- v.13 no.3
- /
- pp.55-77
- /
- 2011
This study investigate the interaction effects of bundle price discount framing and message framing on consumer's attitude of bundle component. Although each effect of bundle price discount framing and message framing has been explored individually, few attempts have been made to invest them jointly. This study tests the interaction effects of bundle price discount framing and message framing on consumer's evaluation of bundle component. Moreover, this research focuses on consumer's evaluation of individual bundle component while the existing research on bundling primarily focused on consumer's evaluation of the bundle. Prior research suggests that consumers are sensitive to the framing of prices and discounts in the presentation of the bundle offer. For example, there is considerable evidence that partitioning or consolidating the prices of a bundle can influence the attractiveness of the bundle offer. Similarly, there is evidence that an equivalent price reduction to the overall bundle, one of the individual products in the bundle, or distributed among the individual products in the bundle can alter the perceived attractiveness of the offer (e.g. Chakravarti, Krish, Paul, and Srivastava 2002; Hamilton and Srivastava 2008; Janiszewski and Cunha 2004; Johnson, Herrmann and Bauer 1999; ; Morwitz, Greenleaf, and Johnson 1998; Yadav 1994; 1995). In line with these earlier research, this research suggests that the bundle type can influence the consumer's evaluation of bundle component. There are two types of bundle - mixed-leader bundle and mixed-joint bundle. In mixed-leader bundling, the price of one of the two products is discounted when the other product is purchased at the regular price. In mixed-joint bundling, a single price is set when the two product are purchased jointly. This study supposes that the teeth whitening product is the leader product in a mixed-leader bundle. So bundle price discount framing is manipulated such as "Buy the teeth whitening product (regular price \80,000) and get 50% discount on the functional toothpaste(regular price \40,000), special set price \100,000" or "Buy the functional toothpaste and the teeth whitening product as a set and get discount for the set, special set price \60,000". Message framing is manipulated through the product claims described in an advertising bill. The positive framing presents that "Over 95% of users achieved the expected 2-3 shades of improvement in two weeks" where as the negative framing presents "less than 5% of users did not achieve the expected 2-3 shades of improvement in two weeks". This study uses hypothetical brand name of the teeth whitening product and the functional toothpaste This study is based on a 2x2 factorial design with bundle discount framing (mixed-leader bundle vs. mixed-joint bundle) and massage framing (positive vs. negative). The dependant variables are consumer's perceived quality and attitude of the teeth whitening product The data reveals that two dependant variables are correlated, so the data is analyzed with two-way MANOVA. This research explores the significant interaction effect of bundle discount framing and message framing on consumer's perceived quality and attitude of the teeth whitening product. When the message framing is positive, consumer's perceived quality and attitude of the teeth whitening product is higher in mixed-leader bundle than mixed-joint bundle condition. However, when the message framing is negative, consumer's evaluation is higher in mixed-joint bundle than mixed-leader bundle. The author explains this result by stating that consumers are less likely to use heuristics such as price-quality association and value discounting hypothesis(Raghubir 2004) in the negative message framing condition. Additionally, consumer's perceived risk of the teeth whitening product in the negative message framing condition can be more reduced by the bundle partner(e.g. the toothpaste) in mixed-joint bundle than mixed-leader bundle. Based on the results, marketing managers are advised to use different bundle type based on message framing of their product.
Constructing attractive bundle offers depends on more than an understanding of the distribution of consumer preferences. Consumers are also sensitive to the framing of price information in a bundle offer. In classical economic theory, consumers' utility should not change as long as the total price paid stays same. However, even when total prices are identical, consumers' preferences toward a bundle product could be different depending on the format of price presentation and the locus of price discount. A weighted additive model predicts that the impact of a price discount on the overall evaluation of the bundle will be greater when the discount is assigned to the more important product in the bundle(Yadav 1995). Meanwhile, a reference dependent model asserts that it is better to assign a price discount to a tie-in component that has a negative valuation at its current offer price than to a focal product that has a positive valuation at its current offer price(Janiszewski and Cunha 2004). This paper has expanded previous research regarding price discount presentation format, investigating the reasons for mixed results of prior research and presenting new mechanisms for price discount framing effect. Prior research has hypothesized that bundling is used to sell a tie-in component with an offer price above the consumer's reference price plus a focal product of the same offer price with reference price(e.g., Janiszewski and Cunha 2004). However, this study suggests that bundling strategy can be used for increasing product's attractiveness through the synergy between components even when offer prices of bundle components are the same with reference prices. In this context, this study employed various realistic bundle sets with same price between offer price and reference price in the experiment. Hamilton and Srivastava(2008) demonstrated that when evaluating different partitions of the same total price, consumers prefer partitions in which the price of the high-benefit component is higher. This study determined that their mechanism can be applied to price discount presentation formats. This study hypothesized that price discount framing effect depends not on the negative perception of tie-in component with offer price above reference price but rather on the consumers' perceived consumption benefit in bundle product. This research also hypothesized that preference for low-benefit discount mechanism is that perceived consumption benefit reduces price sensitivity. Furthermore, this study investigated how consumers' concern for quality in a price discount--a factor not considered in previous research--influences price discount framing. Yadav(1995)'s experiment used only one magazine bundle of relatively low quality uncertainty and could not show the influence of perceived uncertainty of quality. This study assumed that as perceived uncertainty of quality increases, the price sensitivity mechanism for assigning the discount to low-benefit will increase. Further, this research investigated the moderating effect of uncertainty of quality in price discount framing. The results of the experiment showed that when evaluating different partitions of the same total price and the same amount of discounts, the partition that discounts in the price of low benefit component is preferred to the partition that decreases the price of high benefit component. This implies that price discount framing effect depends on the perceived consumption benefit. The results also demonstrated that consumers are more price sensitive to low benefit component and less price sensitive to high benefit component. Furthermore, the results showed that the influence of price discount presentation format on the evaluation of bundle product varies with the perceived uncertainty of quality in high consumption benefit. As perceived uncertainty of quality gradually increases, the preference for discounts in the price of low consumption benefit decreases. Besides, the results demonstrate that as perceived uncertainty of quality gradually increases, the effect of price sensitivity in consumption benefit also increases. This paper integrated prior research by using a new mechanism of perceived consumption benefit and moderating effect of perceived quality uncertainty, thus providing a clearer explanation for price discount framing effect.