• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.99-130
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• 2011

In recent years, a new way of differentiating product design has emerged -better known as 'masterpiece marketing,' this is a strategy where famous art pieces are borrowed on to product designs. Because the recent trends of well-being and LOHAS have encouraged the consumers' desires to enjoy culture and live a more opulent lifestyle, famous and notable paintings have grown to be more of "approachable masterpieces" to the public. As a strategy intended to develop a new consumerism, while still prioritizing customers' values and their satisfaction, companies have been drawn to this new type of marketing. The current consumption society has converted renowned art pieces from simply works of 'high culture' to a further way of marketing, aimed to differentiate products and dominate the market. Though many products have had masterpieces applied to their designs and have been noticed for their marketability, there has been less systematic research done on the scientific background behind this marketing approach. This research focused on the art pieces' fundamental nature of inducing emotions in the viewer, and hypothesized about how the evaluation of a product may be influenced by the affect provoked by the art piece used. To be more specific, if art pieces with different levels of pleasure and arousal -the two axis of emotion suggested by existing research on emotion -were used on each product, the goal was to see how the different levels influenced the consumer's assessment of the products, focusing on product's type as well as the evaluation of their attributes. First, a pretest was done to verify the relationship between the emotion provoked by the art piece and the consumer's preference. There were two types of surveys, each with five drawings from the ten that were assumed to differ in levels of the two axis of emotion. The survey was composed of questions asking for positive emotion, negative emotion, level of arousal, and preference. The correlation between the measurements of positive and negative emotions was -0.792, so an integrated entry was used in the analysis by subtracting the measurement of negative emotions from that of positive emotions. The first hypothesis that paintings that provoke positive emotions will be more preferred than paintings that bring out negative emotions was supported; and through this research, paintings that were to be used for the products were selected. The second pretest was conducted to settle on an item that would be used in the research. Items meant to measure utilitarian and hedonic attributes of milk and chocolate, the two products to be used in the research, were extracted. Because milk is a utilitarian product with strong practical attributes while chocolate is a hedonic product with strong hedonic attributes, these two were selected to be used in this research. The first study was executed to see if there is a difference in attitude about products that have different painting on their designs, which either induces positive or negative emotions. It was also to verify whether this difference in attitude was mediated by the viewer's preference for the art piece. This study showed that when positive emotion inducing painting was used, the product was better evaluated compared to the product with a painting that provokes a negative emotion, thus supporting the second hypothesis. It was also supported that the effect of affect on product evaluation was mediated by preference for the art piece. The second study was done to see the influence of the level of arousal on the evaluation of the product's attributes. Art pieces that differ in the level of arousal were selected through the pretest, and later it verified the hypothesis that the level of arousal has an effect on the assessment of the attributes of the product. In the case of milk, a utilitarian product, the fourth hypothesis that a high-arousal painting will better evaluated for its hedonic attributes was supported, as well as the fifth, which hypothesized that a low-arousal painting will receive a higher assessment for its utilitarian attributes. However, for chocolate, a hedonic product, both fourth and fifth hypotheses were not supported. This study is significant for the following basis: first, it verified the importance of the emotion induced by the painting on the evaluation of the product's attributes, by applying a systematic and scientific method. Second, it expanded from the existing research on positive/negative emotions to confirm the additional influence of the state of arousal on product evaluation.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.17-27
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• 2009

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.