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

Area of Science:

• Consumer Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Marketing Science

Background:

• Consumers often seek justifications for purchasing hedonic products.
• Promotions like price (PP) and quantity (QP) promotions influence purchasing decisions differently.
• Understanding the neurocognitive processing of these promotions is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying consumer responses to different promotion types (PP vs. QP) and discount depths (DD vs. SD) for hedonic products.
• To determine how these factors influence purchase intention and affect.
• To elucidate the timing of brain activity associated with processing promotional information.

Main Methods:

• Utilized event-related potentials (ERPs) to measure brain activity.
• Examined behavioral data including purchase willingness and decision time.
• Manipulated promotion type (PP, QP) and discount depth (DD, SD) for hedonic products.

Main Results:

• Behaviorally, consumers favored PP and DD over QP and SD, with longer decision times in mixed conditions.
• Neurophysiologically, DD attracted more attention (higher P2 amplitude) than SD.
• ERPs (N2, LPP) indicated increased perceptual conflict and stronger positive affect/purchase intention under specific promotion and discount combinations (e.g., PP and DD).

Conclusions:

• Price promotions (PP) are generally more effective than quantity promotions (QP) for driving hedonic purchases.
• Deep discounts (DD) enhance attentional engagement and purchase intention, particularly when combined with PP.
• The study provides neuroscientific evidence for the differential impact of promotion strategies on consumer behavior.