Is Creative Description Always Effective in Purchase Intention? The Construal Level Theory as a Moderating Effect

Area of Science:

• Consumer Psychology
• Marketing Communications
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Online shopping has rapidly expanded, necessitating research into effective marketing strategies.
• Construal Level Theory (CLT) explains how abstract or concrete thinking influences decision-making.
• Creative text descriptions, often using analogies, may appeal differently based on consumer mindset.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of creative product descriptions on online purchase intention.
• To examine the role of consumers' construal level in mediating this effect.
• To understand how creative marketing messages interact with psychological construal levels.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses.
• Participants' construal levels were assessed.
• The persuasiveness of creative versus non-creative product descriptions was compared.

Main Results:

• Creative text descriptions were generally more persuasive than non-creative ones in online settings.
• The persuasiveness of creative descriptions was amplified for individuals with high-level construal.
• Conversely, low-level construal individuals showed less enhanced persuasion from creative descriptions.

Conclusions:

• Creative product descriptions enhance consumer purchase intention online.
• Consumers' psychological construal level significantly moderates the effectiveness of creative marketing messages.
• Findings extend Construal Level Theory applications to creative marketing communications and metaphor research.