Knowledge that Transforms

Abstract This research examines the effectiveness of two common types of restricted price promotions: threshold promotions (conditional on spending more than a threshold amount; e.g., “Get $5 off on orders of $10 or more”) and capped promotions (limited to a maximum dollar value; e.g., “Get 50% off, up to $5 per order”). Results from seven preregistered studies, including one field study, show that threshold promotions lead to higher purchase intentions and conversion rates (but potentially lower purchase amounts) than comparable capped promotions—even though capped promotions are equivalent in maximal economic savings for the consumer—when the trigger value (the spending amount at which the promotion activates or caps) is low. This effect occurs because consumers have higher expected promotion levels for capped promotions and lower expected spending levels for threshold promotions, leading them to perceive the threshold promotion as a fairer deal. However, this effect reverses when the trigger value is high, wherein consumers perceive capped promotions as a fairer deal and prefer them to threshold promotions. The implications of our results for the optimal management of price promotion architectures were discussed.

Abstract Prior research documents the role of the misalignment of practice elements in practice habituation and change. We extend this literature by demonstrating the understudied role of practice relationality. Locating our empirical work in veganism, a context that encompasses a bundle of interrelated practices, we show how people who adopt veganism manage the relationality of their food-related practices (e.g., eating, cooking, and shopping for food) during shared moments. Building on interview, secondary, and netnographic data on people who pursue veganism, we demonstrate that changes in shared practice performances cause relational fractures. We pinpoint relational fractures that hinder practitioners from smoothly performing shared practices in three contexts: co-performance, co-learning, and the marketplace. To repair practice relationality, vegan consumers enact four relational competences: decoding, decoupling, divesting, and chameleoning. These competences can repair some relational fractures while aggravating others. When vegan consumers fail to acquire any competence, however, they revert to their old omnivorous performances. Our article contributes to practice theory by conceptualizing the role of practice relationality in practices, introducing the concept of relational competence as a necessary element for performance (re)rehabituation, and demonstrating the role of practice intelligibility in the co-performance of shared practices.

Abstract Linguistic characteristics influence how consumers recognize and associate with brands. Although recent research shows the negative impact of misspellings in brand names on sincerity and brand attitudes, many brands successfully use this strategy to create unique brand identities. We argue that not all misspellings have the same negative impact and thus explore how consumers process brand names through both linguistic and conceptual fluency. In a series of six experiments, we present and examine a typology of misspellings and their differential impact on fluency and resulting consumer attitudes, inferences, and behavioral intentions. This typology of brand name misspellings provides a practical framework guiding brand naming strategy. We demonstrate that minor misspellings can be just as effective as correct spellings. More severe misspellings can also be effective if consumers perceive them as relevant. The findings reveal how managers can reap the benefits of misspelling, such as memorability, uniqueness, or trademark acquisition, and avoid the overall negative effects.

Abstract Existing research typically treats body awareness as a subset of self-awareness, which emphasizes identity and appearance at the expense of embodied sensations. This article offers a corrective by reconceptualizing consumer body awareness as a distinct, cultivated capacity, defined as the ability to notice, make sense of, and respond to exteroceptive, proprioceptive, and interoceptive sensations with the help of marketplace resources. Prior studies show that consumers are increasingly turning to the marketplace to find bodily reconnection and seek relief from the disembodied pull of digitalized, market-mediated life. Research also shows that although marketplace resources can help build body awareness, they can also distract from it. What the literature does not explain is how consumers engage with marketplace resources as their body awareness evolves. Building on an ethnographic inquiry into ultra-running, this article introduces a four-stage process of cultivating consumer body awareness: attuning, listening, connecting, and integrating. Findings show how marketplace resources both enable and obstruct body learning across these stages, ultimately recalibrating consumption choices and brand relationships.

Abstract Incidental waits are an unavoidable element of the consumer experience on any digital platform. Firms typically utilize no animation or single-speed, repeated animations during these waits. How might the use of such animations and their visual qualities influence perceived waiting time? Can simple design changes by managers influence the customer experience? Although prior research suggests a linear relationship in which faster animations reduce perceived waiting time, we find a convex relationship between animation speed and time perception: moderate-speed animations minimize perceived waiting time compared to no, slow-moving, or fast-moving animations (experiments 1a–1c). We refer to this effect as the convex effect of animation speed. This effect occurs when people use animation speed to infer wait time (experiment 2a) and because moderate-speed animations draw more attention than static images or faster animations (experiment 2b). Animations that introduce dual-attention elements (experiment 3a) or atypical animations (experiment 3b) shift attention away from movement speed, attenuating this effect. Finally, this effect extends to website click-to-landing rates (experiment 4), conversion rates (experiment 5), and product evaluations during mobile shopping (experiment 6). These findings highlight the practical value of optimizing animation speed in user interface design to enhance both customer experience and business outcomes.

Abstract We spend nearly a third of our lives in retirement, sometimes as long as the time we work and save for it. Yet, despite the severe personal, economic, and national consequences of under-funded retirement accounts, people often procrastinate and avoid retirement planning. Current efforts to encourage planning achieve limited success, partly because individuals do not think about retirement, often until it is too late. Addressing this challenge, we explore how language can influence retirement planning behaviors by encouraging more concrete thinking about the topic. Drawing on psycholinguistic research suggesting that questions encourage concrete thinking, we propose that phrasing communication as questions enhances engagement with retirement planning by eliciting more concrete thinking about retirement. Across six studies, we demonstrate the impact of questions on engagement with retirement planning. These include a text analysis of a large dataset, three field experiments with diverse populations and conditions, and two online studies confirming that questions outperform statements in retirement-related communication by promoting more concrete thinking and eliciting more engagement with the topic. Given that most retirement communication is phrased as statements, this research offers managers a low-cost solution to improve retirement planning and funding, with significant individual and national benefits.

Abstract When conducting studies in which the dependent variable is choice, researchers must decide whether to require participants to select one of the available alternatives or to provide a no-choice option. Prior research published in the Journal of Marketing Research proposed that no-choice options can disproportionately reduce the share of certain alternatives, particularly all-average or compromise options. In this commentary, I reexamine these propositions. I report the results of nine well-powered, preregistered replications of the original studies, which support only a subset of these hypotheses. Importantly, across these replication studies, no-choice options do not systematically draw share from specific alternatives. These findings suggest that no-choice effects may be more nuanced than previously thought and that the conditions under which previously documented effects occur reliably remain unclear. I discuss the implications of these results for theories of decision-making, context effects, and choice deferral. This work aims to update the literature and inform marketing researchers about the consequences of forcing choice versus allowing a no-choice option in experimental design.

Abstract Marketers make various forecasts, including those about new products, financial instruments, sporting events, and medical procedures, to influence consumer decisions. In communicating the likelihood that a forecaster assigns to an outcome, the forecaster can refer to their confidence in the outcome (e.g., “I’m 30% confident”) or the probability of the outcome (e.g., “There is a 30% probability”). The authors propose that the choice of language (e.g., probability vs. confidence) affects the perceptions of forecasters, yielding predictable consequences on consumer decisions. Specifically, some languages (e.g., confident/sure/certain) encourage internal attributions (e.g., to a forecaster), whereas other languages (e.g., probability/likelihood/chance) encourage external attributions (e.g., to an outcome). As a result, expressions of a forecaster’s confidence (vs. outcome probability) make the forecaster look less competent, especially when the likelihood of the outcome is low. A series of studies shows the effect in various consumption scenarios. The effect is mediated by internal (vs. external) attributions, influences real betting decisions, and is mitigated when the likelihood is high and among consumers with a weaker tendency to make internal attributions (i.e., a weaker correspondence bias).

Abstract Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers in the domain of relationships, providing a potential coping solution to widescale societal loneliness. Behavioral research provides little insight into whether these applications (apps) are effective at alleviating loneliness. We address this question by focusing on “artificial intelligence (AI) companions”: apps designed to provide consumers with synthetic interaction partners. Study 1 examines user reviews of AI companion apps and finds correlational evidence suggesting that these apps help alleviate loneliness. Study 2 finds that AI companions successfully alleviate loneliness on par only with interacting with another person and more than other activities such as watching YouTube videos. Moreover, consumers underestimate the degree to which AI companions improve their loneliness. Study 3 uses a longitudinal design and finds that an AI companion consistently provides momentary reductions in loneliness after use over the course of a week. Study 4 provides evidence that both the chatbots’ performance and, especially, whether it makes users feel heard, explain reductions in loneliness. Study 5 provides an additional robustness check for the loneliness-alleviating benefits of AI companions and shows that self-disclosure and distraction alone do not explain AI companions’ effectiveness.

Abstract The elevation of brand status is a crucial goal for numerous luxury brands. Building on the framework of learned color associations, the current research suggests that using less saturated colors in products enhances consumers’ perception of luxury brand status. This effect arises from consumers’ association between less saturated colors and the passage of time, leading to perceptions of the brand as having a rich continuity heritage. Because continuity heritage confers a higher status on a luxury brand, consumers subsequently perceive the brand as having elevated status. Through seven experimental and field studies, we empirically demonstrate that low (vs. high) color saturation increases a luxury brand’s perceived brand status, with perceived continuity heritage mediating this effect. However, this effect is mitigated when the brand highlights its recent (vs. old) foundation years and is even reversed when the brand positions itself as innovative. Additionally, we show that color saturation can affect consumers’ willingness to pay and product choices. This work contributes to the literature on luxury branding, brand heritage, and color while offering valuable insights for luxury brand managers on effectively enhancing their brand’s perceived status.