가격할인 대 기부와 연계된 가격할인이 소비자의 구매의도에 미치는 차별적 효과에 관한 연구

Abstract

본 연구는 두 가지 구매촉진 수단이 소비자들의 구매의도에 미치는 차별적 효과를 비교하였다. 구체적으로 기부와 연계된 가격할인 전략이 순수한 가격할인 전략에 비해 소비자들에게 경제적으로 불리한 조건을 제공하는 상황에서도 구매의도에 더 긍정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있는지 확인하고자 하였다. 연구 결과, 순수하게 가격할인만 제시한 경우보다 기부와 연계된 가격할인을 제시한 경우에 금전적으로 이득이 적음에도 불구하고 소비자들의 구매의도가 높음을 확인할 수 있었다. 이러한 기부와 연계된 가격할인 전략의 효과는 자기감시성이 높은 사람들에게서 더욱 두드러지는 경향성이 관찰되었다. 또한, 계산적으로 사고하도록 조작했을 때 보다 감정적으로 사고하도록 조작했을 때 기부와 연계된 가격할인 전략이 더욱 효과적이었다. 나아가 개인의 성격적 특성인 도덕적 정체성의 영향을 받았는데, 도덕적 정체성 수준이 높은 경우에는 사고모드를 어떻게 조작하던 간에 순수한 가격할인만 제시된 상황에 비하여 기부와 연계된 가격할인 상황에서의 구매의도가 높게 나타났으나, 도덕적 정체성 수준이 낮은 경우에는 사고모드에 따라 순수한 가격할인 조건 대 기부를 포함한 가격할인 조건에서의 구매 의도에 차이가 있었다. 구체적으로 감정적으로 사고하도록 유도했을 때에는 도덕적 정체성이 낮은 경우에도 가격할인만 제시된 상황에 비하여 기부와 연계된 가격할인 상황에서의 구매의도가 높았으나, 계산적으로 사고하도록 유도했을 때에는 순수한 가격할인만 제시된 상황과 기부와 연계된 가격할인 상황의 구매 의도가 크게 다르지 않았다.

Recently, not only overseas but also within domestic market, there are much discussion of ‘Ethical Consumption’. Naturally, the trend leads companies to consider corperate social responsibilities in their business activities. Cause-related marketing is an example of such endeavor where a firm’s sales is linked to donation to a charity or other public cause. Although cause-related marketing has been widely used in practice, research on its effectiveness on sales increase produced equivocal results. Especially when the effect of cause-related marketing is pitted against that of traditional price discount strategy, it is hard to be confident of its relative effectiveness. In fact, a study found that consumers prefer price discount to donation to a charity when the said amount is not too small. One way to boost the appeal of the donation strategy, we thought, is to combine it with price discount. In the current research, we pitted discount only strategy against discount with donation strategy and compared their impact on purchase intention. Specifically, we were interested to find out whether the discount with donation strategy would elicit higher purchase intention than the discount only strategy, even when it presents financially disadvantageous terms to consumers. The results revealed that consumers experienced higher purchase intention in the discount with donation condition than in the discount only condition despite the fact that the discount only condition was financially more beneficial to consumers. Such pattern of results was more pronounced, although not reaching statistically significant level, for those who were high in self-monitoring than for those who were low in self-monitoring. We also observed that consumers’information processing mode affected the effectiveness of discount with donation strategy. Discount with donation strategy was more effective when consumers were manipulated to process information affectively than deliberatively. Moreover, we found an interesting three-way interaction among promotion strategy, processing mode, and consumers’ level of moral identity. When consumers were high in their moral identity, consumers reported higher purchase intention in the financially disadvantageous discount with donation condition than in the discount only condition, regardless of information processing mode. When consumers were low in their moral identity, information processing mode made difference. Specifically, when manipulated to process information affectively, consumers reported higher purchase intention in the financially disadvantageous discount with donation condition than in the discount only condition. When manipulated to process information deliberatively, consumers reported the same level of purchase intention in the discount with donation condition and the discount only condition. The current research confirmed that cause-related marketing, even when it presents financially less beneficial terms than the traditional price discount strategy, could be fruitfully used to boost consumer purchase intention. It helps those in managerial position by delineating specific personality type and context under which the discount with donation strategy turns out more effective.