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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of price bundling and message framing on attitudes, intentions, and beliefs about attributes of teeth whitening products. Although each of these variables, message framing and price bundling, has been explored individually, few attempts have been made to investigate them jointly. This study is based on a full factorial design that allows for testing of interaction effects. Second, the market for whitening products is maturing, resulting in a target market that is gaining knowledge about these products. Thus, we use knowledge as a covariate in the above investigation to determine if the communication strategy should be changed as the product moves from introduction to maturity.

The study is based on a 2 × 2 factorial design with price bundling (bundle price – individual price) and framing (positive – negative). The setting for the study is a hypothetical brand name of teeth whitening products.

The results reveal a mixed picture with respect to effectiveness of pricing and framing on attitudes and intentions. The effect of price bundling is not significant on attitudes; it is significant on intentions. Framing has a greater impact on intentions than on attitudes. Nevertheless, the interaction effects are significant on both attitudes as well as intentions. Finally, the impact of knowledge as a covariate is significant.

Caution is advised in extrapolating the results beyond the issues investigated in the study.

The findings help marketers in formulating effective marketing strategy using both price bundling and message framing strategies.

Although price bundling and message framing have been explored in marketing studies, the research is lacking on the combined effects of these two important variables. The findings show a significant interaction effect of pricing and framing on changing attitudes and intentions. Prior research recommends using negative framing. The present research shows that for bundle products, a positive framing approach is desirable.

Although the evidence exists for the effect of promotional frame on repurchase intention, it is unclear whether the timing of repurchase can moderate the effect. In this paper, three experiments were conducted to answer this question.

In Experiment 1, a 2 (framing: bundle vs. gift) × 2 (repurchase target: focal vs. supplementary) × 2 (timing: short vs. long) between-subjects design was used. In Experiment 2, an identical design was used except that repurchase target being the within-subjects factor. In Experiment 3, the design was based on that of Experiment 2 and brand was added a between-subjects factor.

Experiment 1 showed that, with a short interval, repurchase intention under gift frame was higher than that under bundle frame. With a long interval, there was no significant difference between the gift and bundle frames. Experiment 2, however, indicated no effects for expensive products. Experiment 3 showed that brand (private versus national brand) moderate the interaction between framing, repurchase target and timing. Particularly, for private brand, no significant comparisons were found; for national brand, repurchase intention for the focal product was significantly higher than for the supplementary product, but only under the conditions of long interval and gift frame (rather than bundle frame).

Taken together, findings from the current study contributes to the literature by showing for the first time that repurchase timing can moderate the promotional frame effect (i.e. higher repurchase intention under gift framing relative to bundle framing occurs in the short interval but not long interval) and that brand type can moderate the joint effects of framing, timing and repurchase target (i.e. national brand, rather than private brand, paired with long interval and gift frame results in higher repurchase intention for the focal product). The findings provide marketers with important knowledge in terms of how to adjust a promotional frame depending on when consumers repurchase a product and whether the product has a private or national brand.

Price deals are typically presented in “save” terms. However, prospect theory predicts that people will be more willing to waive a monetary gain than to lose the same amount of money. This study seeks to examine whether consumers would show more purchase intentions of a product offered in a price deal framed negatively (“lose if you don't purchase”) relative to the conventional positive frame (“save if you purchase”).

The purchase intentions of 189 participants, randomly assigned to either a positively or a negatively framed message, were examined. The participants' perceived monetary gain in the deal and their involvement in the issue were also measured.

Presented with a negative relative to positive frame, participants showed more purchase intentions of a product offered in a price deal, and perceived their monetary gain as higher. Highly involved and lowly involved participants exhibited similar framing effects.

The findings regarding lowly involved participants are inconsistent with previous findings. Future research is needed to clarify whether the message framing effect interacts with involvement in predicting purchase intentions of a product offered in a price deal.

The theoretical explanation of the phenomenon presented in this study predicts that negative framing of messages will also be more effective in other consumer behaviour contexts.

This study is the first empirical demonstration of the effect of message framing on the effectiveness of price deal offers, suggesting that retailers should re‐examine their conventional presentation of price deal offers in terms of gains, and consider rephrasing them in terms of loss.

The purpose of this study is to examine consumer behaviors toward a bundle of tickets and lodging using two different message framing: (1) scarcity framing for a high demand event, the All-Star Game, and (2) discount framing for a lower demand event, an MLB mid-week game.

Data were collected through two online surveys of 836 sport consumers in total on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were analyzed using a mix of analysis of variances (ANOVAs) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Consumers are likely to buy products separately in a scarce situation. When discounts are offered as benefits of choosing a bundle, consumers with high willingness to pay (WTP) have higher purchase intentions (PI) and perceived value toward cumulative discounts.

This is the one of few studies that investigate (1) price bundling of products from two disparate industries where consumer demands fluctuate, (2) the effects of scarcity in a bundle, and (3) all possible discount messaging in a bundle.

Many market examples show that consumers are willing to pay a premium for “green” products and services. The purpose of this paper is to gain some insight into how consumers respond to green alternatives, and examine how managers can best position their green products to maximize the premium consumers are willing to pay.

A series of behavioral experiments was conducted to demonstrate how the green product's characteristics are framed significantly affects the size of the “green premium” consumers are willing to pay.

The results show that positive framing (focusing on the advantages of the green product) works best for environmentally conscious consumers while negative framing (focusing on avoiding the disadvantages of the non‐green product) works best for less environmentally conscious consumers. Additionally, subtractive price framing which focuses on the discount consumers would pay for the non‐green product alternative results in a higher green premium than additive price framing which focuses on the additional price consumers would pay for the green choice, and especially so for less environmentally conscious consumers.

Overall, the results suggest that green firms can maximize the green‐pricing premium by careful targeting of consumers and framing their products appropriately.

This paper explores how the difference between the green versus non‐green alternative can be framed in different ways, and interact with the consumer's level of environmental consciousness, to influence the “green premium,”, i.e. how much more consumers are willing to pay for the green alternative relative to a comparable non‐green alternative.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of two experiments designed to examine the effect on consumers of the way in which price discount messages are expressed, or “framed”.

Both studies involved stated‐preference choice modelling experiments. The aim of the first experiment was to test the hypothesis that a price reduction framed in dollar terms is more effective for high‐priced items, whereas a price reduction framed as a percent discount is more effective for lower‐priced items. The aim of the second experiment was to determine which of four alternative ways of expressing the same 33 per cent price discount – cents off, percent discount, or one of two volume discounts – is most effective.

For two “low‐priced” items, potato chips and cola drinks, the framing of a price discount had little or no effect. However, for two ”high‐priced” items, stereos and computers, framing a discount in dollar terms was significantly more effective than expressing it as a percent off discount. For three fast moving consumer goods the most effective framing of the same price discount depended on whether the product concerned was amenable to stockpiling. For tinned spaghetti, which is relatively cheap and easy to store, volume discounting was more attractive than a monetary discount, whereas for bottled water and semi‐soft butter, which are more expensive and bulkier, the opposite was true.

For high‐priced products, it is better to express price discounts as dollars or cents off than as a percentage off; the opposite may be true for low‐priced products, but this is much less certain. However, if using a volume promotion, “buy x get one free” is likely to be more effective than “y for the price of x”.

The objective of this paper is to examine the framing effects of discount presentation format in comparative price advertising in a low‐price and a high‐price product context. In particular, the authors study whether identical discounts presented in percentage and absolute terms result in different consumer perceptions of transaction value and purchase intention. Although price promotions have been the subject of previous research, a closer examination of the potential moderating influence of discount size in both contexts is warranted.

Two separate experiments were designed to isolate the effects of the manner in which discounts are numerically expressed and the size of the discount on consumers' perceptions of a retail price promotion in a low‐price and a high‐price product context.

The effects of discount framing in comparative price promotions are found to be influenced by discount size in the case of the low‐product context but not the high‐price one.

It is recommended that the study be replicated for other types of low‐price and high‐price products to confirm the generalisability of the results for each product context.

Retail managers' choice of discount presentation format for both low‐ and high‐price product contexts, and in the case of the former the additional manipulation of discount size, have an impact on the ability of comparative price promotions to accelerate purchases. Meanwhile policy makers should continue to assign significant time and resources to investigating concerns about misleading price comparison based promotions.

The paper provides original insights into the importance of considering the joint effects of discount presentation format and discount size on consumers' perceptual and behavioural responses to retail price promotions, unlike previous research, which has examined these framing effects separately.

Consumers frequently find themselves having to choose between various product brands that differ in price and quality. The purpose of this paper is to examine several possible factors that may affect this choice: message framing of the choice as either gain or loss of money or quality, consumer involvement, and consumers’ perceived monetary and quality gains.

In all, 837 participants from Portugal, Turkey, and Israel were randomly assigned to a positively or negatively framed message regarding the quality or price of two alternative brands of sunscreen lotion.

As expected, highly involved consumers show a higher preference for the better and more expensive product than less involved consumers, while perceived monetary or quality gains mediates this relation. Challenging previous findings, negative framing of loss avoidance affects perceived gains and brand choice more than positive framing only for less involved participants, rather than for highly involved ones.

Although the results were replicated in three different countries, future research of message framing context on other products is needed, as well as research in the context of goal framing.

If indeed future research would replicate the higher effectiveness of positive framing among highly involved consumers, retailers should consider that in planning their product promotion strategy.

This study challenges the current literature regarding the effect of message framing on message and the moderating role of involvement.

This paper aims to examine how incentive framing format and language congruency interactively influence readers’ post-reading responses to hotel-related email advertisements.

A 2 (incentive framing format: amount-off versus percentage-off) × 2 (language congruency: use of readers’ native language versus use of readers’ foreign language) between-subject experiment was conducted with 233 bilingual speakers from China.

The findings unveil that readers are more likely to be enticed to search for more information about the promoted hotel restaurant, click the call-to-action button and share the promotional message with friends and families if an email advertisement presents the incentive of a price promotion in the form of amount-off (versus percentage-off). The indirect impact of language congruency is also verified. Specifically, the impact of incentive framing format on readers’ post-reading response is more salient when information is communicated using readers’ native (versus non-native) language.

The findings provide actionable clues for hoteliers to optimize their email marketing campaigns. If hotels want to publicize a price promotion for their high-priced service (e.g. hotel restaurant dining) via email advertisements, marketers should present the incentive in the form of amount-off. Hotels should also personalize the language used in the email advertisements according to readers’ native language.

This study enriches the literature on email marketing by explicating how hoteliers can improve the efficacy of email marketing via personalizing the incentive framing format and language used in the email advertisement according to the readers’ preferences.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the interactive effect of timing and framing of hotel’s upselling message on consumer attitudes toward the message. The mediating role of reactance between the timing of upselling message and consumer attitudes is also explored.

A 2 (timing: immediately after the booking vs one week prior to arrival) by 2 (framing: concrete vs abstract) experimental design was used. A total of 250 Chinese consumers were recruited and were randomly exposed to a hotel online upselling scenario. The consumer attitudes and reactance were measured.

When the framing of upselling message involves specific room attributes, consumers show more favorable attitudes when receiving the promotion one week prior to arrival (vs immediately after the booking). However, when the framing of upselling message involves price, consumer attitudes do not differ across the time of receiving the promotion. Reactance mediates the effect of message timing on consumer attitudes when the message framing involves specific room attributes.

This research suggests that hotel managers should offer concrete message framing that includes specific room attributes at the time proximal to consumers’ arrival to increase acceptance of online room upselling. In addition, it is important for hotel managers to take consumers’ reactance into consideration when developing an online upselling strategy.

Research on online hotel room upselling is scant. This study adds to the upselling literature by examining the joint influence of timing and framing of upselling promotions on consumer attitudes toward such messages. Furthermore, this study extends our understanding of the role of reactance in the online upselling process.