Suresh Ramanathan

The Effect of Sales Promotions on the Size and Composition of the Shopping Basket: Regulatory Compatibility from Framing and Temporal Restrictions

Most literature on sales promotions focuses on responses to the promoted brand. Across two experimental studies and one field study, the authors examine how sales promotions may affect the size and composition of the overall shopping basket. The authors show that the framing of the savings message on sales promotions (e.g., “Save

The influence of experience and sequence of conflicting emotions on ad attitudes

x” versus “Get

The Halo Effect of Product Color Lightness on Hedonic Food Consumption

x Off”), the expiration date restriction cue (immediate versus future expiration), and the familiarity of brands (well-known versus less familiar) are independent primes of regulatory focus. Furthermore, such cues, when compatible with one another or with a prior regulatory focus, lead to more unrelated purchases in the store. The authors discuss the findings in the context of theory on regulatory relevance and mind-sets, and they posit managerial implications for the design of sales promotions and store positioning.

Immediate and Delayed Emotional Consequences of Indulgence: The Moderating Influence of Personality Type on Mixed Emotions

Two experiments suggest that when participants evaluate an ad, they prefer improving ad emotions, because attitudes are based on an assessment of whether the emotions deviate positively or negatively from previous levels of emotions. In contrast, when emotions are experienced, positive emotions facilitate coping with later negativity, and an ad with declining (vs. improving) emotions results in more favorable attitudes. This beneficial effect of experienced positive emotions in reducing the impact of subsequent negative emotions is reversed when the positive emotions are allowed to dissipate over a time delay between the experiences of the two emotions.

We're at as Much Risk as We Are Led to Believe: Effects of Message Cues on Judgments of Health Risk

The authors present evidence that light-colored hedonic foods, that is, foods generally considered to be vices and relatively unhealthy, are consumed in greater quantity than the same foods that are darker in color. Greater consumption was demonstrated for lighter-colored chocolate candies and pudding (vs. darker) across a variety of colors. This halo effect of color lightness arises for vice foods because they are consumed for the hedonic experience itself; indeed, the present results indicated that greater consumption was driven by an increased pleasurable experience in the form of a more favorable in-the-moment emotional response and higher taste evaluations. By contrast, the halo effect of color lightness was attenuated for healthy, often called virtue, foods that are consumed for more utilitarian consequences. Findings have practical implications for consumer welfare by contributing to an understanding of what may drive overconsumption of high-calorie foods and for marketers interested in encouraging responsible consumption.