Promoting Pi Day: Consumer Response to Special Day-Themed Sales Promotions
Daniel M. Zane, Rebecca Walker Reczek, Kelly L. Haws
Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2022 · Volume 32 · Issue 4
Abstract
Many firms now link discounts to “special days”—novel holidays/events not historically associated with promotions (e.g., Pi Day). Using a field study and laboratory studies, we explore consumers’ responses to special day-themed sales promotions. Specifically, we demonstrate that consumers respond more favorably to a discount celebrating a special day compared to the same discount with no link to the special day. Further, we show that consumers’ increased intentions to use special day-themed discounts are driven by their perceptions of the marketer’s creativity (both the originality and appropriateness dimensions) through a marketplace metacognition process. Thus, when a given special day-themed discount becomes commonplace in the marketplace (i.e., originality is low) or when there is low fit between the firm and special day (i.e., appropriateness is low), special day-themed promotions are no more effective than more traditional types of one-day sales. Finally, we develop a typology of special day-themed sales promotions and offer avenues for future research on how consumers respond to such promotional efforts.
Keywords
Promotions, Discounts, Creativity, Holidays, Marketplace metacognition
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