Pricing strategy & practice

Effects of promotional-based advertising on brand associations

Michael Clayton
Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia, USA, and

Jun Heo
University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA
Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how value-based messaging affects brand associations within a durable goods category. Design/methodology/approach Brand associations are conceptualized in this paper as brand image, brand attitudes, and consumer quality perceptions. A 2 2 factorial design was employed with cognitive involvement (high/low) and advertising message (brand/value) as the experimental factors. Findings Results suggest that promotional-based messaging is detrimental to all three brand associations, with quality ratings witnessing the most signicant declines. In addition, the current study observed no signicant effects of involvement, as measured by attention to the message, on brand association measures for value-based messaging when compared with brand messaging. Originality/value The current study suggests that promotional-messaging can be detrimental to brand association measures, compared with nonvalue-based brand messaging within a durable goods category. More research is needed to understand the long-term effects of different levels of usage of promotional-based messaging as part of the marketing mix. Keywords Advertising, Value, Price, Messaging, Brand equity, Durable, Promotional methods, Brand identity Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Marketers today face growing pressure to meet sales projections while also building strong brands that will continue to reap future rewards that are the fruit of strong brand equity. Not only are current sales easy to measure, but marketers in many product categories have found sales promotions to be an extremely effective tool to quickly move product and meet sales objectives. While the measurement of brand equity, and subsequently its various components (brand awareness, loyalty, quality, and brand associations), has become increasingly more sophisticated over the past two decades, research on the ability of individual marketing activities to strengthen or weaken brand equity have been lacking (Barwise, 1993; Shocker et al., 1994; Yoo et al., 2000). While a multiple of marketing elements are likely to have an effect on brand equity, and will be discussed later in this paper, the sales promotion tool, and corresponding promotional materials, provides perhaps the most interesting area of inquiry due to the inverse relationship between its outcomes. The immediate impact on sales, and liquidation of
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product, is an easily observable positive outcome, yet the detrimental impact on brand equity often goes unseen or unnoticed. This issue is of great importance from several theoretical angles. Framing theory would suggest that pricebased advertising would raise the importance of price in the consumers decision-making process (Kalra and Goodstein, 1998), and perhaps make consumers more price sensitive. The attribution theory suggests that consumers would seek to make meaning of the sales message and may attribute a manufacturers need to discount a product due to poor quality or other shortcomings. Unfortunately, the relationship between price and brand equity has become blurred. While several brand equity scholars have included a consumers willingness to pay a premium for a brand (Lassar et al., 1995) as a key component of brand equity, new business models have evolved. Google and Facebook have unquestioned strength in terms of brand equity in every sense of the term, including brand awareness, loyalty, quality and brand associations, yet both of these brands provide a product/service to the consumer that has no monetary cost. Brands like Walmart and Amazon.com have built two of the most successful businesses in the world based on selling products for less not more, yet few are likely to argue that these brands lack strong brand equity. While the ability to deliver a premium price is an important element of consumer-based brand equity for typical manufacturers, brand associations are able to provide researchers with a more detailed view of how consumers actually view a brand. 309

Effects of promotional-based advertising on brand associations Michael Clayton and Jun Heo

Journal of Product & Brand Management Volume 20 Number 4 2011 309 315

This exploratory study seeks to understand the role of promotional-based messaging in affecting brand associations towards a brand within a durable goods category. For the purpose of this paper promotional-based messaging is dened as marketing communications in which the main message is related to a limited time discount being available. While consumer price elasticity is related to brand equity, literature reveals several other factors that must be taken into consideration, but are often out of the control of the advertising manager, most notably behavior of competitors and retailers. Through an experimental design this study seeks to isolate promotional-based messaging and brand messaging to determine if promotional-based messaging is detrimental to the key dimensions of brand associations, including image, attitude and quality. Brand associations have great signicance to marketers in brand positioning and differentiation, as well as creating positive attitudes and feelings toward brands (Low and Lamb, 2000).

relationship between individual marketing elements (price, store image, distribution intensity, advertising spending and price deals) and the dimensions of brand equity. Their results suggested that frequent price promotions were detrimental to brand equity. These results were supported in a subsequent study by Villarejo-Ramos and Sanchez-Franco (2005) which examined consumers perceptions regarding price deals relative to a durable goods purchase, utilizing the scale created by Yoo, et al. In both of these studies the authors relied on consumers feedback regarding perceived marketing efforts, and thus neither was able to directly connect the detrimental inuence of promotion-based messaging on brand equity through any specic stimulus. Conceptualization and operationalization of brand associations Keller (1993) conceptualized brand image as the output of the types, favorability, strength, and uniqueness of brand associations. He also postulated that brand associations constitute the physical and non-physical product attributes and benets aligned with attitudes to create a brand image in the mind of the consumer. Low and Lamb (2000) created a three-factor, twelve-item scale to measure brand associations. The scale operationalizes brand associations through brand image, perceived quality and brand attitude, the most common dimensions within brand equity research (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Keller, 1993, 1998). These three constructs were dened in that study as follows: 1 Brand image the cognitive or emotional perceptions consumers attach to brands (Dobni and Zinkhan, 1990). 2 Brand attitude consumers overall evaluation (good or bad) of a brand (Mitchell and Olson, 1981). 3 Perceived quality consumers judgment about a products overall excellence or superiority (Zeithaml, 1988; Aaker and Jacobson, 1994). Low and Lamb (2000) concluded that there were instances in which these three separate constructs could be encapsulated within a single construct under a brand association variable, but that each should be measured and evaluated independently. This model has been selected for use in this study due to its high construct validity for measuring brand associations across product and service brands, as well as various product categories, including high and low familiarity brands. Conceptualization of price and non-price advertising Several schemes have been presented by researches to distinguish between different forms of advertising. Typically, authors have limited the discussion to price or non-price advertising (e.g. Kaul and Wittink, 1995; Popkowski Leszczyc and Rao, 1989). Others have delineated non-price advertising as differentiating or reminder advertising (Mitra and Lynch, 1995). Kalra and Goodstein (1998) created perhaps the most robust scheme to date, classifying advertising into one of seven groups depending on positioning tactics. These seven groups were: 1 highlighting favorable aspects of a brand without mentioning limitations; 2 value-orientation; 3 comparisons with a premium; 4 unique attribute positioning; 310

Literature review
A comprehensive literature review by Kaul and Wittink (1995) identied 18 studies involving the impact of advertising on price sensitivity and prices. Of those studies identied, 14 used consumer non-durable goods (instant coffee, ground coffee, dog food, aluminum foil, frozen wafes, liquid bleach, bathroom tissue, ketchup, liquid cleaner, disposable diapers, cat litter, hair lacquer, and sparkling wine), and the remaining used personal services (legal services and airlines), or some combination thereof. Studies regarding consumer durable goods were conspicuously absent. It can be argued that brands play a lesser role in the purchase of lowinvolvement non-durable goods where consumer processing typically utilizes the peripheral route to persuasion and risk is likely lower. For this reason, price elasticity may be of greater importance in low-involvement categories whereas brand associations may be of more importance in high-involvement decision-making scenarios where risk increases and the brand plays a greater role in the decision. Since Kaul and Wittinks review, several studies have examined a variety of positioning strategies, including price and value messages, as well as, the introduction of brand equity as a dependent variable. In addition, studies have looked at durable good product categories for the rst time. Kalra and Goodstein (1998) suggested that Kaul and Wittinks classication of advertising messaging as price and non-price was too narrow. Testing seven positioning conditions, including product attribute, comparative positioning, and value positioning, the authors found that different price positioning strategies had different effects on price sensitivity, and therefore brand equity. The authors also tested these positioning conditions in two studies utilizing high advertising processing conditions for washing machines and single lens reex cameras. Consistent with framing theory, the authors found that the relative importance of price is signicantly higher for subjects exposed to value positioning (Kalra and Goodstein, 1998, p. 214). This study, like many of its predecessors, used the absolute value (specic prices) that consumers were willing to pay for a product as the dependent variable. The authors concluded that valueoriented positioning could be detrimental to brand equity and may lead to lower quality ratings. Furthermore, Yoo et al.(2000) proposed a conceptual framework identifying the

Effects of promotional-based advertising on brand associations Michael Clayton and Jun Heo

Journal of Product & Brand Management Volume 20 Number 4 2011 309 315

5 6 7

meaningless attribute positioning; endorsements by product-relevant celebrities; and premium versus premium brand comparison (Kalra and Goodstein, 1998, p. 211).

value-based messaging versus brand advertising, on brand associations for a durable good: H1. Non-comparative advertising for durable goods containing promotional-based value messaging (nonabsolute value) produces signicantly lower brand associations results (image, attitude, and quality) than comparable non-price brand advertising.

They concluded that value-orientated positioning (where absolute pricing was not included) led to greater price sensitivity. Karla and Goodstein sought to identify the direct effect of value-oriented positioning on prices consumers were willing to pay for a durable good, and thus decided it was necessary to remove absolute pricing from all stimuli and instead to focus on value. The current study seeks to build on these ndings to understand what other effects are caused by promotion-based messaging within a durable goods category. Conceptualization of involvement and attention The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) illustrates how advertising can inuence a reader based on central or peripheral processing (Petty and Cacioppo, 1981; Petty et al., 1983). Antecedents of this processing have been subsequently identied as ability, opportunity, and motivation to process information, the latter of which has garnered the involvement label (Andrews, 1988). Researchers have also determined that motivation, ability, and opportunity are strong inuencers of consumers attention and comprehension processes (Batra and Ray, 1986). A highly involved consumer is more likely to fully read a print advertisement and to cognitively process the message, including the creation of support arguments or challenging questionable statements. Whereas, in the peripheral route a reader would have less involvement and would rely more heavily on supercial cues like colors and talent used in the advertisement. Petty et al. (1983) found that strong arguments performed better under scenarios of high involvement, whereas celebrity endorsers meant more in scenarios involving low involvement. Since the early ELM work, involvement has become a construct of frequent study in marketing literature, and has been subsequently measured in terms of involvement with brands, products, messaging, tasks, etc. (Bruner et al., 2005). Greenwald and Leavitt (1984, p. 584) posited that there are actually several different levels of involvement based on varying degrees of attention, these level were classied as preattention, focal attention, comprehension, and elaboration. Shortly after, Celsi and Olson (1988, p. 219) found that as subjects felt involvement increased so did their attention to respective advertisements. This same study also found that consumers domain knowledge was not related to consumers attention toward advertisements. Hypothesis While it is generally accepted that promotional price-based advertising leads to increased price sensitivity, other effects of this messaging are less clear. While the effectiveness of this messaging in terms of delivering short terms sales has been validated by businesses time and time again, the longer term effects on key brand health measures still needs to be studied. While some may argue that there is an opportunity cost to diverting advertising funds from brand building messaging into short-term price promotional messaging, we hypothesize that the short-term price promotional messaging itself is actually detrimental to the brand in the case of durable goods. This study seeks to understand the relative performance of 311

Caves and Greene (1996) studied brands quality levels, prices, and advertising outlays, and found that quality signaling is not the function of most advertising in consumer good segments. Their study utilized Consumer Reports data, based on performance measured by experts, as the measure of quality, thus measuring actual quality and not necessarily consumer perceived quality. Advertising outlays were obtained from LNA/Arbitron, but these gures did not include most forms of sales promotion, and the analysis had no way of identifying the different messaging within the advertising expenditures. Conversely, this study seeks to understand the role of promotional-based messaging in inuencing consumer quality perceptions, as well as image and brand attitudes. H2. High involvement with the advertising message signicantly increases the detrimental effect of promotional-based value messaging (non-absolute value) compared to non-price brand advertising.

Assuming the rst hypothesis is supported, the ELM predicts that increased attention and cognitive processing of the message will have a greater effect on cognitive evaluations than more low involvement processing utilizing the peripheral route to persuasion.

Study
Method A total of 105 male and female undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory advertising course at a large southeastern university volunteered to participate in a mixed advertisement study. Extra credit was awarded for participation in the study. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: high-involvement, non-price brand advertising (HINP), low-involvement, nonprice brand advertising (LINP) or high-involvement, valueoriented advertising (HIV), low-involvement, value-oriented advertising (LIV). Procedure and stimuli Testing the hypotheses required the measurement of consumer responses to non-price and value-oriented messaging for durable products under conditions of high and low cognitive involvement with the messaging. A 2 2 factorial design was employed with cognitive involvement (high/low) and advertising message (brand/value) as the experimental factors. In each condition the participant was asked to view a portfolio of four advertisements. In accordance with the preferred procedure for advertising involvement studies where recipient, message, and medium characteristics are held constant, study participants were randomly assigned to high and low message involvement groups (Petty et al., 1983). Manipulation of involvement with the message is described within the independent variables section of this paper.

Effects of promotional-based advertising on brand associations Michael Clayton and Jun Heo

Journal of Product & Brand Management Volume 20 Number 4 2011 309 315

The durable good category selected was electronics (a Zune digital MP3 player) due to the samples familiarity with the product category and the brands second-tier status within the category. Two advertisements were created for Zune. One advertisement contained detailed information about product attributes obtained from the brands ofcial web site. The second advertisement contained no detailed information about the product but instead focused solely on the fact that there was a limited-time offer and that the consumer should act now to take advantage of substantial savings. The absolute price of the product was absent in both scenarios, but copy referring to the price discount in the form of percent off was included in the value-oriented stimulus. Three additional advertisements from brands in noncompeting product categories were used as ller brands to disguise the nature of the study and prevent hypothesis guessing. In addition, all advertisements contained an identical design template in order to disguise the test advertisements and to moderate the effects of Aad. Those design elements included: a large visual of the product encapsulating the top 70-80 percent of the space, a 22 pt headline, a two-three sentence 16 pt copy block on white background, and brand logo in the bottom right corner of the advertisement. The Zune advertisement was always placed in position two of four to prevent primacy and recency effects. In addition, the order of the ller advertisements was constant so that mood effects created by any ller advertisement were controlled for across all conditions. At the conclusion of viewing all four advertisements, participants were instructed to turn over advertisement materials and to refrain from referring back to them. At that time the participants were asked to complete a brief survey regarding attitudes towards the brands detailed in the advertisements. Instrumentation Dependent variables The dependent variable was measured using a brand association scale from Low and Lamb (2000). The scale contains 12 items to measure three dimensions of brand associations: brand attitude, perceived quality, and brand image. The order of all 12 measurement items was randomized in the questionnaire to prevent a possible carryover effect between adjectives. Item purication was performed based on the internal consistency of the scale. Brand attitude (bad/good, worthless/valuable, and unpleasant/pleasant) and perceived quality (inferior/superior, low quality/high quality, and poor/excellent) were acceptable with Cronbach alphas of 0.76 and 0.85, respectively. However, the six items for brand image showed low reliability: Cronbachs alpha was only 0.21. According to Park and Srinivasan (1994), brand image measures should be customized for the unique traits of specic product category. The six items included in the current study were originally developed utilizing the shampoo product category. Thus, we excluded three items, which t less well with durable goods, such as harsh/gentle, unfriendly/friendly, and natural/articial. The reliability of the revised scale for brand image improved to 0.80, with the three items included: outdated/modern, not useful/useful, and popular/ unpopular. Further, the scale for brand associations with the selected nine items together demonstrated very high reliability, 0.93. 312

In order to conrm the structure of the brand association scale suggested by Low and Lamb (2000), an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted. The results of this analysis indicated that the items were loaded on one factor only, suggesting the uni-dimensionality of the scale. In their paper, Low and Lamb (2000) mentioned that the dimensionality of the scale may depend on the familiarity of the product/brand under test. Thus, the current authors had to ensure construct validity of the scale and conducted a conrmatory factor analysis (CFA) with the selected items. After allowing error of one of the items for brand attitude to be correlated with perceived quality measure, the goodnessof-t for the measurement model signicantly improved and showed fair t: x2 24 60:03, p 0:00, RMSEA 0:12, CFI 0:97, SRMR 0:05, NNFI 0:96. Although the x2 test for the measurement model was signicant, other goodness-of-t indices were considered acceptable (Schumacker and Lomax, 2004). Additionally, each item demonstrated higher factor loading than 0.60, which is a condition for acceptable construct validity. The factor loadings ranged from 0.66 for one of the brand attitude items to 0.85 for one of the items of perceived quality. Accordingly, a total of nine items for brand association constructs three items per each construct were included in the study for the subsequent analyses. Factor loading of each item and Cronbachs alpha coefcients for each construct are demonstrated in Table I. Independent variables Involvement was manipulated through study instructions which asked one group to review the advertisements as if they were going to be shopping for goods in each of the four product categories in the next week, and would be asked to describe how the details in each advertisement affected their consideration of the brands. The low involvement subjects were asked to review four advertisements at their leisure and then answer a series of questions regarding the advertisements they just reviewed. In order to operationalize this construct the authors chose to measure attention rather than involvement as a way to mitigate the participants domain knowledge on this subject matter. Attention to the message was measured utilizing a scale originally developed by Table I Internal consistency and factor loadings for measurement scales of brand association
Factors and items L 0.75 0.66 0.78 0.853 0.82 0.85 0.78 0.799 0.81 0.79 0.70 Cronbachs a (standardized) 0.758

Brand attitude Bad/good Worthless/valuable Pleasant/unpleasant Perceived quality Inferior/superior Low quality/high quality Poor/excellent Brand image Outdated/modern Not useful/useful Popular/unpopular

Effects of promotional-based advertising on brand associations Michael Clayton and Jun Heo

Journal of Product & Brand Management Volume 20 Number 4 2011 309 315

Laczniak et al. (1989). This ve-item, seven-point Likert scale ranging from none/not at all to very much measures the amount of attention dedicated to the written messages within advertisements (Bruner and Hensel, 1996). This scale was chosen for its specicity in measuring message attention to an adverstisement, as well as its high reliability. In this experimental setting where we were seeking to create felt involvement we believe that measuring the attention dedicated to the specic advertisements is a suitable substitute for a more traditional involvement measure. The delineation of promotion-based and non-price messaging followed the procedure outlined in the procedure and stimuli section. By creating the advertisements from scratch and only manipulating the copy, the authors believe the stimuli was a true test of the messaging, and able to mitigate the majority of Aad confounds due to the similarities in visuals, format, and fonts, with the only differences being the copy which was written in the same matter-of-fact tone. In order to measure the level of attention dedicated to viewing the advertisements, using the seven-point Likert scale referenced previously (Laczniak et al., 1989), respondents were asked How much attention did you pay to the written message in the advertisement?, How much did you notice the written message in the advertisement?, How much did you concentrate on the written message in the advertisement?, How involved were you with the written message in the advertisement?, and How much thought did you put into evaluating the written message in the advertisement?. With all ve items, the coefcient alpha was not satisfactory at 0.34. To ensure reliability of the scale, one item, How much did you concentrate on the written message in the advertisement? was omitted, and the coefcient alpha improved to 0.89.

Table II Multivariate analysis of variance results: involvement and message type with brand association (brand attitude, perceived quality, and brand image)
Factor Message involvement Message type * Message involvement 3 message type Error Note: *Signicant at the 0.05 level Multivariate analysis F p Wilks l df 0.95 0.88 0.99 3 3 3 99 1.87 4.37 0.34 0.14 0.01 0.80

Table III Univariate analysis of variance results: involvement and message type with brand association (brand attitude, perceived quality, and brand image)
Univariate analysis Brand association Source of variation df MS Brand attitude Involvement 1 1 Message type * Involvement message type 1 Error 101

0.65 0.64 0.42 9.70 9.56 0.00 0.35 0.35 0.56 1.01 0.00 0.00 0.98 16.70 13.19 0.00 0.52 0.41 0.51 1.27 0.64 0.44 0.51 13.60 9.23 0.00 1.39 0.95 0.33 1.47

Perceived quality Involvement 1 Message type * 1 Involvement message type 1 Error 101 Brand image Involvement 1 Message type * 1 Involvement message type 1 Error 101

Results
To measure the success of the manipulation of the two involvement treatments, high and low, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed in which the four manipulation check scales were the dependent variables and the two factors (e.g. high vs low involvement) were the independent variables. Results showed involvement for the high involvement subjects was signicantly higher than for the low involvement subjects (respective means of 5.06 and 4.56, F 4:49; p 0:037). Therefore, it can be concluded that our manipulation yielded the correct conditions for a test of the hypotheses. The hypotheses were tested by entering the dependent variable, brand association with three dimensions: brand attitude, perceived quality, and brand image, into a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with message involvement (high vs low) and message type (promotional messaging vs. non-price messaging) as the independent variables. As shown in Tables II and III, the result of the MANOVA revealed statistically signicant difference based on message type across the three dimensions all together (Wilks Lambda 0:88, F(3, 99 4:37, p , 0:05), suggesting brand association signicantly differs depending on message type. While, 95 percent and 99 percent of observed variability of all combined dimensions of brand association are not explained by message involvement (Wilks Lambda 0:95, 313

Note: *Signicant at the 0.05 level

F(3, 99 1:87, p . 0:05) and the interaction between message involvement and message type (Wilks Lambda 0:99, F(3, 99 0:34, p . 0:05), respectively. This nding would indicate that the effects of messaging on brand associations, including brand attitude, perceived quality, and brand image, do not differ depending on the level of message involvement. The ANOVA results showed that message type has a statistically signicant main effect on each of the brand association dimensions, suggesting brand attitude (F(1,101) 9.56, p , 0.05), perceived quality (F(1,101) 13.19, p , 0.05), and brand image (F(1,101) 9.23, p , 0.05) differ depending on message type. It suggests that perceived quality with the highest F-value, 13.19, is the most inuenced variable of promotionbased messaging, followed by brand attitude, 9.56, and brand image, 9.23. Concerning message type (promotional-based messaging vs. non-price messaging); Table IV demonstrates that means of brand association are less when subjects saw promotionbased messaging than value-based messaging across all three dimensions. That is, subjects exposed to promotional-based messaging are more likely to form less favorable attitudes (M 4:36, n 51) toward the tested brand than subjects exposed to value-based messaging (M 4:99, n 54); F(1,

Effects of promotional-based advertising on brand associations Michael Clayton and Jun Heo

Journal of Product & Brand Management Volume 20 Number 4 2011 309 315

Table IV Means and standard deviations for brand attitude, perceived quality, and brand image by message involvement and message type
Brand attitude M SD 4.61 4.74 4.36 4.99 1.07 1.04 0.85 1.13 Perceived quality M SD 4.45 4.42 4.00 4.83 1.25 1.15 1.99 1.23 Brand image M SD 4.95 4.77 4.44 5.22 1.28 1.26 1.25 1.17

Directions for future research

Marketing scholars should look to develop longitudinal studies to explore how a corporations long-term focus on promotional-based advertising affects brand equity and longterm sales within durable good categories. As discussed earlier, price sensitivity and other effects of price advertising have tended to focus on consumer non-durable goods where brand equity is presumed to hold less value due to the lower perceived risk among most non-durable categories. While we found a signicant negative effect of pricing message on brand equity in the durable goods category, it would be meaningful to compare durable goods to non-durable goods in terms of effects on brand associations. In addition, the study should be replicated on a variety of different media types to examine whether consumers respond differently to value-based messaging across different media types. Different types of media may result in different psychological processes as different media may have different informational expectations (Swanson, 1987). For example, consumers searching for product information on the Internet may have a different attitude toward promotional-based messaging than those who are skimming through a lifestyle magazine.

n Involvement High Low Message type Promotion-based Value-based

44 61 51 54

101 9:56, p , 0:00. And, subjects exposed to promotionbased messaging are more likely to perceive the brand quality lower (M 4:00, n 51) than those exposed to value-based messaging (M 4:83, n 54); F(1, 101 13:19, p , 0:05. Also, brand image scores among subjects exposed to promotion-based messaging are lower (M 4:44, n 51) than those among subjects exposed to non-price messaging (M 5:22, n 54); F(1, 101 9:23, p , 0:05.

Summary and general discussion

This study examined the effects of promotional-based messaging on brand associations, an indicator of consumerbased brand equity. These effects were tested under low and moderately high involvement conditions. The results support the rst hypothesis that promotional-based messaging lowers brand association measures, specically, the brands image, attitudes toward the brand and a brands quality perception. Of these three dimensions the brands quality perception suffered the most with exposure to a promotional-based message compared to a non-price brand message. These ndings were not surprising given the extensive research on the relationship between price and quality. While these ndings are by no means conclusive as to the true impact of all promotionalbased advertising across different product categories and luxury and non-luxury brands, these ndings do call into question the negative effects of promotional-based advertising and messaging. While the short-term sales effects of sales promotions have been well documented, the long-term effect on key brand health measures has been less explored. It is our hope that this study will create greater interest in advertising messaging and budgeting of communication plans in order to better understand brand building. The ndings from this study failed to support the second hypothesis, that involvement with the value messaging would affect brand association measures. While the results of the manipulation check indicated that there were signicant differences in the levels of involvement, it is plausible that the articial nature of the experiment likely led to a level of involvement higher than a consumer would experience when consuming advertisements in a standard printed media vehicle. Limitations of this study included the lack of breadth in product categories and the studys ability to fully replicate inmarket shopping where price indicators may hold greater relevance to consumers. This study also failed to account for pre-existing familiarity issues with the brand, including category involvement and prior usage of brands. 314

Managerial implications and applications

While corporations and marketers are increasingly pressured by Wall Street to meet sales and revenue expectations, a long-term orientation is required to understand the potential consequences of promotional-based messaging. While others have illustrated a framing effect which causes consumers to become more price sensitive in the face of value-oriented messages, this study concludes that these messages also have the potential to deteriorate brand associations, another key component in developing brand equity. Since strong brand equity is what allows many marketers to demand a premium price for their goods and maintain strong brand loyalty, the relationship between promotional-based messaging and brand associations is an important topic for further consideration. The long-term effects of promotional-based messaging are at this point still fairly inconclusive, but multiple studies show that these forms of communication do have the potential to denigrate brand equity, and thus erode margins, prots and loyalty.

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Effects of promotional-based advertising on brand associations Michael Clayton and Jun Heo

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Corresponding author
Michael Clayton can be contacted at: michael.clayton@cnu.edu

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