Consumer Brand Preference: A Case Study

2.3.2 Sales Promotion and its Relationship with Consumer Brand Preference

It has been acknowledged that consumer and trade promotions can be a very effective tool for generating short-term increases in sales, and many brand managers would rather use a promotion to produce immediate sales than invest in advertising to build the brand’s image over time (Belch & Belch, 2003). They, however, caution that overuse of sales promotion can be detrimental to a brand in several ways. The first is that a brand that is constantly promoted may lose perceived value. This is in line with Teunter (2002) and Jha-Dang’s (2004) assertion that the presence of a promotion will lead consumers to attribute lower quality to the brand owing to the fact that it is on

They explain that according to this theory, people acquire attitudes by observing their own behaviour and considering why they acted in a certain manner. They further contend that consumers who consistently purchase a brand because of a coupon or price-off deal may attribute their behaviour to the external promotional incentive rather than to a favourable attitude toward the brand. By contrast, when no external incentive is available, consumers are more likely to attribute their purchase behaviour to favourable underlying feelings about the brand. Sawyer and Dickson (2015) further contend that another potential problem with consumer-oriented promotions is that a sales promotion trap or spiral can result when several competitors use promotions extensively. Often a firm begins using sales promotions to differentiate its product or service from the competition. If the promotion is successful and leads to a differential advantage (or even appears to do so), competitors may quickly copy it. When all the competitors are using sales promotions, this not only lowers profit margins for each firm but also makes it difficult for any one firm to hop off the promotional bandwagon. Percy (2008) on the other hand contend that there are costs associated with promotion, and when a promotion is too successful, the unexpected increased costs can have a

They explain that in terms of explanatory power, which refers to how well does a theory explains, or makes sense of, phenomena, attribution theories have the advantage of making good intuitive sense. However, in terms of scope and generality, which refer to the breadth of phenomena and contexts in which a theory applies, they posit that Attribution theory which only applies to a particular time, place, or behavior is narrow in scope and not very generalizable. Malle (2011) concurs and notes that traditional formulations of attribution theory either focused too narrowly on inferences of stable traits or oversimplified the complex nature of behaviour explanations. Manusov & Spitzberg (2008) further point out that even though there is lack of support or partial support reported in prior studies, it is rare to find any scholar claiming that attribution theory is fundamentally flawed and that some of its premises need to be replaced. Teunter (2002) and Jha-Dang (2004), however, argue that although early researchers had suggested that the mere presence of a promotion would lead to perceptions of lower quality, results of later studies have shown that a promotion’s information value is context specific. Jha-Dang further pointed out that in today’s purchase environment where most brands promote, it is unlikely that