Managers and academics often think of price promotions merely as
incentives that entice consumers to accept offers that they might not
have considered otherwise. Yet the prospect of paying a lower price for a
product of given quality can also discourage deliberation, in a sense
“dumbing down” the purchase encounter by making it less consequential.
The authors examine this possibility in a dual-system theory of consumer
behavior. Specifically, they argue that price promotion lowers a
consumer’s motivation to exert mental effort, in which case purchase
decisions are guided less by extensive information processing and more
by a quicker, easier, strong conditioner of preference: affect. Field
data from a large daily deal company and four controlled experiments
support this idea and document its implications primarily for product
choice, in turn providing insight into the form and cause of brand
switching that manufacturers and retailers can leverage to improve the
allocation of promotional budgets and category management. [ABSTRACT
FROM AUTHOR]