This thesis examines how consumers value promotions for delayed consumption depending on the time of redemption, the types of benefits offered, and the scope of the offering. The specific focus is on promotions that are redeemed in the future at the time of consumption, which we label "advance promotions". In the first essay, results from three studies demonstrate that consumers value hedonic advance promotions differently from delayed consumption of stand-alone goods or delayed incentives (rebates). Hedonic advance promotions are consistently overvalued, unless they are incongruent with consumers' consumption goals (e.g., when consumers regulate their consumption of the hedonic benefits). In contrast, advance utilitarian promotions are overvalued only when they are congruent with the consumption context of the target product (e.g., when the target consumption is also utilitarian). In general, we find that valuation of future utilitarian promotions depends on the consumption context but valuation of future hedonic promotions depends on when the target product is consumed. These findings are explained by the focalism bias that was originally suggested by affective forecasting and Construal Level Theory and are further expanded in this dissertation. / The second essay explores the shape of the value function for hedonic advance promotions. It addresses the issue of what is the optimal depth of a promotion in an advance consumption setting. Drawing from the focalism framework presented in the first essay and on recent research on the valuation of hedonic goods, we argue that the shape of the function is more convex or step-like for advance promotions than for immediate ones. We then demonstrate that this finding has implications for the common variety-seeking behaviour that is generally associated with delayed consumption.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.115644 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Legoux, Renaud. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Desautels Faculty of Management.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002840017, proquestno: AAINR66677, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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