• Consumer Evaluations of Price Cues and Semantic Cues in Gift Promotions

Abstract

This research discussed the evaluation of price cues and semantic cues in gift promotions, and made a comparison between the context of gift promotions and price promotions. Based on cognitive load theory, the research combined price cues and semantic cues to examine the evaluation mechanism. The gift promotion depth was taken as a price cue in gift promotions, while concreteness of gift information and comparisons of gift promotion campaigns were picked up as semantic cues in this research. An experiment was conducted. Results showed that when the gift promotion depth was outside consumer internal reference range, concrete cues of the gift, rather than abstract cues, influenced consumer value perception toward the gift promotion bundle. In addition, when the gift promotion depth was outside consumer internal reference range, between-store comparison cues, rather than within-store comparison cues, affected consumer intention to search for other gift promotion campaigns.

Keywords: Gift promotions, Price cues, Semantic cues, Consumer evaluation