Effect of framing on consumers’ willingness to participate in a promotion campaign

This research explored whether the way companies frame their promotions can increase consumers’ participation. Using two studies (Ns = 97 university students and 195 online participants, respectively), we demonstrated that compared with an individual-based promotion (i.e., a promotion targeting the individual consumer), a platform-based promotion (i.e., a promotion targeting all consumers of a given shopping platform) increased consumers’ willingness to participate in a promotion campaign. This effect occurred because a platform-based promotion (vs. an individual-based promotion) increased consumers’ perceived savings, further enhancing their willingness to participate (Study 1). We also showed that only consumers who were promotion sensitive responded more actively to a platform-based promotion than to an individual-based promotion (Study 2). Our findings contribute to the promotion and framing literature and provide practical implications for marketing communications.