The Influence of Perceived Congruity and Information Processing Mode on Consumer Response to the Free Gift with Purchase Promotions
(A2025-125994)

AUTHORS

Atul Kulkarni, Southern Connecticut State University

ABSTRACT

Consumer evaluation of a free gift with purchase promotion may be influenced by perceived congruity between the gift and the focal product included in the offer. Compared to a high or a low degree, a moderate degree of congruity may trigger relatively higher elaboration, leading to higher evaluations. The information processing style, that consumers engage in at the time of evaluation, may moderate this effect of perceived congruity on offer evaluation. Processing information analytically may accentuate the inverted U relationship between perceived congruity and offer evaluation. Processing information relationally may attenuate elaboration in response to moderate congruity, and in turn dampen the difference between the effects of moderate and high degrees of congruity on evaluation. In a set of six studies, we find corroborating evidence for these effects across different product categories, dependent variables, and measured and manipulated forms of information processing styles.