Do the Means and the Source Matter? A Study on the Actual Usage of Digitally Disseminated Coupons

How to effectively distribute coupons digitally to consumers who may exercise them remains an enduring, yet important, issue to address. In this study, we seek to answer two questions. First, would the dissemination of product discount coupons through mobile technology, such as the mobile phone network via the short-message-service (SMS), yield different effects on consumers, compared to a more traditional communication technology such as e-mail? Second, does the source, that is, the merchant or referral from peers, matter to a consumer? We build on the theoretical lens of cognitive effort (technology) and social capital (source) to theorize and empirically validate the conjectures through a real-world field experiment spanning four weeks. In terms of technology, the results indicate no significant difference in terms of the usage rate of coupons between the two technological means through which the coupons were disseminated. However, in terms of the source, we observed a higher propensity of using coupons received from a peer as compared to coupons received from a merchant. Furthermore, the forwarding rate of the discount coupons was significantly higher via e-mail as compared to SMS. Implications for research and practice are discussed

An Exploratory Field Experiment on Actual Usage of Discount Coupons

In this study, we seek to answer the question of whether sending the product discount coupons through the mobile technology as opposed to another more traditional communication technology i.e., e-mail, will yield different effect on consumer behavior? Through a real-world field experiment spanning four weeks, we observed that there is no significant difference in terms of coupons’ usage rate between the two technological means through which the coupons were disseminated, i.e., mobile phone in the form of short-message-service (SMS); and e-mail technology as e-mail message. However, we discovered that the discount coupons’ forwarding rate is significantly higher via e-mail as compared to SMS. Furthermore, the results provide indication that the propensity of using coupons received from a peer is higher as compared to coupons received from a merchant

Using personal communication technologies for commercial communications:a cross-cultural investigation of email and SMS

The widespread use of personal communication technologies (PCTs) for commercial message dissemination necessitates understanding that PCTs might lead to better commercial performance in different situations. Building primarily on apparatgeist and social construction theories, this research proposes that consumer responses to PCT-disseminated commercial messages are jointly influenced by the PCT (i.e., technology) that carries general symbolic meanings about its nature and purpose (its “spirit”), and the context culture (i.e., the cultural milieu) in which it is used. We began with focus groups' assessments of two commonly utilized PCTs—email and short message service—which revealed their comparative symbolic meanings in terms of intimacy or formality of communication—to be in line with extant literature. Then, in a commercial setting where retailers leverage PCTs to disseminate product discount coupons, we examined the difference between two distinct environments that differed in their context-cultural dimensions (their cultural milieus of social interaction and communication)—i.e., China (an environment of high context-cultural dimension) and Switzerland (an environment of low context-cultural dimension). To do so, we first validated the context-cultural differences through a survey (study 1) and conducted two matching field experiments in the two countries involving more than one thousand consumers (study 2). Results support our propositions, demonstrating favorable commercial performance for SMS use in the high context-cultural environment and for email use in the low context-cultural environment. Follow-up surveys (study 3) corroborated the results and provided deeper insights into how both PCTs' general meanings and pertinent values in the cultural milieus we studied led to consumer responses. Besides presenting empirical evidence to inform the selection of appropriate PCTs for commercial communications, this research contributes to the theoretical development of apparatgeist and social construction theories via its joint examination of technologies and consumers' environments