Self-persuasion as marketing technique: the role of consumers’ involvement

Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate that self-persuasion can be used as a marketing technique to increase consumers’ generosity and that the efficacy of this approach is dependent on consumers’ involvement with target behavior. Design/methodology/approach An experimental field-study was conducted to investigate the effects of self-persuasion versus direct persuasion attempts versus no persuasion attempts on consumers’ tipping behavior in a lunchroom. Additionally, in a lab experiment, the moderating role of involvement on self-persuasion versus direct persuasion was tested. Findings The results reveal that self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion attempts or no persuasive messages in increasing consumers’ generosity. This is moderated by consumers’ involvement with the target behavior. For consumers with high involvement, self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion, while no differences were found for consumers with moderate or low involvement. Practical implications The scope of self-persuasion is not limited to the inhibition of undesired behavior, but it also extends to the facilitation of desired behavior, which considerably broadens the scope of this technique. Self-persuasion might be used as a marketing technique to influence consumers’ purchase behavior. This might be particularly viable in situations in which consumers feel high involvement with products or behavior. Originality/value Recently, research in health psychology demonstrated that self-persuasion is a very effective way of inhibiting undesired, addictive behavior and being more successful than direct persuasion. Yet, insufficient knowledge is available about the efficacy of self-persuasion with regard to promoting other target behaviors. In particular, its potential as a marketing technique to influence consumers’ behavior and its boundary conditions are still understudied

Product usage and firm-generated word of mouth: some results from FMCG product trials

Theory and past research suggests that greater levels of consumer involvement and product usage lead to higher levels of word of mouth (WOM). This paper presents some tests of hypotheses related to product usage and WOM, based on secondary consumer panel data from five fmcg product trials. The main findings are that brand usage range within a product category has a pervasive effect on pre-trial intentions to recommend the trialled product, as well as the actual number of WOM conversations generated by the trial and their effectiveness (the rate of attitudinal conversion based on interest generated). Frequency of product use only significantly affects the number of WOM conversations. Second, compared to non-users, being a loyal user of the trialled product (having used the brand more frequently than other brands) has a negative effect on WOM effectiveness, while non-loyal users' WOM is more effective compared to that of loyal users. The study thereby provides more evidence that loyal users are not necessarily the best targets of WOM marketing campaigns, and suggests that research on the interaction between involvement or product usage and loyalty in relation to firm-generated WOM may be an interesting area of further research