Analysis of Sales Promotion Effects on Household Purchase Behavior

2.3.4.2 Literature Overview
Our review <strong>of</strong> the literature identified several articles discussing deal proneness and related
topics. Webster (1965) conducted one <strong>of</strong> the first deal proneness studies. Deal proneness was
described as a function <strong>of</strong> both consumers’ buying behavior and the frequency with which a
given brand is sold on deal. This study consisted <strong>of</strong> two phases. The first step was the
development <strong>of</strong> a measure <strong>of</strong> consumer deal proneness. The second step was an attempt to
correlate this measure <strong>of</strong> deal proneness with families’ demographic, socioeconomic, and
purchasing characteristics. Webster developed a relatively sophisticated formula for
calculating deal proneness (Blattberg and Neslin 1990), adjusting for how <strong>of</strong>ten each <strong>of</strong> the
brands the consumer bought was on promotion and for consumer preference. The deal
proneness index reflects a family’s propensity to deal more or less than expected. But, the
measure has some drawbacks. Webster did not distinguish different types <strong>of</strong> sales promotions,
different product classes, nor did he distinguish the different types <strong>of</strong> sales promotion reaction
mechanisms. Although the measure is easily adjustable to the first two drawbacks,
distinguishing sales promotion reaction mechanisms is not possible using Webster’s measure.
Furthermore, deal proneness is used as some sort <strong>of</strong> outcome variable instead <strong>of</strong> a
psychological input trait.
Webster’s pioneering work led to a number <strong>of</strong> studies dedicated to deal proneness
and consumer choice segments. Montgomery (1971) examined possible relationships between
a housewife’s dealing activity in a product class and some social-psychological and
purchasing characteristics. Dealing activity was defined as the proportion <strong>of</strong> a household’s
purchases made on a deal. Blattberg and Sen (1974) segmented consumers using the
following variables: brand loyalty (loyal to one brand, loyal to the last purchased brand, or
loyal to more brands), type <strong>of</strong> brand preferred (national, national and private label, or private
label), and deal proneness (price sensitivity and number <strong>of</strong> purchases on deal were used to
determine deal proneness). Blattberg et al. (1978) elaborated upon the Blattberg and Sen
(1974) article. The authors showed in this article that it is possible to identify a deal prone
household (according to the 1974 definition) by using demographic variables, and they
showed that the effect <strong>of</strong> these variables is substantive. Several product categories were
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