규범초점동기의 제품태도에 대한 광고 메시지 및 정보처리 유형의 효과

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본연구는 그 동안 광고측면에서만 주로 연구되어져 온 소비자의 자아규제초점(self-regulatory focus)을 구전상황으로 확장하였다. 이를 위해 광고상황에서는 2(자아규제초점: 예방초점동기/향상초점동기)×2 (광고메시지: 이미지 광고메시지/속성 광고메시지) ×2(시간압박: 30초/30분)집단간 실험설계(between- subjects factorial design)를 적용하였다. 구전상황에서는 2(자아규제초점: 예방초점동기/향상초점동기)×2(구전정보유형:이미지단서정보/속성단서정보)×2(구매시시점거리:1일/2주)집단간 실험설계를 적용하였다. 실험대상 제품으로는 디지털 카메라를 실험대상 제품으로 선정하였으며, 제품의 브랜드명은 소비자의 사전지식과 친숙성을 통제하기 위해 사전조사를 실시하여 가상브랜드명을 사용하였다. 분석결과, 광고상황에서는 자아규제초점동기와 광고메시지 유형과 상호작용하여 소비자태도가 나타났다. 그러나 자아규제초점 동기와 시간압박의 상호작용 효과가 나타났으나 가설과 상이한 결과를 나타냈다. 구전상황에서는 소비자의 자아규제초점이 구전정보단서 및 구매시점거리와 각각의 상호작용효과를 나타냈다. 특히 구전상황에서는 향상초점동기를 지닌 소비자일수록 구매시점이 가까울수록 소비자태도가 더 선호적으로 나타나지만, 예방초점동기를 지닌 소비자일수록 구매시점거리가 멀수록 소비자태도가 상대적으로 더 높게 나타나, 구매시점거리에 따라 소비자의 선호가 명확하게 다르게 형성됨을 보이고 있다. 따라서 소비자의 자아규제초점은 광고와 구전상황에서 각기 다른 제품태도가 형성됨을 나타냈다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Previous research on self-regulatory focus motivation was mainly conducted within the boundary of how consumers handle advertisement information such as advertisement message or brand extension, but still lack approaches to consumers' WOM (word of mouth) situations in the same context. Against such limitation, this study seeks to identify whether consumers' self-regulatory focus equally influence consumer response in WOM situations as well and thereby any differences in consumers' product attitudes.
To this end, in advertising situations, 2(self-regulatory focus: prevention focus motivation/promotion focus motivation) × 2(advertisement message: image ad message/attribute ad message) × 2(time pressure: 30 sec./30 min.) between-subjects factorial design was applied. Meanwhile, in WOM situations, 2(self regulatory focus: prevention focus motivation/promotion focus motivation) × 2(WOM information type: image cue information/attribute cue information) × 2(purchase time distance: 1 day/2 weeks) between-subjects factorial design was applied. Digital camera was selected as the test product in both advertising and WOM situations, and a hypothetical name was used instead of the original brand name via pre-survey in order to control consumers' prior knowledge and familiarity. Sample data were collected from undergraduate and graduate students. Analysis results in advertising situations showed interaction between self-regulatory focus motivation and advertisement message type, which led to a difference in consumer attitudes. That is, consumers with higher promotion focus motivation showed stronger preferential attitude towards image ads, while consumers with higher prevention focus motivation exhibited more preferential attitude towards attribute ads. Moreover, self-regulatory focus and time pressure interacted significantly to affect consumer attitudes. To clarify here, consumers with promotion motivation preferred the product more under higher time pressure, but consumers with prevention motivation preferred the product more under lower time pressure. In WOM situations, information presentation type and purchase time distance interacted to show significant variance in consumer attitudes. In this particular setting, product attitude is not formed only with information cue as consumers' self-regulatory focus evidently plays an important role. In other words, promotion-oriented consumers displayed stronger preferential attitude by image rather than attribute cue information, while prevention-oriented consumers exhibited stronger preferential attitude by attribute cue information. Moving on, self-regulatory focus influenced consumer attitude differently according to purchase time distance. Particularly, consumers with more promotion focus motivation displayed strong preference in consumer attitude as purchase time distanced, but consumers with more prevention focus motivation showed comparatively higher scores in consumer attitude as purchase time neared. This indicates that consumer preferences distinctively vary according to purchase time distance, and thus it is elucidated that consumers' self-regulatory focus leads to forming different product attitudes in advertising and WOM situations. Based on such findings, companies that wish to form preferential consumer attitude towards their products need to include self-regulatory focus as a key segmentation market factor in their marketing strategies. Additionally, should future studies on consumers' self-regulatory focus cover various personal characteristics as variables, more sufficient empirical results will be presented.