Consumer responses towards mobile coupon characteristics perception and causal relationships among variables

Abstract

Purpose of the study is to explore the effect of the types of mobile coupons(textvs. image-focused coupons; free-gift vs. discount coupons) on characteristic perception of mobile coupons, and the causal relationships among characteristic perception, attitude, and use intention of mobile coupons. A total of 140 university students participated in experiments with questionnaires including one of the four stimuli. Important findings are as follows. First, image-focused mobile coupons generated more enjoyment than did text-focused coupons. However, the text/image-focused coupons were not different in perception of informativeness and credibility of mobile coupons. Second, enjoyment perception was significantly increased when image-focused contents were combined with discount coupons whereas enjoyment perception was decreased when text-focused contents were combined with free-gift coupons. This interaction effect reflects that the level of enjoyment of consumers can be changed in terms of the combination of the value-provision types of coupons and the text-image focused contents. Third, it was found that consumer perception of coupon characteristics formed attitudes toward mobile coupons, and use intention of mobile coupons was determined by attitudes toward mobile coupons. Study findings may fill the void of research investigating the effect of text-image contents and the types of coupons on consumer reponses toward mobile coupons. Mobile coupons have limited quantity of information within a small size of mobile phone screen, therefore, the results were not consistent with prior research tested with mobile advertisements indicating the effect of text-image contents on perception of informativeness and credibility.