The influence of goal attainability on motivation – Consequences for marketers and companies that advertise fitness products.

Abstract

Purpose: Nowadays in the highly competitive global markets marketers need to invest more time and effort into strategies in order to motivate consumers to buy their products. One possibility is the advertising design which is influencing the buying intention and which will be considered in more detail. The thesis aims to figure out how the best advertising design or image should look like in order to motivate the consumer to purchase a product or service. Based on goal gradient hypothesis it can be stated that closer goals lead to higher motivation. It should be tested if this effect will also occur when consumers are exposed to an image that shows an undesired end state versus an ideal that represents a goal that seems to be far away.

Prior work: Starting point for the thesis was Klesse et al.’s research of 2012 in which the authors wanted to figure out how the exposure to an ideal end state, which was represented by a thin model on a cover of a diet diary, influence women in their target to lose weight. At the end, participants who had the thin model on their diet diary, an ideal end state, have been less confident that they will reach their goal of losing weight than participants in the control group. The authors mentioned the consequences of their findings on marketers that advertise dieting or low-fat products as further research possibilities.

Design/ Methodology: Based on theoretical models, like the goal gradient hypothesis, the concept of goals as reference points, the goals loom large effect and the self-congruity theory as well as empirical studies important constructs have been derived and hypothesis about their relationships have been deducted. All hypothesis are summarized in a structural equation model (SEM). For each construct indicators are selected from previous research in order to measure it. The verification of the model took place in the following way: In a first pre-study just one part of the SEM was tested by an online questionnaire (n= 234). This pre-study enabled to reduce the number of indicators per item and to test the measurement of the reference point (distance between the displayed models BMI and the participants BMI). In the second pre-study the best images of females and males should be selected, which should be used for the advertisement (n = 130). The images that differ the most among each other have been taken for the main study. In the main study the whole SEM was tested by the use of an online questionnaire (n = 643). The measurement and structural model have been evaluated.

Findings: The analysis of the measurement model showed adequate reliability, convergence and discriminant validity. In the analysis of the structural model the path coefficients and corresponding p-values some significant relationships have been detected for the complete data set. It can be stated that the attitude toward the ad has a significant influence on the purchase intention as well as on the product trust. Furthermore, the distance of the displayed models BMI and the participants BMI is influencing the attitude towards the ad. Therefore it can be stated that how a product design is created needs to be decided carefully by marketers as it has an influence on the buying intention of the customer. The R² values especially for product trust and purchase intention are showing moderate predictive power of the SEM. The mediator analysis identified a complementary mediation between attitude toward the ad and purchase intention, which means that a significant direct and indirect effect into the same direction is present. Last a moderator analysis was done in order to detect heterogeneous data structures. Based on the gender and the type of advertising the participants have been exposed to (desired versus undesired end state) two multigroup analysis for these two different experimental groups have been conducted.

The analysis of the complete data set shows a significant influence of the attitude toward the ad on the purchase intention. On the one hand, the direct effect of the attitude toward the ad on the purchase intention for consumers who have been exposed to an ideal end state is 0.485***, whereas it is 0.518*** for the participants who have been exposed to a heavy image. However, the difference between the two groups is not significant. On the other hand the direct effect of the attitude toward the ad on the purchase intention for male participants is 0.563***, whereas it is 0.427*** for female participants. The difference between the genders is significant. The difference between the participants who have been exposed to a desired vs. an undesired end state is not significant, whereas the difference between men and women is significant. For men a better attitude toward the ad is resulting in a higher purchase intention than for women. This result shows that it is important for marketers to design advertisings that result in a positive attitude toward the ad as the attitude is influencing to a high degree the purchase intention

Neither the analysis of the complete data set, nor the analysis of the experimental groups (women vs. men and participants exposed to an undesired vs. desired end state) show a significant effect of the social comparison tendency on the purchase intention. However, there is a significant positive effect of social comparison on purchase intention for the participants who have been exposed to an undesired end state. The exposure to the heavy model resulted in a goal to eliminate or avoid to look like the testimonial by joining the fitness club. This seems to be in accordance with the results in the area of goal framing: If a consumer is buying something to avoid negative consequences the negative goal framing seems to be more effective (Gierl et al. 2002, p. 147; Smith 1996, p. 52). In the current research the participant wants to avoid negative consequences (being unhealthy) and is therefore willing to join the fitness club. Hereby, the exposure to a heavy model can be interpreted as showing the negative consequences (negative goal frame) to motivate the consumer to join the fitness center.

Last, there is a significant positive effect of the distance on the attitude toward the ad for the participants who have been exposed to an undesired end state, a desired end state and for the experimental male group. Surprisingly, the results show a positive effect of the distance on the attitude toward the ad for these groups. Based on the self-congruity theory a negative effect was assumed: The smaller the distance between the participant and the displayed testimonial, the better the attitude toward the ad. In contrast, the analysis of the experimental female group didn’t show a significant effect of the distance on the attitude toward the ad.