Promoting Pi Day: Consumer Response to Special Day‐Themed Sales Promotions

Abstract

Many firms now link discounts to “special days”—novel holidays/events not historically associated with promotions (e.g., Pi Day). Using a field study and laboratory studies, we explore consumers’ responses to special day‐themed sales promotions. Specifically, we demonstrate that consumers respond more favorably to a discount celebrating a special day compared to the same discount with no link to the special day. Further, we show that consumers’ increased intentions to use special day‐themed discounts are driven by their perceptions of the marketer’s creativity (both the originality and appropriateness dimensions) through a marketplace metacognition process. Thus, when a given special day‐themed discount becomes commonplace in the marketplace (i.e., originality is low) or when there is low fit between the firm and special day (i.e., appropriateness is low), special day‐themed promotions are no more effective than more traditional types of one‐day sales. Finally, we develop a typology of special day‐themed sales promotions and offer avenues for future research on how consumers respond to such promotional efforts.

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