Preference for Experiential or Material Purchases?The Impact of Message Framing

A body of study has been dedicated to examining the influence of various types of purchases, namely experiential and material, on consumers' attitudes and behaviors over the past two decades. However, little attention has been given to understanding the underlying reasons for why consumers make differential purchasing decisions. In order to address this gap, three studies were conducted to explore the impact of message framing on consumers’ product preferences for experiential or material. The findings indicate that consumers prefer experiential over material purchases under situation of a gain-framed message, but prefer material purchases over experiential purchases under situation of a loss-framed message. Moreover, the effect is continuously mediated by both processing fluency and anticipated regret. Participants exhibit higher processing fluency when they were presented with the gain-framed (vs. loss-framed) messages in the context of experiential (vs. material) purchase. Processing fluency increased consumers’ anticipated regret of not purchasing, resulting in greater purchase intention. These findings indicate when and why consumers would prefer material or experiential purchases based on the types of message framing presented.