The contribution of self-disclosure to promotional response: Examining the roles of deservingness and social class

Facing the fact of declining sales of firms, promotions serve as an important tool to facilitate short-term sales. Yet, marketers still face the question of promotion effectiveness based on consumer self-disclosure behavior. In this paper, we examine the effects of self-relevant information disclosure on promotional response as well as the mechanism and boundary conditions associated with this effect. Four studies using both real and fictitious brands across a variety of contexts were conducted to test the hypotheses and show that self-disclosure contributes to promotional response because of the enhanced feeling of deservingness. Moreover, this research also demonstrates that self-disclosed consumers from a lower social class are more likely to respond to promotions. Taken together, these insights contribute to the research on promotions and self-disclosure and can be helpful to marketers by suggesting some guidelines for developing cost-effective promotion strategies, for example, identifying the target consumer segments for promotions.