Terminal Materialism Means for Purchase Intentions

Ad Type Terminal

Materialism

Mean Value Standard Deviation Cell Size Luxury Low 3.88 1.45 33 High 3.70 1.53 33 Practical Low 3.33 1.31 36 High 3.91 1.54 35 Discussion

This study attempted to further validate the concept of instrumental and terminal materialism. It was suggested that those who find importance in their possessions for different reasons may differ in the attitudes towards two different types of appeals – luxury and practical. Advertisements were designed to reflect the differing types of appeals with a watch as the product. These ads were shown to subjects and three

dependent variables were measured: attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the product, and purchase intentions. Instrumental and terminal materialism were measured as

independent variables using the scales developed in Study 2. Two different methods to analyze the data were used: regression analysis and ANOVA. Both analyses showed that neither attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the product or purchase intentions

differed based on type of materialism. Type of ad did influence attitude towards the product with the luxury product having a higher attitude than the practical product. However, this effect was not moderated by either the measure of instrumental or terminal materialism.

did not include body copy that most ads have to describe the product. Body copy was not used for the experiment to reduce possible confounds. Second, different types of

products were not utilized. It may be that college students don’t particularly use watches for a luxury or practical purpose. Clothing may be a better choice for college students. A third reason the relationship was not found could be that a covariate should have been included in the analysis. Lastly, the experiment took place during a very bad economic crisis. Those that would be high in terminal materialism and like luxury products may have had to become more practical during this time, although these beliefs may not be permanent. However, college students have probably not been as effected as the general population.

It is also possible that the ads were not sufficiently directed towards the two different types of materialism. This study attempted to build on the work by Belk and Pollay (1985) by utilizing two of the three different advertisement appeals they found in their study – luxury/pleasure and function/practical. The definitions for the two types of materialism may not be closely matched enough to these different ad appeals. Terminal materialism suggests finding importance in possessions for status reasons. Thus, an ad that would appeal to them should contain the word “status” so that the message in the ad conveys that this product will bring you status. In the current research, words pertaining to luxury were used. This message might not have been close enough to appeal to those high in terminal materialism. The same rational would also apply to instrumental materialism. It is defined as finding importance in possessions because they help you accomplish tasks. The current research used words pertaining to the product being functional and practical. Using only these words without further explanation of how the

product is functional and what it helps you accomplish might not have captured what is meant by instrumental materialism. This would suggest that future research should use different copy to more accurately appeal to the two different types of materialism.

Lastly, the relationship may not have been evident because a covariate was not included in the analysis and this confounded the results. In the current study, the demographic variables of age and gender were also collected. In hindsight, gender may have influenced ad preference for the watch ads if the two different watches were seen as more masculine or feminine. To test this proposition, gender was added as a covariate in the ANOVA models for both terminal and instrumental materialism. Terminal and instrumental materialism were run separately with the three dependent variables. First, instrumental materialism was analyzed with ad type and instrumental materialism as independent variables and gender as a covariate. Three models were run with the three different dependent variables. As before, ad type was a significant predictor of attitude towards the product. To test the relationship with terminal materialism, three regression models were run. Ad type was a significant predictor of attitude towards the product as was instrumental materialism. In the purchase intentions model, the interaction term between ad type and terminal materialism became marginally significant (F(4, 131) = 3.1, p = .08). Those low in terminal materialism, had higher purchase intentions for the luxury ad (M = 3.88, SD = 1.45) than for the practical ad (M = 3.31, SD = 1.32). However, those high in terminal materialism had not difference in purchase intentions between the luxury ad (M = 3.70, SD = 1.53) and the practical ad (M = 3.91, SD = 1.54). These means are graphed in Figure 9. This finding is completely opposite than what was hypothesized. It was hypothesized that those high in terminal materialism would prefer

the luxury ad over the practical ad and those low in terminal materialism would show no difference in preference. This analysis does not use attitude towards the ad as the

dependent variable. Purchase intentions was added as an additional dependent variable to investigate whether the affects of attitude towards the ad would transfer to the product and thus influence purchase intentions. Future research should investigate this dependent variable more closely and other covariates could be included in future research such as more basic personality traits. Although age was included in the data, it was not feasible to use it as a covariate because there was little variance (99% were 18-24).

CHAPTER VI