Effects of congruence between individuals' and hotel commercials' construal levels on purchase intentions

Abstract

This paper proposes to examine the effects of consumers' construal levels on their purchase decisions based on Construal Level Theory. Accordingly, the construal level of individuals was operationalized through trait-based and state-based approaches. Across two 2 (high construal level high vs. low construal level) X 2 (abstract ad content vs. concrete ad content) between-subjects experiments, we demonstrated that participants who were assigned to a condition in which the construal level of the participant and the hotel ad was consistent (high congruence) had a greater purchase intention for hotel services than participants who were assigned to a condition in which the construal level of the participant and the hotel ad were inconsistent (low congruence). Implications of the findings are discussed for both researchers and practitioners in the field of hospitality marketing.