Advertising premium offers in the pandemic era: the role of emotions in the consumer response

Abstract

Two surveys, conducted among Polish consumers in different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, investigated how the pandemic-related emotions of sadness (about the restrictions) and disgust (with other people) shape the consumer response to advertising premium offers of electronic goods. Consumer personality was considered as a factor of pandemic-related emotions. In both studies, pandemic-related sadness was positively related to premium offer purchase intent, extraversion, and neuroticism, and pandemic-related disgust was positively related to neuroticism. Those findings were replicated in January 2021, and then, pandemic-related disgust was also positively related to purchase intent, and negatively related to extraversion. The results were interpreted based on consumer behavior theory and the pandemic context.