Consumers' response to promotional gifts: The role of gender, transactional value, and reciprocity

Gifts received with the purchase of a focal product are widely used as a tool aimed at incentivizing sales. Yet, marketers still face many questions related to the effectiveness of this promotional technique. In this paper, we examine whether customer's gender—a variable that is managerially relevant and often collected for targeting and positioning purposes—influences the success of gift promotions. Using novel data from a car rental company, we show that promotional gifts have a stronger positive impact on subsequent purchase behaviors for women (vs. men). Two follow-up experiments demonstrate that this gender effect is driven by the fact that women obtain greater transactional value from the promotional purchase than men do, leading to enhanced reciprocity motivation among women. Taken together, these findings first argue for a more targeted use of promotions involving gifts and second, raise questions about whether we should carefully consider potential gender differences in predicting the effects of many common marketing tactics that are presently discussed as if universal.