Surprise rewards and brand evaluations: The role of intrinsic motivation and reward format

Surprise is a neutral amplifier of emotions and used by marketers to elevate customer affect from satisfaction to delight. The dark side of surprise, however, is that it can turn something mildly unpleasant into something very unpleasant. In this paper, we argue that cash rewards may undermine intrinsic motivation, since cash is an item of trade, and adding a surprise element to the reward may amplify the inherently negative affect. We show that, compared to an expected cash reward, a surprise cash reward degrades evaluations of the focal brand among the more intrinsically engaged consumers. However, the negative effect of surprise reduces (1) if consumers feel that rewards signal communality (friendship) rather than a transaction and (2) if we change the reward’s format from cash to a gift card.