IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jcopol/v40y2017i2d10.1007_s10603-017-9345-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Bonus Packs Mislead Consumers? A Demonstration of How Behavioural Consumer Research Can Inform Unfair Commercial Practices Law on the Example of the ECJ’s Mars Judgement

Author

Listed:
  • Kai P. Purnhagen

    (Wageningen University)

  • Erica Herpen

    (Wageningen University)

Abstract

The use of psychological findings in EU internal market regulation has gained interest, particularly in the area of unfair commercial practices. This study investigates consumer perceptions of bonus packs containing an oversized indication of the “extra” volume in the package, such as in the Mars case. The Mars case serves as a standard reference in EU unfair commercial practices law which is used as a benchmark to determine the “average consumer.” Our study demonstrates how an experiment can be set up to provide empirically based insights on whether a practice is “deceptive.” Results of our experiment show that consumers overestimate the extra volume when confronted with an oversized indication compared to control conditions, which is first empirical evidence that this practice is potentially deceptive.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai P. Purnhagen & Erica Herpen, 2017. "Can Bonus Packs Mislead Consumers? A Demonstration of How Behavioural Consumer Research Can Inform Unfair Commercial Practices Law on the Example of the ECJ’s Mars Judgement," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 217-234, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jcopol:v:40:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10603-017-9345-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10603-017-9345-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10603-017-9345-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10603-017-9345-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marc Vanhuele & X. Drèze, 2002. "Measuring the Price Knowledge Shoppers Bring to the Store," Post-Print hal-00457563, HAL.
    2. Smith, Vernon L & Walker, James M, 1993. "Monetary Rewards and Decision Cost in Experimental Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(2), pages 245-261, April.
    3. Whyte, Glen & Sebenius, James K., 1997. "The Effect of Multiple Anchors on Anchoring in Individual and Group Judgment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 74-85, January.
    4. Alemanno, Alberto, 2016. "Balancing Free Movement and Public Health: The Case of Minimum Unit Pricing of Alcohol in Scotch Whisky," HEC Research Papers Series 1164, HEC Paris.
    5. Sunstein, Cass R., 1999. "Free Markets and Social Justice," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102734.
    6. Lynch, John G, Jr, 1982. "On the External Validity of Experiments in Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(3), pages 225-239, December.
    7. Wansink, Brian & van Ittersum, Koert, 2003. "Bottoms Up! The Influence of Elongation on Pouring and Consumption Volume," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(3), pages 455-463, December.
    8. Furnham, Adrian & Boo, Hua Chu, 2011. "A literature review of the anchoring effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 35-42, February.
    9. Haipeng (Allan) Chen & Akshay R. Rao, 2007. "When Two Plus Two Is Not Equal to Four: Errors in Processing Multiple Percentage Changes," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(3), pages 327-340, June.
    10. Alberto Alemanno, 2016. "Balancing Free Movement and Public Health: The Case of Minimum Unit Pricing of Alcohol in Scotch Whisky," Working Papers hal-01985387, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. K. P. Purnhagen & E. Herpen & S. Kamps & F. Michetti, 2021. "Oversized Area Indications on Bonus Packs Fail to Affect Consumers’ Transactional Decisions—More Experimental Evidence on the Mars Case," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 385-406, September.
    2. Iqbal Thonse Hawaldar & Mithun S. Ullal & Felicia Ramona Birau & Cristi Marcel Spulbar, 2019. "Trapping Fake Discounts as Drivers of Real Revenues and Their Impact on Consumer’s Behavior in India: A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-20, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till E., 2015. "Anchoring in social context," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 29-39.
    2. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till, 2014. "Are groups 'less behavioral'? The case of anchoring," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 188, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    3. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Seres, Gyula, 2021. "Are strategies anchored?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    4. Lukas Meub & Till Proeger, 2018. "Are groups ‘less behavioral’? The case of anchoring," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 117-150, August.
    5. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till & Bizer, Kilian, 2013. "Anchoring: A valid explanation for biased forecasts when rational predictions are easily accessible and well incentivized?," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 166, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    6. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till, 2014. "An experimental study on social anchoring," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 196, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. K. P. Purnhagen & E. Herpen & S. Kamps & F. Michetti, 2021. "Oversized Area Indications on Bonus Packs Fail to Affect Consumers’ Transactional Decisions—More Experimental Evidence on the Mars Case," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 385-406, September.
    8. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till, 2016. "Are groups 'less behavioral'? The case of anchoring," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 188 [rev.], University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    9. Shavin Malhotra & Pengcheng Zhu & Taco H. Reus, 2015. "Anchoring on the acquisition premium decisions of others," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(12), pages 1866-1876, December.
    10. Ziano, Ignazio & Villanova, Daniel, 2022. "Spontaneous anchors bias consumers’ divisions, judgments, and behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    11. Wolfram E. Lipp & Remigiusz Smolinski & Peter Kesting, 2023. "Beyond the First Offer: Decoding Negotiation Openings and Their Impact on Economic and Subjective Outcomes," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 395-433, April.
    12. Köcher, Sören & Jugovac, Michael & Jannach, Dietmar & Holzmüller, Hartmut H., 2019. "New Hidden Persuaders: An Investigation of Attribute-Level Anchoring Effects of Product Recommendations," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 24-41.
    13. Wettstein, Dominik J. & Boes, Stefan, 2022. "How value-based policy interventions influence price negotiations for new medicines: An experimental approach and initial evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 112-121.
    14. Daniel Fonseca Costa & Francisval Carvalho & Bruno César Moreira & José Willer Prado, 2017. "Bibliometric analysis on the association between behavioral finance and decision making with cognitive biases such as overconfidence, anchoring effect and confirmation bias," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1775-1799, June.
    15. Chavez, Daniel E. & Palma, Marco A. & Nayga, Rodolfo M. & Mjelde, James W., 2020. "Product availability in discrete choice experiments with private goods," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    16. Ashish Arora & Michelle Gittelman & Sarah Kaplan & John Lynch & Will Mitchell & Nicolaj Siggelkow & Aaron K. Chatterji & Michael Findley & Nathan M. Jensen & Stephan Meier & Daniel Nielson, 2016. "Field experiments in strategy research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 116-132, January.
    17. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: A Unified Explanation for Equity Puzzles," MPRA Paper 68729, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Matthew Fisher & Milica Mormann, 2022. "The Off by 100% Bias: The Effects of Percentage Changes Greater than 100% on Magnitude Judgments and Consumer Choice [Numerosity and Consumer Behavior]," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 49(4), pages 561-573.
    19. Yu Ding & Wayne S. DeSarbo & Dominique M. Hanssens & Kamel Jedidi & John G. Lynch & Donald R. Lehmann, 2020. "The past, present, and future of measurement and methods in marketing analysis," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 175-186, September.
    20. Thomas Rompay & Marieke Fransen & Bianca Borgelink, 2014. "Light as a feather: Effects of packaging imagery on sensory product impressions and brand evaluation," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 397-407, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jcopol:v:40:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10603-017-9345-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.