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  • December 2023
  • Article
  • Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)

Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design

By: Joseph Reiff, Hengchen Dai, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo Benartzi
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:19
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Abstract

To encourage farsighted behaviors, past research suggests that marketers may be wise to invite consumers to pre-commit to adopt them “later.” However, the authors propose that people will draw different inferences from different types of pre-commitment offers, and that these inferences can help explain when pre-commitment is effective at increasing adoption of farsighted behaviors and when it is not. Specifically, the authors theorize that simultaneously offering consumers the opportunity to adopt a farsighted behavior now or later (i.e., offering “simultaneous pre-commitment”) may signal that the behavior is not urgently recommended; however, offering consumers the opportunity to adopt that behavior immediately and then, only if they decline, inviting them to adopt it later (i.e., offering “sequential pre-commitment”) may signal just the opposite. In a multi-site field experiment (N=5,196), the authors find that simultaneously giving consumers the chance to increase their savings now or later reduced retirement savings. Two pre-registered lab studies (N=5,080) show that simultaneous pre-commitment leads people to infer that taking action is not urgently recommended, and such inferences predict less adoption of recommended behaviors. Importantly, offering sequential pre-commitment increases inferred urgency, predicting greater adoption. Together, this research advances knowledge about the limits and potential of pre-commitment.

Keywords

Consumer Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions

Citation

Reiff, Joseph, Hengchen Dai, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, and Shlomo Benartzi. "Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design." Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 60, no. 6 (December 2023): 1095–1113.
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About The Author

John Beshears

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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  • Optimal Illiquidity By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
  • Automatic Enrollment with a 12% Default Contribution Rate By: John Beshears, Ruofei Guo, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and James J. Choi
  • Smaller than We Thought? The Effect of Automatic Savings Policies By: James J. Choi, David Laibson, Jordan Cammarota, Richard Lombardo and John Beshears
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