The influence of subliminal vs. supraliminal priming on willingness to pay : what is the influence of subliminal primed prices vs. supraliminal primed prices on willingness to pay, and how can price value influence this

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Master thesis Marketing

The influence of subliminal vs. supraliminal priming on willingness to pay

What is the influence of subliminal primed prices vs. supraliminal primed prices on willingness to pay, and how can price value influence this effect?

Stéphanie Margarethe Hoekstra - 11147342

MSc. in Business Administration - Marketing

University of Amsterdam

24th June 2016

Supervisor: Tina Dudenhöffer

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Statement of originality

This document is written by student Stéphanie Hoekstra who declares to take full

responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources

other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of

completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

Considering the large number of proponents and opponents of the effectiveness of subliminal

priming since the marketing stunt of Vicary in 1957, there is still no consensus on the actual

effect of subliminal priming and its possibility to influence consumers. Although several

researcher have demonstrated that priming can be used to influence peoples’ perceptions,

decisions, evaluations, motivations and behaviour through priming trait constructs or words,

relatively few research has been done to examine the possibility to influence peoples’

willingness to pay via subliminal or supraliminal priming. Via an online experiment, 181

participants spread over five conditions have revealed their willingness to pay for the

3Doodler 3D-printing pen while they were primed by subliminal or supraliminal reference

prices. Based on the results, it can be concluded that when prices are primed supraliminal,

thus consciously perceptible for consumers, this is a much stronger manipulation technique

than when prices are primed subliminal, thus not consciously perceptible, or when the price is

not presented at all. By priming both low and high-priced primes, it has been proven that even

arbitrarily or extreme values may serve as reference prices via the mechanism of anchoring

when people have to determine their willingness to pay. Finally, participants clearly follow

supraliminal primed prices wherein should be noted that this tendency is getting weaker as the

price increases.

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1. Introduction

Influencing people’s willingness to pay through subliminally priming a desired price, without

they are being aware of it sounds as an interesting mechanism that could be employed by

marketers. According to the one, it sounds as something that should be legally prohibited.

According to the other it provides many possibilities. The ‘Stichting Reclame Code’ has

already prohibited the use of subliminal techniques in the Netherlands. The use of

supraliminal priming is however permitted. Whatever your opinion may be, whether

subliminally primed information really has the potential to influence willingness to pay is not

yet examined yet.

Priming can be described as the activation of stimuli, which is stated in the memory through

sensory stimuli, and consequently influences thoughts and behaviour. However, its intention

to influence should be not consciously perceived (Wheeler & Berger, 2007). Based upon

observations, cues and messages in the environment, our intentions and behaviour can be

influenced (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Within priming, a distinction can be made between

supraliminal and subliminal priming. A supraliminal prime is a consciously perceptible

stimulus, which enables people to understand and even control its influence (Bargh &

Chartrand, 2000). A subliminal prime is an unconscious, barely perceptible stimulus, which

explains why people are unaware of its presence. It can be concluded that subliminal and

supraliminal primes differ in perceptibility of the primes, but that the information is

unconsciously processed in the same way (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Consequently,

controlling the influence of subliminal primes is more difficult since people are simply

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6 unaware of these contextual influences, this makes priming an interesting mechanism for

marketers and researchers.

James Vicary was the first researcher and marketers who made use of short, subliminal

flashes during a movie in a theatre. Through subliminally flashing the words ‘Eat Popcorn’

and ‘Drink Coca-Cola’, he claimed to have increased the sales of popcorn and Coca-Cola

(Karremans et al., 2005). When this story became public, it sparked the interest of many

marketers and researchers. Several researchers tried to replicate the experiment in different

contexts but the results were unfortunately not convincing. After a while, Vicary had to admit;

his story was just a marketing stunt. From this moment on, subliminal priming has been a

controversial topic.

Although the whole story of Vicary appeared to be fictitious, it has encouraged many

researchers to reconsider the possibilities of influencing people through the priming of certain

concepts. Over the last few decades, more and more researchers have tried to prove that

priming can be used as a manipulation mechanism, to influence people’s perceptions,

evaluations, motivations and behaviour. As a result, an increasing amount of evidence is

found, which deemed the claims of Vicary still possible. Nowadays, several researchers in the

field of priming are certainly convinced that subliminal priming can be used to influence

others in a desired direction (Bargh, 1992,2002; Maxwell et al., 1999; Strahan et al., 2002;

Karremans et al., 2006).

On the other hand, a considerable amount of researchers still remains sceptical about

the effectiveness of subliminal priming and came up with results that negate the possible

effects of subliminal priming (Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001; Moore, 1982; Trappey, 1996).

Since it is still a heavily debated question whether subliminally primed information actually

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7 research topic. This provides new opportunities to do more research into the field of priming

to clarify the actual effect of supraliminal and subliminal priming. The majority of the studies

in priming have examined whether it is possible to influence people’s perceptions,

evaluations, motivations and behaviour through priming trait constructs or words (Bargh &

Pietromonaco,1982; Bargh, 1992,2002; Maxwell et al.,1999; Strahan et al., 2002; Karremans

et al., 2006; and Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014). Considerable less priming studies have

demonstrated the possibilities of subliminally priming numbers in order to influence value

judgements (Mussweiler & Englich, 2005). Based on these studies, in combination with the

studies in the field of anchoring, it seems not yet sufficiently examined whether a prime that

consists of a combination of words and a price can actually influence willingness to pay.

Being able to influence customers’ willingness to pay might be interesting for both corporate

practices as for consumer purchase decisions, since it contributes to sales-volume and it sets

price perceptions (Le Gall-Ely, 2009).

Willingness to pay can be defined as the personal upper threshold of the acceptability

margin when valuating a consumption or user experience, expressed in monetary units (Le

Gall-Ely, 2009). When a new commodity is entering a new market, an appropriate price needs

to be set by the selling company. Price can be defined as the amount of money charged for a

product or service. In other words, it is the sum of economic outlay that must be sacrificed in order to engage in a given purchase interaction (Lichtenstein et al., 1993). Price is one of the

most important marketplace cues and therefore one of the biggest challenges for marketers

(Lichtenstein et al., 1993). When the price of a product or service is lower than the average

willingness to pay of consumers, this results in missing revenues. However, when the price of

a product is higher than the willingness to pay of customers, this will be detrimental to the

sales of the product. This raises the question whether it is it actually possible to influence

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8 the product, its price, or maybe the sales environment? When people have extensive

knowledge of a mature product or service and its utility through prior experiences, this will be

difficult to change. However, when people lack prior knowledge or don’t have experiences

with an innovative product or service, people could have difficulty in valuating a product in

monetary terms (Prelec et al., 2003). When people are uncertain about their own preferences

but they have to make a decision, a wide range of randomly selected cues, even cues that are

difficult to justify normatively, may be exploited to resolve the uncertainty (Simonsohn &

Loewenstein, 2006).

Since the theory of anchoring have demonstrated that people are susceptible to

numbers, even when they are totally arbitrary or extreme, it is plausible to assume that it

might also be possible to influence people with primed numbers in combination with words or

concepts (Beggs &Graddy, 2009; Nunes & Boatwright, 2004). If this turns out to be the case,

it could be interesting to investigate the possible effects of supraliminal priming and

subliminal priming on willingness to pay, and whether it makes a difference if these primes

contain low or high-priced values.

The purpose of this study is to address these gaps by looking at the differences

between the influence of subliminal primed reference prices on willingness to pay, and the

influence of supraliminal primed reference prices on willingness to pay in order to determine

which method of priming actually delivers the greatest benefits. In addition, it will be

investigated whether the price value of the primes will have a different effect. Therefore, the

effect of low-priced primes will be compared with the effect of high-price primes.

1.1 Thesis structure

First, a comprehensive review of the literature will be discussed to get a better understanding

of the key concepts in this study. This will result in seven hypotheses and a research question,

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9 will be described. Third, based on the method and data collection procedure, relevant data is

gathered and analysed through statistical tests in the result section. The final part contains the

discussion and conclusion of the findings of this research. Besides, the implications,

limitations and suggestions for further research will be described.

2. Literature review

This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the literature in order to analyse to what

extent the key concepts in this study are examined that are necessary to determine what the

influence of subliminally primed reference prices vs. supraliminal primed reference prices is

on willingness to pay. An explanation of the most important key concepts and methods in the

existing research will be given since it is important to have a thorough understanding of the

concepts to appreciate the reasons for exploring the topics and to make sense of the data in the

following chapters.

With this research, the underlying theories of willingness to pay, contingent valuation,

hypothetical bias, anchoring, reference prices, priming, subliminal and supraliminal priming

will be elaborated. The literature review will end with certain little gaps in the literature that

seem interesting to clarify. Based on seven hypotheses and a research question, it will be tried

to add some interesting insights to the existing literature on priming.

2.1 Willingness to pay

The concept of ‘willingness to pay’ can be defined as ‘the maximum amount of money a

customer is willing to spend for a product or service to secure the change (Cameron & James,

1987; Wertenbroch & Skiera, 2002; Le Gall-Ely, 2009). In other words, willingness to pay is

a personal valuation of a consumption or usage experience, expressed in monetary units

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10 a similar choice situation or experience arises. When determining willingness to pay, decision

makers have the tendency to behave in such a manner that it does not violate obvious rules of

consistency (Ariely et al., 2006). It can be concluded that, based on previous information

through prior knowledge or experiences, it should be easier to estimate expected utility, which

facilitates the determination of peoples’ willingness to pay for a certain product or service.

Within the concept of willingness to pay, a distinction can be made between actual

willingness to pay and hypothetical willingness to pay (Murphy et al., 2005; List & Gallet

2001; Little and Berrens, 2004). The actual willingness to pay refers to a situation in which

the willingness to pay can be determined based on the amount of money the consumer would

spend in a real purchase situation. On the other hand, the hypothetical willingness to pay

refers to a situation in which the consumer have to pretend that he or she buys a product or

service and therefore have to reveal what they would pay when it was a real purchase

situation. In the actual willingness to pay situation, the purchase has real financial

consequences. The hypothetical willingness to pay situation is just imaginative and has

therefore no real financial consequences for the consumer (Murphy et al., 2005; List & Gallet

2001; Little and Berrens, 2004).

Also when market data is not available, estimating customers’ willingness to pay

could offer an interesting solution to predict expected utility and price elasticity (Le Gall-Ely,

2009). Consequently, this could be a useful measurement for policymakers and business

developers to estimate future profitability.

According to a review of ‘willingness to pay’ and ‘willingness to accept’ studies,

performed by Horowitz and McConnell (2002), there are five main techniques to assess

peoples’ willingness to pay. First, by posing a simple open question similar to ‘What is the

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11 incentive-compatible open-ended question similar to the mechanisms of Vickry auctions or

Becker de Groot Marschak. Third, by means of a payment card with several values printed on

it, participants can circle their most appropriate price in exchange for product X. The fourth

technique is a single-closed yes/no question, where participants are asked whether they would

pay one specified amount. Finally, by means of iterated closed-ended questions to which

participants have to answer several closed-ended questions with different specified amounts.

These five main techniques for determining peoples’ willingness to pay closely

resemble the contingent valuation method, which is a standard economic measure of

willingness to pay (Gregory & Furby, 1987).

2.1.1 Contingent valuation method

Contingent valuation is a method that tries to estimate individual values for goods or services

by asking people hypothetical questions about their willingness to pay. Within contingent

valuation procedures, a hypothetical market is imitated where not yet priced goods can be

traded (Gregory & Furby, 1987). Participants have to state their monetary valuation of a proposed change in the amount or availability of the good, or their willingness to pay a

specific sum in exchange for the good will be questioned (Gregory & Furby, 1987). Put

differently, contingent valuation methods ask individuals hypothetical questions that reveal a

persons’ monetary valuation of goods or services, and how much they would be willing to pay

for access to the resource (Carson, 2012). In the reverse option, individuals are asked how

much compensation they would demand when they have to give up their access to a specific

resource (Cameron & James, 1987).

In general, the contingent valuation method has three distinct approaches to valuate

products or services, namely through open-ended questions, sequential bids, or closed-ended

questions. With open-ended questions, individuals are asked to valuate a resource by naming

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12 higher or lower than the previous bid, dependent on the initial bid. With closed-ended

questions, individuals are asked to valuate a resource by simply asking whether they would

pay or accept a specific sum for getting access to or just giving up a resource (Cameron &

James, 1987).

Contingent valuation is a technique that is often used to valuate resources since it has many

advantages (Cameron & James, 1987; Gregory & Furby, 1987). The product or service that

should be valued can be described precisely since product features and supplementary

descriptive information can be discussed in detail at low costs. Besides, the characteristics of

possible different contingent markets can be specified and explained easily, and the effect of

any variations can be easily compared (Gregory & Furby, 1987).

On the other hand, the contingent valuation procedure also has some drawbacks and

bottlenecks that have been widely discussed in the article of Cummings et al., (1986) in

Gregory & Furby, 1987, p.274). For example, individuals may behave strategically by not

revealing their true values in order to steer the outcome in a desired direction. Besides, since

the contingent valuation procedure tries to imitate a hypothetical market, people may perceive

the evaluation exercise as fake or inconsequential, which could prohibit their accurate

provision of their true value. In addition, due to how individual questions are framed could

lead to response mode effects. This implies that the way in which similar questions are framed

could lead to different responses (Gregory & Furby, 1987). These drawbacks and bottlenecks

may cause not complete reliable answers as a consequence of hypothetical bias.

2.1.2 Hypothetical bias

Three meta-analyses of hypothetical bias in stated preference valuation have demonstrated

that individuals are widely believed to overstate their economic valuation of goods or services

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13 Berrens, 2004). When participants have to state their preferences through for example the

contingent valuation method, hypothetical questions are asked about the valuation of a

product or service. However, the hypothetical nature of these survey techniques may probably

result in responses that are significant higher than in a real purchase situation. Hence, it can be

assumed that willingness to pay in a hypothetical setting is significant higher than the

willingness to pay in a real purchase situation. The difference between hypothetical and real

valuation can be described as hypothetical bias (Murphy et al., 2005). However, no best

method exists yet to correct for hypothetical bias.

Nevertheless, the hypothetical willingness to pay is still often used in many surveys

for determining consumers’ hypothetical willingness to pay when it could be hard to let

people actually purchase a product or service. For example, this could be difficult when it

concerns a product or service which is expensive or highly exclusive, or when it is not yet on

the market. Anyhow, it is undeniable that relying on what people say they are willing to pay

remains a guess, but it might provide economically valuable information for decision makers

in terms of predicting the actual results.

2.1.3 No prior knowledge

As described before, peoples’ willingness to pay is a personal valuation of consumption or

usage experience, expressed in monetary units (Homburg et al., 2005). When people have no

prior knowledge or experience with a similar product or service, they could have difficulty

with mapping the expected utility they expect to receive from a certain purchase into

monetary terms (Prelec et al., 2003). When people are uncertain about their own preferences

but they have to make a decision, a wide range of cues, even cues that are difficult to justify

normatively, may be exploited to resolve the uncertainty (Simonsohn & Loewenstein, 2006).

According to Tversky and Kahneman (1975) anchoring could be a useful heuristic for making

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14 become anchors might influence the valuation of goods or services (Simonsohn &

Loewenstein, 2006). It can be assumed that arbitrarily anchored numbers might influence

peoples’ willingness to pay for products or services. These arbitrary numbers can even have

an impact on peoples’ willingness to pay without consciously processing these numbers

(Beggs &Graddy, 2009; Nunes & Boatwright, 2004). This can be explained by the theory of

anchoring.

2.2 Anchoring

Since the term anchoring has been observed in a broad array of different judgemental fields,

anchoring is categorized in the scientific literature into three different types. The first type can

be classified as the anchoring procedure in which a salient but uninformative number is

presented to subjects. The second type can be classified as the experimental result in which

the uninformative number actually influences the judgments. The third type can be classified

as the psychological process in which the uninformative number has its effect (Chapman &

Johnson, 2002). In general, all anchoring types involve the visual presentation of an anchor.

Tversky and Kahneman (1975) define anchoring as ‘the disproportionate influence on

decision makers to make judgments that are biased toward an initially presented value’ and

‘the assimilation of a numeric estimate to a previously considered standard’. Kahneman

(1992) explained anchoring effects as cases in which a stimulus or a message that is clearly

designated as irrelevant and uninformative nevertheless increases the normality of a possible

outcome. Chapman and Johnson (2002) define anchoring as a ‘pervasive judgement bias in

which decision makers are systematically influenced by random and uninformative starting

points.’ Mussweiler and Strack (2001) agree on this and argue that anchoring may occur, even

when the anchor values are completely uninformative for the critical estimate. Chapman and

Johnson (2002) elaborate on the anchoring procedure as ‘one in which a salient but

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15 Consequently, different starting points might cause different estimates, which are biased and

assimilated toward the initial value. People are reliably influenced by salient numeric

standards that anchor their judgement (Mussweiler & Englich, 2005). It can be assumed that

anchoring is an exceptionally robust phenomenon that is difficult to avoid.

When applying the anchoring theory to the valuation of products and services, it can

be assumed, based on an extensive amount of literature that anchors can influence the amount

people are willing to pay (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; Ariely, 2003; Nunes & Boatwright,

2004; Beggs & Graddy, 2009). When participants are explicitly instructed to compare a target

to a provided anchor value, it reliably yields assimilative influences (Mussweiler & Englich,

2005; Chapman & Johnson, 2002). However, it is also argued in the literature that neither the

presentation of the anchor has to be made explicit or supraliminal, nor the comparison to the

target, in order to let the anchor effects occur (Northcraft & Neale, 1987). Hence, anchors that

are not explicitly presented for comparison might influence valuations as well (Mussweiler &

Englich, 2005).

Many researchers have used anchors that are obviously uninformative for their experiment to

demonstrate its effect, for two reasons. The first reason to elect an uninformative anchor

above an informative anchor is to emphasize that the influence of uninformative anchors is

clearly a bias. The second reason is to rule out one potentially uninteresting cause of

anchoring effects (Chapman & Johnson, 2002).

With several experiments, these researchers have demonstrated that market prices or

even unrelated random numbers can serve as an anchor, and might therefore influence the

current price someone is willing to pay for a specific product or service. According to Ariely

(2003) preferences and price decisions are made, based on previous information obtained

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16 information, the price someone is willing to pay for a certain product or service may be

dependent on anchors when they are accessible. This anchor can be a relevant or even a

totally arbitrary selected number. Ariely (2003) has demonstrated that people are willing to

pay a higher price when they are presented with a high number. The same applies the other

way around; when people are presented a low number, they are tended to pay a relatively low

price. These findings are in line with the findings of Nunes and Boatwright (2004) who have

demonstrated as well that the value of presented prices of unrelated products or services might

serve as anchors, and consequently could influence the willingness to pay for a specific

product or service. They demonstrated with an experiment that showing a sweatshirt, priced at

$10 or $80 actually influenced the valuation of a totally unrelated product (CD) with a

respectively low or high willingness to pay. In addition, even implausible extreme values

appeared to yield an effect as anchor (Strack & Mussweiler, 1997).

In conclusion, when a product or service needs to be valued in order to determine a price

someone is willing to pay in exchange for obtaining it, people will use their prior knowledge.

However, when prior knowledge or experience with a similar product or service is lacking,

people will search for heuristics that facilitate decision-making. An important heuristic is the

anchoring effect. People have the tendency to use anchors to make decisions and to evaluate

those decisions. These anchors may be relevant or even totally arbitrary, randomly selected,

just because they were accessible in the environment. A related concept to anchoring is the

concept of reference points. In this case, an anchor will serve as a reference point, which will

be discussed in the following part.

2.2.1 Reference points

A reference point can be seen as someone’s current assets or status quo, where the past and

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17 perceived in relation to this reference point (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Kahneman and

Tversky (1979) introduced the concept op reference points by the development of their

prospect theory. Their theory holds that monetary decision outcomes are evaluated as gains or

losses relative to a reference point. Hence, the way in which a message is framed can provide

different reference points and consequently cause different outcome perceptions. Reference

points are a crucial variable in the decision making process. An extensive amount of literature

supports the assumption that individuals make choices based on the comparison of external

stimuli to an internal reference point (Kalyanaram & Winer, 1995). Therefore it can be assumed that the process of decision making is influenced by reference points, established by

anchors that are personal and time dependent (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Reference points

are important since they separate the domain into regions of desirable outcomes and

undesirable outcomes, and because of the fact that other outcomes are compared to them

(Kahneman, 1992).

Within this research, the focus will be on discovering how certain reference points can

influence peoples’ willingness to pay. Since willingness to pay is expressed in monetary terms

in this study, the focus will be on reference prices as reference points.

Kahneman and Tversky (1979) were the first who defined reference price as ‘the price

against which buyers compare the price of a product or service offered’. Such comparisons

indicate whether a price is perceived as too high or too low. According to more recent

literature, reference price can be defined as ‘the price or set of prices the consumer uses to

compare and evaluate the price of a proposed good or service’ (Le Gall-Ely, 2009, p.95).

When potential buyers evaluate transactions, the proposed price of the product, the

willingness to pay and the reference price of the buyer will converge (Le Gall-Ely, 2009).

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18 good or bad purchase situation, where willingness to pay enables the potential buyer to

express the product’s perceived value in monetary terms (Le Gall-Ely, 2009).

External reference prices are prices communicated on the market, such as for example

previously paid prices, market values or arbitrarily given anchors (Van Poucke & Buelens,

2002; Le Gall-Ely, 2009). Internal reference prices are defined as ‘prices (or price scales) in

buyers’ memories that serves as a basis for judging or comparing actual prices’ (Grewal et al.,

1998, p.47). Hence, internal reference prices are memorized prices such as for example

reservation prices (Kahnemann, 1992; Van Poucke & Buelens, 2002; Kristensen & Gärling,

1997). Reservation price can be defined as ‘the highest price that you as a buyer is willing to

pay’. In this context, reservation price is quite similar to the concept willingness to pay in this

study. The adaption-level theory argues that consumer’s internal reference prices are

influenced by key focal cues and residual cues. Key focal cues are current presented prices.

Residual cues are based on previously acquired information obtained through prior

knowledge or experiences (Della Bitta, Monroe, and McGinnis, 1981 in Grewal et al., 1998).

Hence, in assessing one’s willingness to pay, the value of the product or service is in

general dependent on two factors, namely the initial value based on past or present

experiences and the magnitude of the change, whether positive or negative, from that

reference point (Kahneman & Tversky, 1997). This is likely to be assumed since human

judgement is essentially comparative in nature (Kahneman & Miller, 1986). When a price is

given, we automatically compare it with an accessible standard or to something that is

frequently activated. This implies that the measurement of willingness to pay is dependent on

time and context (Le Gall-Ely, 2009).

When people lack relevant knowledge to determine their willingness to pay based on previous

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19 as anchors as explained in the previous elaborated anchoring theory. Since it has been

concluded that these anchors even might be implausible extreme in value, relevant or even

totally arbitrary selected, this assumption raises the question whether it would be possible to

influence someone’s willingness to pay by presenting such an arbitrarily chosen anchor at a

given moment of time. This can be achieved through the mechanism of priming, which will

be explained in the following section.

2.3 Priming

Priming is a form of human implicit memory, related to the perceptual identification of words

and objects (Tulving & Schacter, 1990). Based on visual and textual contextual factors like

emotions, experiences or physical environments, we interpret information that explains why

we are susceptible to the influences of priming. Priming is based upon observations, cues and

messages in the environment, which exerts unconscious influences on our intentions and

behaviour (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Priming is a type of implicit memory and tries to

improve identification of perceptual objects. From the early 90s, it has been recognized as

separate from other forms of the memory system (Tulving & Schacter, 1990). It is related to

human’s procedural memory, which underlies changes in capable performance and

appropriate responding to stimuli. Consequently, priming has similarities with human’s

procedural memory since it enhances perceptual skills. Besides, priming is also related to

human’s semantic memory that has to do with acquisition and use of factual knowledge in the

broadest sense (Tulving & Schacter, 1990).

Segal and Cofer (1960) were the first who used the term ‘priming’ to refer to the effect of

recent use of a concept in one task on its probability of usage in a subsequent, unrelated task.

From that moment on, priming was initially used as an experimental technique that could

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20 Chartrand, 2000). Higgins, Rholes and Jones (1977) performed some ground-breaking

research in the field of priming, by showing that personality trait concepts could be primed by

recent use. As part of an initial memory experiment, participants were exposed to synonyms

of certain personality traits. From that moment on, the literature on priming has focused for

many years mainly on perception and impression formation (Bargh et al., 1996.)

In the mid 90s, it has been discovered that it was also possible to prime a behavioural

tendency, a particular goal or motivations via the same priming technique (Bargh &

Chartrand, 2000). Since then, more and more researchers have tried to demonstrate goal

priming in a variety of goal domains, and understand the underlying mechanisms

(Dijksterhuis et al., 2005; Aarts et al., 2008).

Nowadays, priming research focuses on the temporary activation of an individual’s mental

representation by the environment and the effect of this activation on various psychological

phenomena (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Janiszewski and Wyer (2014) define priming as ‘an

experimental framework in which the processing of an initially encountered stimulus is shown

to influence a response to a subsequently encountered stimulus’. Yang et al., (2011) defines

the priming effect as ‘changes in reaction time or response accuracy for repeated items, in

comparison with new items’. Priming can be used during all the different stages of

information processing, like for instance during the attention, comprehension, memory

retrieval, inference, and response generation (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014).

According to a review of Janiszewski and Wyer (2014) priming paradigms consist in

general of five basic characteristics. First, there should be a prime stimulus and a target

stimulus. Second, the prime must trigger a response to, or alter a judgment about the target

stimulus. Third, the altered response to the target stimulus must have been caused by a

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21 which implies that a priming paradigm is not the same a learning paradigm. And finally, the

effects of the prime stimulus may occur unconscious (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014).

In order to understand the priming technique, the fundamental concepts ‘associations’ and

‘mere-exposure’ need to be explained. When people try to achieve certain goals, they are

likely to choose a means that is highly accessible. Through priming, it is possible to

repeatedly present a concept, which then logically becomes more accessible in people’s mind

through mere-exposure.

2.3.1 Associations

When making use of prime techniques, the aim is to activate certain internal mental

associations, in such a way that the participant doesn’t realize the relation between the

activation and the later influence (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). ‘Priming occurs because the

processing of the primed stimulus makes content, and the cognitive operations used to

comprehend and manipulate this content are becoming more accessible’. Subsequently,

decisions, overt behaviour and subsequent judgments can be influenced by accessible content

and operations (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014). The literature on priming states that primes with

widely shared associations could influence human behaviour in consistent ways (Bargh &

Chartrand, 2000; Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014)

Wheeler & Berger (2007) by contrast, claim that one and the same primed stimulus

may have different effects on the behaviour of different groups of people because they might

have different prime associations. Consequently, the same prime can activate different

associations among different recipients, depending on the unique, personal associations of

individuals belonging to various prime constructs (Wheeler & Berger, 2007). This can be

explained by our associative network that tries to make sense of receiving stimuli by

categorizing the various associations of different stimuli. This can be explained by the fact

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22 a certain stimuli is mentioned or presented, we automatically compare and relate it with

accessible standards or associations that are frequently activated. In this way, stimuli are

connected to each other, which enlarges the associative network and gives meaning to

concepts via different connected associations. Dependent on which associations are activated

as a consequence of the exposure to certain stimuli, peoples’ attitudes and the way they

behave will be determined (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000).

Hence, it may be concluded that associations can partly explain the process of

priming. When the intention of the sender corresponds to the perceived primed concept of the

receiver, the information will be processed in a similar way (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000).

2.3.2 Mere-exposure

The mere-exposure effect can partly explain the process of priming as well. ‘By

‘mere-exposure’ is meant a condition which just makes the given stimulus accessible to the

individual’s perception’ (Zajonc, 1968, p.1). Mere repeated exposures of a stimulus to the

individual will enhance the attitude towards it (Zajonc, 2001). The mere-exposure effect

increases object preference by increasing an objects’ exposure to a consumer. The

mere-exposure effect exists when repeated mere-exposure to a stimulus results in a positive affective

reaction to the stimulus, even when the receiver is not consciously aware of the stimulus

(Zajonc, 1968). This can be explained by the fact that consumers choose products with

characteristics that match their activated associations (Tom et al., 2007).

Within the priming literature, different degrees to which an individual may be aware of the

primed stimuli exist. Information processing and decision making of consumers can be

influenced by motives that can be activated by subliminal primes from which the customer is

not consciously aware, or by supraliminal primes from which consumers are consciously

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23 between supraliminal and subliminal priming. These two different ways of priming will be

discussed in the following parts.

2.3.3 Supraliminal priming

With supraliminal priming, the participant is fully aware of the priming stimuli and is part of

a conscious task. However, the participant is not aware of the underlying pattern that serves to

prime the construct (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). The intention of supraliminal priming is to

have the most powerful manipulation possible, but at such a subtle level that people are not

aware of the manipulation technique.

In the previous studies on supraliminal priming, the effect of primed words is mostly

discussed (Bargh et al., 1996; Strahan et al., 2002; Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Bargh et al.

(1996) showed how primes, related to elderly people influence the speed at which people

walked to an elevator. Another supraliminal experiment of Bargh et al. (1996) demonstrated

that the priming of certain construct such as politeness could have an influence on the actual

polite behaviour of the primed person. Strahan et al. (2002) have proved with their

experiment that when people are primed with words as ‘healthy’, they were motivated to

change their behaviour and attitude in order to reach the goal of being healthy.

Most studies in supraliminal priming use the ‘scrambled sentence test’ as a priming technique,

where participants are instructed to make coherent, grammatical correct sentences out of a

string of words (Bargh et al., 1996). A second supraliminal priming technique is the

‘word-search-puzzle’ where words embedded in a matrix of letters serves as the prime (Bargh et al.,

2001). The last well-known supraliminal priming technique works via crossword puzzles,

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24 When making use of supraliminal priming, it is crucial that people are not aware of the

underlying intentions. If people are not aware of the potential manipulation technique and its

potential influence, bias in the direction of the primed stimuli is likely to occur (Bargh et al.,

1996). Hence, to successfully prime it is crucial that people are not aware of how primes

might affect them (Bargh 2002). When people are aware about the fact that they are

manipulated, and they understand how the priming technique works, they can exert some

control over the unwanted influences. This might nullify the effect of the priming technique

(Bargh et al., 1996; Bargh & Chartrand, 2000).

In conclusion, since the theory of anchoring have demonstrated that people are susceptible to

numbers, even when they are extreme or totally arbitrary, it is plausible to assume that it

might also be possible to influence people with supraliminal primed numbers instead of words

or concepts. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have researched this possibility. If this turns

out to be the case, it could be an interesting mechanism that could be employed by marketers.

Besides, it could be fascinating for researchers to understand the underlying mechanisms and

the conditions of when this could be effective.

2.3.4 Subliminal priming

Subliminal primes are stimuli that lie below our threshold of sensation or conscious

awareness. Literally, ‘subliminal’ means ‘below the limen or threshold’ (Moore, 1982).

Subliminal primes may consist of words, pictures or sounds that are presented so fast, which

makes it not possible for the senses to send the information consciously to the brain (Strahan

et al., 2002; Karremans et al, 2006; Dijksterhuis et al., 2005). ‘Once exposed to a

subliminally primed stimulus, the consumer is believed to decode the information and act

upon it without being able to acknowledge a communication source’ (Trappey, 1996, p.517).

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25 unaware of the subliminal stimuli, but they are at the same time oblivious that they are being

stimulated (Moore, 1982). However, our unconscious mind notices stimuli that most of the

time our conscious mind was not aware of (Moore, 1982; Karremans et al., 2006). This

explains why it should be possible to activate a certain concept in peoples mind, without

making them aware of it. Recognition thresholds of the primes are mostly measured in terms

of milliseconds. In general, when a prime value is correctly detected about 50% at the time,

this can be defined as an individuals’ perceptual threshold. Unfortunately, an absolute cut-off

point when the subliminal prime may or may not be perceptible does not exist. This threshold

is very subjective since it varies for each person, and even from minute to minute (Moore,

1982; Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). When the priming duration lasts too long, people will be

able to notice the prime, which makes the prime no longer subliminal in nature. When the

priming duration lasts too short, it might be that the prime was not even noticed by the

unconscious mind. In both cases, it will nullify a possible subliminal priming effect. This

explains why it is very difficult, or even impossible to determine the absolute cut-off point.

Nevertheless, various researchers tried to examine a threshold above which the

recipient always responds, and below which there is no response at all, in order to use a

generally accepted prime durance in the same field of research. Consequently, previous

literature has demonstrated that the average person is not able to consciously perceive a

subliminal prime when it is presented for around 23ms (Karremans et al., 2006; Shah &

Kruglanski, 2002). However, other researchers indicate a prime duration of around 15, 17 or

20ms (Bargh, 1992; Mussweiler & Englich, 2005)

Considering the large number of proponents and opponents of the effectiveness of subliminal

priming, there is still no consensus on the actual effect of subliminal priming and its

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26 In 1982, Bargh and Pietromonaco conducted the first subliminal trait construct

priming study where they examined the possibility that information relevant to a trait

category, presented outside of conscious awareness can temporarily increase that category’s

accessibility. Maxwell et al., (1999) showed that in simulated negotiations, participants who

are primed with the construct of fairness were behaving more cooperative and were more

willing to make concessions then the participants who weren’t primed. Strahan et al., (2002)

demonstrated that subliminal priming actually could influence behaviour through priming

words, but only under the condition that there is a physical need related to the primed

construct. In addition, they argue that subliminal priming will only affect people’s behaviour

if the subliminal prime is goal relevant, and one is motivated to pursue a goal. Karremans et

al. (2006) extended these findings and showed that subliminal priming could be feasible, but

only when the prime is goal relevant, and one is motivated to reach a certain goal. They have

shown with two studies that ‘exposing individuals subliminally to the brand name of a drink

increases the probability that they will choose this drink, but only under the condition that

they are thirsty’ (Karremans et al., 2006). In addition, Bargh, Chen and Burrows (1996) argue

that behaviour can be affected, but only when a person is in the right context to which this is

applicable. Consequently, it could be stated that the presence of a motivation to pursue a goal

is essential for subliminal priming to be effective. These findings are based on the

social-cognitive literature that states that priming could influence behaviour if the prime is relevant

or applicable to one’s current motivations (Strahan, Spencer, & Zanna, 2002).

On the other hand, a considerable amount of researchers is sceptical about the

effectiveness of subliminal priming and came up with results that negate the possible effects

of subliminal priming (Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001; Moore, 1982; Trappey, 1996). According

to Moore (1982) subliminal stimuli are too weak to be noticed by most people. Therefore they

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27 articles, Trappey (1996) demonstrated the ineffectiveness of subliminal advertising in order to

influence consumers’ decision-making process. According to this review the effect of

subliminal priming on consumers’ choice behaviour or decision process can be assumed

negligible.

2.3.5 Supraliminal priming vs. subliminal priming

It is widely accepted in the literature that more intense stimuli are supposed to have a greater

influence on people’s behaviour than weaker stimuli (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Since the

intensity of subliminal primes are substantial weaker than the intensity of supraliminal

primes, the potential effects of subliminal primes can be extinguished easily in the same

sensory channel when the attention is distracted by other stimuli (Moore, 1982). Hence, the

stronger the priming manipulation will be, the longer the priming effect will last. Therefore, it

can be concluded that subliminal priming is a weaker manipulation technique than

supraliminal priming (Bargh & Chartrand, 2002).

A supraliminal prime allows people through its perceptibility to understand and even to

control its influence. Subliminal primes on the other hand are not perceptible, which is why it

is not possible to control its influence (Strahan et al., 2002). Since there exists a difference in

level of control of these two priming techniques, it is likely that they lead to different results.

For example, when people are aware of the fact that a supraliminal priming technique is used

as part of a persuasive manoeuvre, they have the option to resist to this persuasion technique,

which will eliminate the effect of the persuasive appeal. This is in line with the findings of

Tom et al. (2007), which suggest that the mere-exposure effects are greater when the repeated

message is presented under subliminal conditions, than when the recipients are aware of the

repeated exposures as in supraliminal priming. Being aware of the fact that you are influenced

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28 However, when people are not even aware that a subliminal priming technique is used, this

might enhance the effect of the persuasive appeal (Strahan et al., 2002). Hence, even when

exposures are presented subliminally, the stimuli that will be flashed frequently is liked more

than the infrequently subliminally primed stimuli (Murphy, Monahan, & Zajonc, 1995;

Zajonc, 2001).

2.3.6 Subliminal and supraliminal anchoring

Anchoring is in essence a knowledge accessibility effect. This means that when an anchor,

which maybe numeric or semantic in nature, is presented to a person, its accessibility is

automatically increased (Mussweiler & Englich, 2005). Therefore, it can be concluded that

the effect of a supraliminal provided anchor, such as for example a reference price, is a

consequence of the accessibility mechanism (Mussweiler & Strack, 2001). Consequently,

most research in anchoring has focused on the effects of anchors of which participants were

aware, and where they had to compare the supraliminal provided anchor with their own

valuation (Chapman & Johnson, 2002; Mussweiler & Strack, 2001). Based on this research it

can be concluded that supraliminal presented anchors that were directly provided for

comparison with the target, lead to final target valuations that are assimilated towards the

supraliminal primed anchor. In addition, research of Mussweiler and Englich (2005) has

demonstrated that anchors, which are primed subliminally, may influence target valuations as

well. This may also be caused through the accessibility mechanism, but in an unconscious

way. Mussweiler and Englich (2005) have demonstrated that numeric standards, which were

subliminally presented, hence, outside the judge’s awareness during valuating a target, could

even influence the final judgement. In conclusion, when someone is primed with an anchor

while evaluation a product or service, the supraliminal or subliminal primed anchor may

influence the determination of a price since the valuation appears to assimilate to the

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29 On the other hand, empirical evidence of Brewer and Chapman (2002) and Wilson et

al. (1996) suggests that numeric standards may only be automatically serve as an anchor

when they are supraliminal presented.

2.4 Gap in the literature

Although it is still an on-going debate whether subliminally priming actually works, several

researchers in the field of priming are convinced of its effect. Many researchers have

demonstrated the possibilities of influencing peoples’ perceptions, evaluations, motivations

and behaviour by priming trait constructs or words (Bargh, 1992, 2002; Maxwell et al., 1999;

Strahan et al., 2002; Karremans et al., 2006). Considerable less priming studies have

demonstrated the possibilities of subliminally priming numbers in order to influence value

judgements (Mussweiler & Englich, 2005).

Based on these studies in combination with the studies in the field of anchoring, it seems not

yet sufficiently examined whether a prime that consists of a combination of words and a price

can influence willingness to pay, which is mainly determined based on cognition. Does an

arbitrarily chosen anchor already yield an anchoring effect on willingness to pay when it is

subliminally primed to a potential customer, or only when it is primed supraliminal for a

considerable amount of time? And if both options are possible, which priming condition has a

stronger influence on willingness to pay? This will be investigated by measuring people’s

willingness to pay for a quite innovative, unknown product, while they are primed with

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2.5 Hypotheses and research question

In order to examine the above issues, seven hypotheses are drafted based on the previous

comprehensive review of the literature about the key concepts in this study. The answers to

the seven hypotheses that are stated below should make it possible to answer the research

question of this study.

H1: Primes in the subliminal condition will have a significant positive influence on

willingness to pay when compared to the control condition.

H2: Primes in the supraliminal condition will have a significant positive influence on

willingness to pay when compared to the control condition.

H3: Primes will have a stronger positive influence in the supraliminal condition on

willingness to pay, than primes in the subliminal condition.

H4a: Primes in the low-priced subliminal priming condition (Retail price €37) will have a

significant positive influence on willingness to pay when compared to the control

condition.

H4b: Primes in the low-priced supraliminal priming condition (Retail price €37) will have a

condition.

H5a: Primes in the high-priced subliminal priming condition (Retail price €245) will have a

condition.

H5b: Primes in the high-primed supraliminal priming condition (Retail price €245) will

have a significant positive influence on willingness to pay when compared to the

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31 When all seven proposed hypotheses are answered, it should be possible to decide which

priming condition has a larger influence on the prices consumers are willing to paying for a

product or service, and whether it makes a different which price value is primed. In order to

examine this, it should be possible to answer the following research question by the end of the

research; What is the influence of subliminal primed prices vs. supraliminal primed prices on

willingness to pay, and how can price value influence this effect? 2.6 Conceptual framework

A visual representation of the research question and the seven proposed hypotheses are

depicted in figure 1. The conceptual model tests for the effect of the priming condition

(subliminal vs. supraliminal) on willingness to pay, and whether the price value of the prime

(low vs. high) can influence these possible effects. H1 will test whether primes in the

subliminal condition have a significant positive effect on willingness to pay, when compared

to the control condition. H2 will test whether primes in the supraliminal condition have a

significant positive effect on willingness to pay, when compared to the control condition. H3

will test whether primes in the supraliminal condition have a stronger positive effect on

willingness to pay than primes in the subliminal condition. Based on the literature review on

subliminal priming, supraliminal priming, anchoring and reference points, it is expected that

both subliminally primed primes as well as supraliminal primed primes do have a significant

positive influence on willingness to pay, since it already has been demonstrated by several

researchers that it is possible to influence perceptions, impressions, behaviours or motivations

through priming. Consequently, it is expected that, based on the anchoring theory, numerical

values can be used to influence willingness to pay. In addition, since most researchers state

that subliminal primes might be perceived differently per person, and supraliminal primes are

quite consistent in their effect, it is expected that primes in the supraliminal condition will

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32 The above three hypotheses are assumed to have positive direction, which means that when

the price on the prime increases, the willingness to pay will increases too. When the price on

the prime decreases, the willingness to pay is expected to decrease as well.

H4a and H4b will test whether primes in the low-priced prime condition and in the

high-price prime condition have a significant positive effect on willingness to pay in the

subliminal condition. H5a and H5b will test whether low-priced primes and high-priced

primes will have a significant effect on willingness to pay in the supraliminal condition.

Based on the literature review on subliminal, supraliminal priming, anchoring and

reference points, it is expected that both low and high-priced primes can influence peoples’

willingness to pay. Since it is argued that anchors can be a relevant or even a totally

irrelevant, arbitrary number, it is expected that the value of the prime (low or high) both will

have a similar effect on willingness to pay. Hence, the chance that the respondents will

perceive the low-priced prime (Retail price €37) as an anchor is as large as the chance that

respondents perceive the high-priced prime (Retail price €245) as an anchor when

determining the willingness to pay.

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3. Data and Method

This chapter will describe the data and methodology of this research, including a description

of the used materials, an explanation of the manipulations of the different videos and a

description of the participants. Thereafter, the procedure of the research will be explained in

detail, followed by a description of how the dependent variable will be measured

3.1 Materials

This study has been set up to investigate the effect of subliminal primed prices and

supraliminal primed prices (reference prices) on willingness to pay. Within this research, the

following five different conditions are examined; the control condition, two subliminal

priming conditions where a low-priced prime and a high-priced prime are primed

subliminally, and two supraliminal priming conditions were again a low-priced prime and

high-priced prime are primed, but in a supraliminal way. To test the effect of subliminally

primed prices and supraliminal primed prices on willingness to pay, five videos were created

with the editor programs Wondershare and VideoPad Video editor. The five versions of the

video all last 1:06:018 minutes. The five versions differ only in the inclusion or exclusion and

length of the exposure time of two randomly selected retail prices.

For the purpose of this study, the 3Doodler 3D-printing pen is selected since this

innovative product was assumed to be relatively unknown yet (figure 2). The official selling

price of the 3Doodler 3D-printing pen is €86,91 (US$99). Before showing one of the five

videos, two questions were asked to check the familiarity of the participants with this

innovative product. Based on the answers to this question, it can be stated that the majority of

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34

Figure 2. The 3Doodler 3D-printing pen

3.2 Manipulations

The no price exposure condition delivered the original video, without any manipulation and

served as the control condition. The aim of this video was to find out at participants’

willingness to pay for the 3Doodler 3D-printing pen, when no manipulation technique was

used (see appendix, Youtube-link video 1).

The subliminal condition delivered a non-conscious price exposure. The second video

contained a relatively low-priced subliminal prime, which was subliminally flashed five

times. Primes have to consist of a few short words instead of a whole sentence in order to be

able to be processed (Karremans et al., 2006). The subliminally prime in video 2 stated

‘Retail price €37,-‘. The subliminal prime is put exactly at 15.216s, 26.332s, 39.386s, 52.015s

and 1m 00.767s. This video will examine whether it might be possible to influence peoples’

willingness to pay to a low price by subliminally priming a low-priced prime (see appendix

Youtube-link video 2).

The third video contained a relatively high-primed subliminal prime, which was

subliminally flashed five times as well, on the exact same intervals as in the second video.

The subliminal prime in the third video stated ‘Retail price €245,-‘. This subliminal prime is

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35 possible to influence peoples’ willingness to pay to a high price by subliminally priming a

high-priced prime (see appendix Youtube-link video 3).

The supraliminal condition, or the condition with a reference price, delivered a

conscious price exposure. The fourth video contained a relatively low-priced supraliminal

primed price, which was presented at the end of the video for 5000ms. The supraliminal

presented reference price at the end of video four stated ‘Retail price €37,-‘ (see appendix

Youtube-link video 4).

The fifth video contained a relatively high-priced supraliminal prime, which was also

presented at the end of the video for 5000ms. The supraliminal presented reference prices

stated Retail price €245,-‘ (see appendix Youtube-link video 5).

3.3 Participants

According to Tulving and Schacter (1990), priming effects can be as large in 3-year-olds as in

college students as in elderly subjects. Since the priming effects are indistinguishable between

these subjects, selecting a particular target group was unnecessarily.

322 people participated on a voluntarily basis. Unfortunately, as you will read in the result

section, a large but necessary separation of useful data occurred in order to create a relevant

and trustful dataset. As a consequence, the data of 181 surveys remained (N=181). From 181

respondents, 85 were male (47%) and 96 were female (53%). Subjects were randomly

assigned to five groups, originally equal in size. After deleting the irrelevant data, the groups

now consist of, respectively from video one to video five, 36, 35, 36, 41, 33 participants.

Participants’ ages ranged from 16 to 60 years, with an average age of 25 years.

3.4 Procedure

Participants were invited to participate in an online experiment, conducted on Qualtrics. The

survey starts with a few demographic questions regarding the respondents’ gender, age,

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36 participants with 3D-printing techniques in general, and their familiarity with the 3Doodler

3D-printing pen in particular were asked. It is important the leave participants who are

familiar with the 3Doodler 3D-printen pen out of consideration since their prior knowledge

could hinder the possible effect of priming.

The research design of this study consists of a simulation of a potential customer at a

trade-show where new products were presented to the public. At this tradeshow, the customer

was presented for the first time the 3Doodler 3D-printing pen. In the description of the

simulated situation, participants had to pretend they were considering buying a 3D-printing

pen. The 3Doodler 3D-printing pen is the latest generation of the world’s first and best-selling

3D-printing pen. Compact and easy to use, the 3Doodler extrudes heated plastic that cools

almost instantly into a solid, stable structure. Since the experiment was online, participant

were presented the 3Doodler 3D-printing pen via a promotional video. Participants were

asked to try to remember, based on the video what kind of different applications the 3Doodler

3D printing pen has. This question was added in order to increase the probability that

participants actually pay attention to the video when participating in the experiment. By

stating a goal, participants might be more motivated to actually pay attention to the video in

order to achieve this goal. Finally, Participants were asked to think about an appropriate retail

price for the 3D printing pen, what should evoke associations that have to do with prices and

price valuations. Based on the literature, it can be assumed that priming could only influence

behaviour when the prime is relevant in the context or applicable to one’s current motivation

(Bargh et al., 1996).

Thereafter, the participants were randomly assigned to one of the five videos. Video

one serves as the control condition, video two and three examine a subliminal condition, and

video four and five examine a supraliminal condition. Dependent on which video to each

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37 willingness to pay are asked. After determining their willingness to pay, participants were

asked to name at least two applications of the 3Doodler-Printing pen. This question was asked

to check whether participants actually paid attention to the video. In order to ensure that

participants were processing the subliminal primes not consciously, they were asked whether

they noticed something remarkable during the video, immediately after seeing the video with

the subliminal primes. Completing the survey takes about five minutes.

3.5 Dependent variable

The dependent variable of this study is willingness to pay. According to the literature, the

contingent valuation method is a widely used approach to measure peoples’ willingness to

pay (Cameron & James, 1987; Le Gall-Ely, 2009; Gregory & Furby, 1987). By means of the

contingent valuation method, participants are asked to indicate the price they are willing to

pay for a specific service or product. This is exactly how this study measured the willingness

to pay of participants. As you could read in section 4.4, the willingness to pay of the

participants is measured through open-ended questions in the online survey. Immediately after

seeing video one, two, or three, participants were asked: ‘Please consider a fair retail price for

the 3Doodler 3D printing pen.’ ‘What would be your willingness to pay?’ ‘Please indicate the

amount in Euro’s.’ Immediately after seeing video four or five, participants were asked: As

you could see, the retail price is €37,- respectively €245,-.’ According to you, what would be

willingness to pay for the 3Doodler 3D printing pen? Please indicate the amount in Euro's.’

When collecting the data of all respondents, the average willingness to pay per condition can

be calculated. Since each video contains a different price manipulation technique, the average

willingness to pay of each video will probably differ. When this is the case it means that the

manipulation techniques actually do influence peoples’ willingness to pay. Based on

statistical tests it would be possible to get insight in which effect is caused through condition,

The influence of subliminal vs. supraliminal priming on willingness to pay : what is the influence of subliminal primed prices vs. supraliminal primed prices on willingness to pay, and how can price value influence this

Master thesis Marketing

Statement of originality

Table of contents

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Data and Method