The Time Effect on Desire for Self-Improvement Products

Time-relevant cues are one of the most common elements used in ads, packaging or online retailing settings. However, little research has directly examined how time priming influence the preferences for self-improvement products. Across three experiments, this paper demonstrates that time priming increases consumers’ consumption intention of self-improvement products. This pattern is driven by consumers’ heightened locomotion orientation. That is, time activation reminds consumers to initiate actions and be more locomotion orientated. As a result, it motives them to pursue self-improvement goals through consuming relevant products. Furthermore, the time priming effect on self-improvement products will be mitigated or even inverted when the self-improvement goals were difficult to attain. This occurs because perceived difficulty leads consumers to assess the attainability of the goal and decreases the locomotion orientation. Both theoretical contributions and practical implications for research on time priming and self-improvement are discussed.