$100 a month or $1,200 a year? Regulatory focus and the evaluation of temporally framed attributes

The costs and benefits of various products, such as insurance and subscription services, are recurring. Marketers can choose to frame these attributes either as a series of periodic occurrences (e.g., “$10 per month”) or aggregate them over a longer period (“$120 per year”). Five studies show that the effectiveness of such temporal framing depends on consumers’ salient regulatory goals. Compared with prevention‐focused consumers, promotion‐focused consumers are more likely to perceive benefits, costs, and losses to be larger when they are framed in aggregate (vs. periodic) terms. Mediation analyses suggest that, relative to prevention‐focused consumers’ vigilant information processing style, promotion‐focused consumers’ eagerness makes them more susceptible to temporal framing effects. The results suggest that regulatory goal is a consequential factor in determining the effectiveness of temporal framing.