ECONOMIC, SOCIO-CULTURAL AND EXISTENTIAL ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A SCENARIO-BASED EXPERIMENT

The purpose of this study is to reveal the impact of the different engagement strategies used to respond to the economic, sociocultural and existential pressures on the purchase intention of the adult consumers and to compare the purchase intentions of the engagement strategies across gender and income. We embodied a scenario-based within-group experimental design to investigate the effect of engagement strategies on purchase intention. We used a convenience sampling strategy with 221 university students enrolled in an elective course on public relations in Turkey. The results showed that the engagement strategies that respond to the existential pressures are at least essential as those strategies that respond to the economic pressures during the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, the findings showed the purchase intentions on the different engagement strategies change across gender whereas there is no significant difference in various income groups. Unlike similarly themed studies, this study employed the quantitative analytical approach. This study shows that the engagement strategies developed for existential pressures have become as important as the economic pressures.