Customer Inspiration – Purchase Intention (Inspired To) (CII)

Abstract

The Customer Inspiration – Purchase Intention (Inspired To) (CII) scale, developed by Böttger, Rudolph, Evanschitzky, and Pfrang (2017), is an established psychometric instrument designed to capture the conative, action-oriented dimension of consumer inspiration. Rooted in general psychological theories of inspiration pioneered by Thrash and Elliot (2003, 2004), customer inspiration is conceptualized as a temporary motivational state comprising two sequential components: being inspired by (the epistemic, awareness-expanding phase) and being inspired to (the conative, goal-directed behavioral drive). The CII specifically isolates the latter phase, measuring the extent to which an external marketing stimulus or retail experience motivates, urges, and directs a consumer toward purchasing a product or realizing a consumption idea.

Comprising 5 positively phrased items administered on a 7-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree), the instrument measures the degree of consumption-directed motivation triggered by experiential or communicative marketing inputs. Across rigorous multi-study validation procedures involving thousands of retail and digital consumers, the scale has demonstrated exemplary psychometric properties. Internal consistency reliability is consistently high, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients exceeding .90 and composite reliability values surpassing .92 across distinct testing environments. Confirmatory factor analyses confirm strong unidimensionality of this subscale and superior fit within the broader second-order customer inspiration model, demonstrating robust convergent validity (average variance extracted > .75), discriminant validity against classic purchase intention and positive affect scales, and predictive validity for actual spending, shopping basket diversity, and exploratory shopping behavior.

Keywords

Customer Inspiration, Inspired To, Purchase Intention, Consumer Motivation, Scale Validation, Conative Motivation, Marketing Psychometrics, Experiential Retail, Thrash and Elliot, Böttger et al. 2017

Authors

The Customer Inspiration Scale and its conative subscale “Inspired To” were developed and validated by a team of prominent researchers in marketing science and consumer psychology:

• Tim Böttger: Assistant Professor / Postdoctoral Researcher of Marketing, Institute of Retail Management, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. His research focuses on customer experience management, digital marketing, and retail innovation.
• Thomas Rudolph: Professor of Marketing and Retail Management, Director of the Institute of Retail Management and the Retail Lab at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. His scholarship centers on buyer behavior, retail strategies, and customer relationship management.
• Heiner Evanschitzky: Professor and Chair of Marketing at Aston Business School, Aston University, United Kingdom (and subsequently Alliance Manchester Business School). Known for his extensive work on consumer behavior, service management, and customer loyalty dynamics.
• Tanja Pfrang: Doctoral Researcher / Behavioral Consultant affiliated with the Retail Lab at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, specializing in behavioral economics, consumer decision-making, and retail psychology.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Customer Inspiration – Purchase Intention (Inspired To) (CII) instrument is to quantify the motivational energy and directional urge that consumers experience following exposure to inspirational marketing stimuli. For decades, consumer psychology and marketing practice conflated purchase intention with inspiration, operationalizing consumer response through transactional, cognitively calculated constructs such as planned purchase intentions, utilitarian product search metrics, or general favorable brand attitudes. However, these traditional measures fail to capture the affective surge, spontaneous ideation, and transformative behavioral motivation that characterizes genuine inspiration.

In applied retail, e-commerce, and advertising contexts, the CII fulfills several critical functions:

• Disentangling Epistemic Awakening from Action Orientation: While the complementary “inspired by” component captures the cognitive openness and transcendence initiated by an encounter, the CII measures whether that intellectual spark successfully translates into a targeted conative desire to buy.
• Evaluating Content and Merchandising Effectiveness: Marketers utilize the tool to evaluate whether curated content (e.g., lookbooks, social media influencer campaigns, immersive retail displays, generative AI product suggestions) merely informs the customer or actively catalyzes a proactive urge to purchase.
• Diagnosing Bottlenecks in the Consumer Journey: By deploying both subscales, researchers can identify when marketing stimuli possess high creative appeal (“inspired by”) but fail to trigger actionability (“inspired to”), or conversely, when promotions trigger purchase urgency without providing the transcendent novelty that fosters long-term brand equity.
• Academic Investigation of Consumer Agency and Approach Motivation: In academic consumer research, the instrument serves as a sensitive mediator between visual merchandising, atmospheric variables, or algorithmic recommendation architectures and final behavioral outcomes, including cross-buying, basket size, and customer lifetime value.

Psychological Construct

The construct measured by the CII is the “inspired to” component of customer inspiration. In psychometric and psychological literature, customer inspiration is formally defined as a customer’s temporary motivational state that facilitates the transition from an awareness-expanding marketing stimulus to the conative pursuit of a consumption goal. Customer inspiration is not an enduring personality trait, but rather an episodic state characterized by three foundational criteria: evocation (it is summoned without direct, calculated voluntary effort), transcendence (it opens the individual to new, elevated possibilities), and approach motivation (it energizes the actualization of an idea).

The Dual-Stage Architecture of Inspiration

Psychologists distinguish between two distinct but inherently connected phases:

1. Inspired By (Component 1): Involves the experiential reception of an idea. It encompasses feeling inspired by an external source, experiencing a sudden expansion of awareness, and appreciating a creative or novel vision.
2. Inspired To (Component 2 – CII): Represents the actualization phase. It is characterized by approach motivation, wherein the consumer experiences an intrinsic drive to realize, manifest, or execute a new possibility through purchase and consumption activities.

Key Dimensions of the “Inspired To” State

The 5 items comprising the CII capture four interrelated psychological elements of the actualization process:

• Conative Urge and Desire: Items such as “gave me the desire to buy something” and “made me want to buy something” operationalize the affective-motivational pressure that compels the individual toward action. This desire is not experienced as a stressful or compulsive urge, but as an enthusiastic, intrinsically oriented striving.
• Directional Motivation: The item “motivated me to buy something” assesses the behavioral activation energy mobilized by the encounter. Unlike broad positive affect, this motivation is explicitly channeled toward consumption-related goal pursuit.
• Ideational Catalysis: The item “brought me to the idea of buying something” reflects the cognitive leap from general inspiration to specific behavioral conceptualization. The individual envisions integrating the product into their personal identity or lifestyle.
• Holistic Inspiration to Act: The global item “inspired me to buy something” synthesizes the holistic transition from passive reception to active procurement intention.

Theoretical Framework

The CII scale is grounded in two primary theoretical paradigms: the Transmission Model of Inspiration developed in general psychology by Thrash and Elliot (2004), and the Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions advanced by Fredrickson (2001).

The Transmission Model of Inspiration

Thrash and Elliot conceptualized inspiration as a tripartite phenomenon comprising evocation, transcendence, and approach motivation. Crucially, they introduced the transmission hypothesis, positing that inspiration involves a motivational process wherein the inspired individual feels compelled to extend, express, or actualize the newly encountered creative quality into a concrete physical or behavioral form. In artistic or scientific domains, an individual is inspired by a magnificent landscape or elegant formula and subsequently inspired to paint a canvas or design an experiment.

Böttger et al. (2017) adapted this framework to the commercial sphere. Consumers encounter marketing touchpoints that serve as the evoking stimulus. When these stimuli communicate novel, superior, or aesthetically pleasing solutions, they evoke the “inspired by” state. This state subsequently transmits its motivational energy into the “inspired to” state, where the consumption act itself becomes the expressive medium through which the consumer realizes their newly formed consumption vision.

Goal Theory and Approach Motivation

The conative dimension relies heavily on approach-avoidance motivation models. Inspiration functions strictly within the behavioral approach system (BAS), activating appetitive, positive engagement rather than utilitarian problem-avoidance. Unlike utilitarian purchasing—which is often driven by need-depletion, risk mitigation, or task-oriented searching—the “inspired to” state is characterized by approach-oriented goal setting, wherein the consumer seeks to augment their subjective well-being, lifestyle, or aesthetic environment.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the CII was established by Böttger et al. (2017) through an extensive series of empirical studies involving multiple consumer panels, laboratory experiments, and field studies in physical retail and digital storefronts.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Convergent validity evaluates whether the 5 items measure the intended conative latent factor consistently. Confirmatory factor analyses across calibration samples (N = 658) and validation samples (N = 1,021) demonstrated high standardized factor loadings for all 5 items, ranging from .84 to .93, all statistically significant at p < .001. The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for the “inspired to” construct consistently surpassed .75, substantially exceeding the conventional psychometric threshold of .50 established by Fornell and Larcker (1981).

Discriminant Validity

To demonstrate that the CII is distinct from established marketing and psychological constructs, the authors conducted rigorous discriminant validity testing using both the Fornell-Larcker criterion and the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio of correlations:

• Versus Standard Purchase Intention: Traditional purchase intention scales assess the subjective probability of completing a transaction (e.g., “I intend to buy X in the next month”). The CII showed an HTMT ratio below .85, confirming that while correlated, inspiration-driven motivation captures a spontaneous, affective-conative urge rather than a calculated, planned transaction likelihood.
• Versus Positive Affect and Arousal: Discriminant tests confirmed that “inspired to” cannot be reduced to simple high-arousal positive emotion (e.g., excitement, joy), as it uniquely incorporates goal-directed behavioral activation.
• Versus “Inspired By”: In a two-factor confirmatory model, the correlation between “inspired by” and “inspired to” typically falls between .65 and .78. While conceptually linked, modeling them as separate factors yielded significantly superior fit over a single-factor model (Δχ² significant at p < .001), validating their distinct roles as cognitive reception versus conative actualization.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

The CII possesses exceptional criterion validity across diverse behavioral and perceptual outcome measures:

• Unplanned Purchasing and Exploration: In structural equation models, the “inspired to” factor positively predicted exploratory consumer buying behavior (β = .48, p < .001) and spontaneous purchases.
• Actual Spending and Basket Value: In field studies tracking real transaction data, consumers with higher CII scores exhibited significantly higher overall shopping expenditures and higher conversion rates relative to control groups.
• Brand Loyalty and Advocacy: Longitudinally, repeated experiences of being “inspired to” act by a retailer or brand strongly predicted customer delight and repurchase intent.

Reliability

The Customer Inspiration – Purchase Intention (Inspired To) scale exhibits exemplary reliability metrics across varying cultural contexts, retail formats, and online interfaces:

• Internal Consistency: In the original validation studies by Böttger et al. (2017), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the 5-item “inspired to” subscale ranged from .93 to .96 across retail store environments, online fashion platforms, and furniture merchandising samples. Subsequent independent studies (e.g., Wiecek et al., 2019; Winterich et al., 2021) routinely report Cronbach’s alpha values between .91 and .95.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural modeling estimates demonstrate composite reliability coefficients exceeding .93 (well above the accepted minimum standard of .70), confirming minimal measurement error variance among the five manifest indicators.
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-to-total correlations for all five statements exceed .78, demonstrating high coherence among items.
• Test-Retest Stability: Because inspiration is conceptualized as an episodic, state-level construct, test-retest assessments administered over long latency periods show meaningful fluctuations reflecting changing situational stimuli. However, short-interval test-retest evaluations (e.g., immediate post-exposure versus 20-minute delayed recall without intervening stimuli) indicate strong temporal stability (r > .82).

Factor Analysis

During the development of the scale, comprehensive exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were carried out using structural equation modeling software (AMOS and Mplus).

Exploratory Factor Structure

Principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation on the combined pool of customer inspiration items routinely extracts two distinct factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, explaining more than 75% of the total variance:

• Factor 1 (“Inspired By”): Comprises items measuring feelings of inspiration, new ideas, and broadened horizons.
• Factor 2 (“Inspired To”): Comprises the 5 items assessing desire, urge, motivation, and the idea of buying, with all 5 items exhibiting primary loadings > .80 onto Factor 2 and cross-loadings onto Factor 1 below .25.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Model Fit

When evaluated via CFA, the standalone unidimensional 5-item “Inspired To” model demonstrates excellent goodness-of-fit metrics across independent samples:

• Relative Chi-Square (χ²/df): Values consistently range between 1.25 and 2.40, falling well within the desirable threshold of < 3.0.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Consistently ≥ .98, indicating near-ideal fit to observed covariance matrices.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Consistently ≥ .97.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Ranges between .028 and .048 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .015 to .062), below the conservative .06 ceiling.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Measured below .035 across all validation samples.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Self-report psychological / marketing scale; conative motivational assessment tool.
• Measurement Paradigm: Conative “Inspired To” subscale of the dual-stage Customer Inspiration Index (CII).
• Target Population: Consumers exposed to physical retail environments, e-commerce web interfaces, social media advertising, catalog layouts, promotional events, or digital recommendation systems.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire, web-based survey, in-store intercept tablet, or mobile exit-survey.
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Item Count: 5 items.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree).
• Scoring and Aggregation Rules:
  • All 5 items are positively worded; no reverse scoring is required.
  • An overall “Inspired To” index score is calculated either as the arithmetic mean across the 5 items (yielding a continuous score from 1.00 to 7.00) or as a summed aggregate score (ranging from 5 to 35).
  • Higher scores signify greater motivational action-orientation and purchase urge evoked by the referenced stimulus.
• Contextual Flexibility: The bracketed lead-in “[The stimulus/experience]” is adapted to the specific target of evaluation (e.g., “This catalog”, “Browsing this website”, “Visiting this store”, or “The Instagram post”).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed and published in 2017 in the Journal of Marketing, a flagship journal published by the American Marketing Association (AMA) (now co-published with SAGE Publications). As with most instruments appearing in peer-reviewed academic literature, the scale is protected by academic copyright held by the authors and the publisher.

For non-commercial academic research, pedagogical use, and dissertation studies, the scale items may be utilized without licensing fees under standard academic fair use principles, provided that full bibliographic attribution is granted to Böttger, Rudolph, Evanschitzky, and Pfrang (2017). Commercial enterprises, commercial market research firms, and consulting organizations seeking to integrate the scale into commercial customer feedback software, proprietary retail auditing products, or for-profit analytics suites should consult the copyright policies of the American Marketing Association / SAGE Publications or obtain direct clearance from the authors.

References

• Böttger, T., Rudolph, T., Evanschitzky, H., & Pfrang, T. (2017). Customer inspiration: Conceptualization, scale development, and validation. Journal of Marketing, 81(6), 116–131. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.15.0007
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218
• Thrash, T. M., & Elliot, A. J. (2003). Inspiration as a psychological construct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 871–889. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.871
• Thrash, T. M., & Elliot, A. J. (2004). Inspiration: Core characteristics, component processes, antecedents, and function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 957–973. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.957
• Wiecek, A., Wentzel, D., & Landwehr, J. R. (2019). The role of customer inspiration in driving brand engagement and purchase behavior. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 36(4), 587–605. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2019.04.002
• Winterich, K. P., Nenkov, G. Y., & Gonzales, G. E. (2021). Knowing what it makes: How product transformation salience increases recycling and inspiration. Journal of Marketing, 85(3), 88–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242920980486

Items of the Scale