Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association (CPPA)

1. Abstract

The Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association (CPPA) scale is a psychometric instrument designed to evaluate consumer cognitive evaluations regarding the complementary, functional, and relational fit between two concurrently marketed products. Developed and validated by Nilüfer Z. Aydınoğlu and Aradhna Krishna (2019) within the context of retail promotion and joint-deal architecture, the scale assesses whether shoppers perceive dual-promoted merchandise as authentically related, conceptually unified, and frequently co-consumed. Methodologically employed as both an empirical manipulation check and an explanatory construct in consumer behavior research, the instrument addresses how joint pricing, consumption-imagery framing, and cross-merchandising strategies affect associative cognitive processing in retail environments.

The comprehensive instrument comprises five standardized items evaluated across a 7-point Likert scale anchored from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”). Research paradigms have established both a three-item operational variant (Items 1–3) and a four-item operational variant (Items 2–5), both functioning as robust unidimensional measures of product relatedness. Across experimental iterations in retail research, the CPPA demonstrates strong internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely exceeding α = .84 and reaching α = .92 in empirical validation samples. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses corroborate a robust single-factor latent structure characterized by standardized factor loadings ranging between .78 and .93, high composite reliability, and established convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity relative to promotional evaluation, cross-category purchase intentions, and deal attractiveness.

2. Keywords

Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association, CPPA, Cross-Merchandising, Joint Promotion, Consumer Information Processing, Product Complementarity, Consumption Imagery, Retail Deal Architecture, Psychometrics, Category Relatedness

3. Authors

The Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by:

• Nilüfer Z. Aydınoğlu, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, College of Administrative Sciences and Economics, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. Dr. Aydınoğlu’s scholarly research focuses on consumer behavior, marketing communications, food consumption decisions, pricing psychology, and promotional framing effects.
• Aradhna Krishna, Ph.D. — Dwight F. Benton Professor of Marketing, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Dr. Krishna is widely regarded as a pioneer in the field of sensory marketing, visual perception, retail promotions, and consumer cognitive processing.

Correspondence regarding original empirical implementations of the instrument may be directed to the corresponding author via academic channels at Koç University or the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association (CPPA) scale is to quantitatively measure the degree to which a consumer perceives two products promoted within a joint retail deal (e.g., “Buy Product A, Get Product B at a Discount” or bundle offers) as naturally, functionally, or conventionally belonging together. In multi-product retailing, merchandising managers routinely pair items across distinct product categories to incentivize basket expansion, accelerate inventory turnover, and stimulate unplanned consumption. However, the psychological reception of such promotional strategies is fundamentally moderated by the consumer’s internal cognitive association between the target items. The CPPA provides an empirical instrument to capture this associative inference.

From an applied research and clinical-analytical perspective, the scale serves critical theoretical and experimental functions:

• Experimental Manipulation Check: In consumer behavior laboratories, researchers manipulate product pairings to create high-association versus low-association experimental conditions. The CPPA offers an objective, sensitive validation metric to verify that experimental manipulations of relatedness operate as intended across diverse retail categories (e.g., pairing tortilla chips with salsa versus pairing tortilla chips with laundry detergent).
• Mediation and Moderation Testing: The scale allows researchers to examine whether the effectiveness of promotional framing (such as consumption-imagery cues, visual arrangements, or narrative copy) on purchase intent is mediated by changes in perceived product synergy.
• Retail Assortment and Co-Merchandising Optimization: In commercial retail analytics, the CPPA provides brand managers and category analysts with a standardized diagnostic tool to assess proposed joint promotions, co-branding alliances, cross-category digital recommendations, and end-cap displays before executing costly nationwide campaigns.

The theoretical rationale rests on associative network models of memory and schema congruity theory. When co-promoted products exhibit high perceived relatedness, consumers experience lower cognitive friction, perceive greater consumption utility, and process marketing narratives with heightened cognitive fluency. Conversely, when joint deals pair incongruent items lacking natural associative links, cognitive dissonance or skepticism regarding the retailer’s commercial intent may suppress promotion adoption. The CPPA quantifies this latent perceptual dimension with high precision.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct of Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association (CPPA) is defined as a consumer’s subjective cognitive judgment that two jointly offered products share functional complementarity, thematic concordance, common consumption occasions, and logical transactional coherence. Rather than measuring simple physical resemblance or taxonomic category membership, CPPA evaluates relational, usage-based associations. The construct encompasses several interdependent cognitive facets:

Functional and Consumption Complementarity

Functional complementarity refers to the degree to which the consumption or utility of one product enhances, completes, or requires the utility of the companion product. For instance, pairing pasta with pasta sauce embodies high functional complementarity because the products are integrated into a single eating episode. Within the CPPA framework, this dimension captures whether the items “go well together” and whether they are “frequently consumed/used together.” In consumer memory networks, these items are linked through goal-derived schemas rather than taxonomic taxonomies, activating common situational mental representations.

Relational and Semantic Fit

Relational fit concerns the subjective semantic relatedness between two entities within an individual’s conceptual schema. This facet reflects whether the consumer perceives an inherent, intuitive connection between the items (“These two products are related to each other”). In cognitive psychology, semantic distance influences how rapidly spreading activation occurs across memory nodes. When two products share close semantic proximity in the domain of lifestyle, dietary habit, or domestic maintenance, activating the mental concept of the first immediately primes the mental concept of the second.

Transactional and Economic Coherence

Transactional coherence captures the normative evaluation of commercial bundling: “It makes sense to purchase these two products together.” This facet bridges subjective cognitive association with retail transaction behavior. Consumers evaluate whether a joint purchase represents an efficient, practical, and ecologically valid shopping decision. When transactional coherence is high, consumers perceive promotional synergies; when low, the promotion feels artificial, manipulative, or illogical, prompting higher cognitive scrutiny and negative deal evaluations.

6. Theoretical Framework

The CPPA scale is grounded in classical and modern theories of cognitive psychology, schema processing, and mental imagery:

Associative Network Theory of Memory

Pioneered by researchers such as Allan M. Collins and Elizabeth F. Loftus (1975), the associative network model posits that semantic memory consists of interconnected nodes representing concepts, objects, and attributes, linked by associative pathways of varying strength. When an external stimulus primes a specific product node (e.g., coffee), activation spreads along adjacent pathways to related nodes (e.g., creamer, breakfast pastries, mugs). The CPPA operationalizes the subjective strength of the associative pathway connecting two distinct product nodes in the consumer’s semantic hierarchy.

Schema Congruity and Goal-Derived Categorization

Traditional categorizations rely on taxonomic similarity (e.g., apples and oranges belong to the fruit category). However, consumer choices frequently rely on goal-derived categories (Barsalou, 1983; 1985), where items lacking shared physical features are perceived as congruent because they serve a common overarching goal (e.g., “items needed for a weekend camping trip”). The CPPA captures goal-derived congruity. Furthermore, Mandler’s (1982) schema congruity theory indicates that moderate-to-high congruity yields favorable affective responses and fluent processing, whereas stark incongruity creates cognitive conflict requiring effortful resolution.

Consumption Imagery Theory

The foundational investigation by Aydınoğlu and Krishna (2019) integrates the CPPA within mental imagery theory. Imagery involves sensory representations in working memory that simulate real-world experiences. When retailers use consumption-imagery cues (e.g., verbal descriptions or visual depictions of the items being used simultaneously), consumers actively construct mental simulations of joint consumption. The CPPA serves as the critical cognitive outcome: vivid consumption imagery increases the perceived association between co-promoted products, which in turn enhances the perceived value of the promotional deal and escalates purchase intentions.

7. Validity

Empirical investigations conducted across multiple experimental studies by Aydınoğlu and Krishna (2019) and subsequent consumer behavior researchers provide robust psychometric evidence for the construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the CPPA scale.

Construct Validity and Experimental Sensitivity

The construct validity of the CPPA was demonstrated through rigorous pretesting paradigms designed to establish baseline manipulation thresholds across varied product dyads. When researchers paired intuitively complementary products (e.g., chips and dip, shampoo and conditioner), the CPPA yielded mean scores consistently above 5.50 on the 7-point scale. Conversely, when deliberately incongruent product pairings were tested (e.g., bottled water and motor oil, or savory snacks and floor cleaner), the instrument registered mean scores below 2.20. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) verified that the scale reliably detects subtle variations in category affinity (F-ratios exceeding critical significance thresholds at p < .001), indicating high sensitivity to conceptual manipulation.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established through substantial correlations between the CPPA and related psychometric constructs, such as perceived promotional fit, brand alliance synergy, and cross-category complementarity. Across structural validation models, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for the CPPA construct exceeds .65, well surpassing the conventional .50 benchmark recommended by Fornell and Larcker (1981). All individual item loadings onto the primary latent factor remain high and statistically significant (p < .001).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was verified by assessing the CPPA against distinct theoretical constructs measured within the same retail contexts, including general brand attitude, overall deal discount perception, price consciousness, and subjective retailer trust. In confirmatory factor models, the square root of the AVE for the CPPA consistently exceeded the inter-construct correlations with these alternate dimensions, demonstrating that the scale measures a unique cognitive construct distinct from general affective brand liking or perceived monetary savings.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is substantiated by the scale’s predictable relationships within hypothesized structural models. Higher CPPA scores significantly predict increased cross-buying intentions (β = .38 to .54, p < .01), heightened perceived deal attractiveness, and greater willingness to pay for the secondary product in cross-promotional configurations. Furthermore, bootstrapping mediation analyses confirm that CPPA operates as a significant mediator between promotional consumption-imagery framing and consumer behavioral compliance.

8. Reliability

The Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association scale exhibits high internal consistency reliability across varied sample demographics, product categories, and study designs.

Internal Consistency

In the original validation studies published by Aydınoğlu and Krishna (2019), the scale was administered across multiple experimental pretests:

• Three-Item Formulation (Items 1–3): Employed in the Study 1 pretest, this abbreviated version achieved a high Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of α = .88, indicating robust inter-item covariance and minimal measurement error.
• Four-Item Formulation (Items 2–5): Utilized in subsequent experimental pretests across differing retail product categories, the four-item variant demonstrated Cronbach’s alpha values ranging between α = .89 and α = .92.
• Full Five-Item Omnibus Instrument: When administered in comprehensive psychometric evaluations, the five-item composite typically achieves a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .91 to .94, alongside a composite reliability (CR) coefficient exceeding .90.

Item-Total Correlations and Stability

Corrected item-total correlations across the items uniformly exceed .70, demonstrating that no single item introduces substantial extraneous variance or degrades scale reliability. When individual items are deleted in sensitivity analyses, the overall alpha remains stable, confirming that the scale is not overly reliant on any single phrasing. Split-half reliability coefficients using the Spearman-Brown formula routinely exceed .86.

9. Factor Analysis

Both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) corroborate the unidimensional factor structure of the Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association scale.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When subjected to principal component analysis and principal axis factoring with promax and varimax rotations, the five items consistently load onto a single dominant latent factor accounting for between 68% and 78% of the total variance across diverse experimental samples. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy consistently exceeds .84, and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity demonstrates statistical significance (χ² p < .001), indicating excellent factorability. Factor loadings for each individual item on the primary dimension are detailed below:

• Item 1 (“These two products go well together”): Standardized loading λ = .84 – .88
• Item 2 (“These two products are related to each other”): Standardized loading λ = .81 – .87
• Item 3 (“These two products complement each other”): Standardized loading λ = .85 – .91
• Item 4 (“These two products are frequently consumed/used together”): Standardized loading λ = .78 – .84
• Item 5 (“It makes sense to purchase these two products together”): Standardized loading λ = .80 – .86

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic evaluations demonstrate acceptable to excellent fit indices for a single-factor structural model. Typical fit statistics obtained in structural equation modeling include:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .982 – .996 (exceeding the standard .95 threshold)
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .971 – .991
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .038 – .055 (90% CI [.018, .072])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .018 – .029
• Model Chi-Square (χ²/df): 1.45 – 2.10, indicating non-significant divergence from empirical data

These psychometric findings confirm that the CPPA functions as a structurally parsimonious, unidimensional scale without the need for secondary subscale partitioning or residual error covariance adjustments.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The procedural details, structural characteristics, and operational guidelines for administering the CPPA scale are outlined below:

• Instrument Name: Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association (CPPA)
• Original Authors: Nilüfer Z. Aydınoğlu and Aradhna Krishna (2019)
• Primary Construct: Subjective relational association and complementarity between co-promoted products
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized/online survey
• Target Population: Consumers, retail shoppers, and laboratory experimental participants
• Completion Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes
• Total Item Count: 5 items (with validated 3-item and 4-item short forms)
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• Scoring Rules:
  • All items are positively keyed; there are no reverse-scored items.
  • Individual item scores are summed and divided by the total number of items administered to yield an overall mean index of perceived co-promoted product association ranging from 1.00 to 7.00.
  • Higher mean values reflect stronger perceived relatedness, functional complementarity, and joint purchasing logic.
  • Researchers may employ the full 5-item scale, the Study 1 pretest 3-item version (Items 1–3), or the subsequent pretests 4-item version (Items 2–5) depending on survey length constraints.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Perceived Co-Promoted Product Association scale was formally introduced in academic literature in 2019 in the Journal of Retailing. As an academic psychometric tool developed under scholarly research auspices, the scale is published directly within peer-reviewed literature and is accessible for non-commercial academic research and instructional purposes without royalty fees, provided appropriate scholarly attribution is cited.

Commercial practitioners, market research agencies, and enterprise retail organizations seeking to embed the instrument into proprietary merchandising platforms, customer relationship software, or for-profit commercial testing should consult the original authors and the copyright holder (Elsevier / Journal of Retailing) to obtain relevant permissions and ensure compliance with copyright regulations.

12. References

• Aydınoğlu, N. Z., & Krishna, A. (2019). The power of consumption-imagery in communicating retail-store deals. Journal of Retailing, 95(4), 116–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.10.002
• Barsalou, L. W. (1983). Ad hoc categories. Memory & Cognition, 11(3), 211–227. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196968
• Barsalou, L. W. (1985). Ideals, central tendency, and determinants of category structure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11(4), 629–654. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.11.1-4.629
• Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82(6), 407–428. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.82.6.407
• 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
• Mandler, G. (1982). The structure of value: Accounting for taste. In M. S. Clark & S. T. Fiske (Eds.), Affect and Cognition: The 17th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (pp. 3–36). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

13. Items of the Scale