Going Green: Impact of Advertising Appeals on Green Consumption Behavior - Journal of Business Research

This research explores how abstract appeal and concrete appeal can encourage consumers to engage in green consumption behavior, such as purchasing green products. The study also investigates the moderating roles of public self-awareness and identity salience on the effectiveness of advertising appeals.

Going green: How different advertising appeals impact green
consumption behavior☆
Defeng Yanga, Yue Lua, Wenting Zhub, Chenting Sub,⁎
a School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China
b Department of Marketing, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 1 February 2015
Received in revised form 1 March 2015
Accepted 1 April 2015
Available online 29 April 2015
Keywords:
Green consumption
Advertising appeals
Benefit association
Public self-awareness
Identity salience
This research explores how abstract appeal (i.e., describing the features of green products in a more vague
and concrete appeal (i.e., describing the features of green products in a more speci fic way) can encourage
sumers to engage in green consumption behavior, such as purchasing green products. Across three experim
this research tests the prediction that abstract (concrete) appeal is more effective in generating green purc
intentions than concrete (abstract) appeal in situations where the bene fit association of green products is
other (self). Public self-awareness and identity salience moderate the effect of appeal type and bene fit asso
on green purchase intentions. In particular, when green products associate with the bene fit of other, abstra
appeal is more effective, whereas both abstract and concrete appeals are less effective when green produc
associate with the benefit of self. This effect is moderated by public self-awareness and whether a collective
level of self or an individual level of self is made salient. The results provide important managerial implicatio
for marketers who seek to promote green consumption by suggesting that rather than merely depending on
the types of advertising appeals, marketers should modify their advertising message to match the bene fit a
ation of the products and to consider the situations where public self-awareness and identity salience are pr
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The growing concern about the sustainability of the natural environ-
ment is transforming the competitive pattern of contemporary markets
and prompting corporations to think in a “greener” way (Grinstein &
Nisan, 2009; Peattie & Peattie,2009). Many business organizations
have started to approach the issue from a strategic perspective and
to introduce new brands and products that embrace positive social
and environmentaloutcomes (Grigore,2011; Leonidou,Leonidou,
Palihawadana, & Hultman, 2011). However,convincing consumers
to act in a sustainable manner seems to be a very difficult task
(Costanzo, Archer, Aronson, & Pettigrew, 1986; Luchs,G., Naylor,
Julie, & Raghunathan,2010), in part because the main beneficiary of
green consumption is not always the consumer him or herself but rather
other consumers or the society as a whole (Kronrod,Grinstein, &
Wathieu,2012).In addition,green products are often priced higher
than traditional products,making consumers reluctant to accept the
green products (Consumer reports, 2007). Even when consumers dis-
play a desirable attitude toward green products and report that they
are willing to purchase green products, very few of them actually do
so. Tesla Motor's weak performance in global sales is a very good illus-
tration. With its aim to protect the environment, Tesla Motor is a firm
that designs, manufactures and sells electric automobiles. While seeking
to speed up production and expand globally, Tesla finished 2014 as an
automaker with only 22,477 cars sold—a number that was far below
its expectation of 35,000 (Automotive News, 2014). The poor perfor-
mance in sales inflicted a net loss of 108 million dollars on Tesla (BBC,
2015),which placed considerable pressure on the company's future.
Therefore, how to encourage consumers to behave in a sustainable way
has become an important issue for both marketers and decision-makers
Prior research explores consumers' motivation for buying green prod
ucts but mostly from a consumer-level point of view (e.g., Bickart & Ruth
2012; Griskevicius, Van den Bergh, & Tybur, 2010; Lee, 2008; Sheehan
Atkinson, 2012; Stern, 2000). For example, Stern (2000) and Lee (2008)
find that educationalbackground and age can influence consumers'
green consumption behavior. Sheehan and Atkinson (2012) also show
that consumers' involvement in environmental issues is of great signifi-
cance in consumers' choice of green products. Much research has also
been focused on the power of egoism in influencing consumers' green
purchasing behavior, indicating that consumers are more likely to pur-
chase green products that serve self-interest (Bickart & Ruth, 2012).
When encouraging consumers to engage in sustainable behaviors,
marketers often capitalize on the persuasive power ofadvertising
appeals (Goldstein,Cialdini, & Griskevicius,2008), and sustainable
products are always promoted through advertisements using different
Journal of Business Research 68 (2015) 2663–2675
☆ The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71102009, 71472074), Natural Science Foundation of
Guangdong Province in China (No. 2014A030311022) and the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (No. 15JNQM015).
⁎ Corresponding author at:Departmentof Marketing, College of Business,City
University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tel.: [phone].
E-mail addresses: [e-mail] (D. Yang), [e-mail] (Y. Lu),
[e-mail] (W. Zhu), [e-mail] (C. Su).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.04.004
0148-2963/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Business Research

appeals. One commonly used appeal is the abstract appeal. This type of
appeal contains unspecific or ambiguous wording and describes the
features of sustainable products in a more vague or subjective way.
Another commonly used appeal is the concrete appeal, which, in con-
trast, includes rich information with detailed and tangible clues and
always depicts the characteristics of sustainable products in a more spe-
cific or objective way (Leonidou et al.,2011). Examples of abstract
appeals include this product is: environmentally friendly,clean, and
has less pollution, whereas an example of concrete appeal is: our new
organic drinking contains 35% natural materials and 15% less plastic in
its bottle packaging. A big difference compared to the previous version.
However, although green advertising appeals have long been the
focus of much research (Green & Peloza, 2014; White, MacDonnell, &
Dahl, 2011; White & Simpson, 2013), the effects of abstract and concrete
appeals on green consumption behavior have been rarely probed.
Which advertising appeal can most effectively convince consumers to
engage in sustainable consumption? Why do we observe nearly equal
use of abstract and concrete appeals in green advertising despite the
results of prior research that abstract appeal might be less influential
than concrete appeal in affecting consumers'response to advertise-
ments (Darley & Smith,1993; Ford,Smith, & Swasy,1990; Ogilvy,
1983)? Should marketers change the wordings of their advertisings
and use more detailed and concrete language? Prior research has barely
answered these questions.
Thus, the current research seeks to answer these questions by exam-
ining the effectiveness of abstract and concrete appeals in motivating
consumers'green consumption behavior. The study introduces a key
variable that may influence the efficacy of abstract and concrete appeals
in influencing green consumption behavior: benefit association.By
examining specific appeal types, the study also investigates the moder-
ating roles of public self-awareness and identity salience on the effec-
tiveness of advertising appeals. In the following sections, the literature
related to green consumption, advertising appeals, benefit association,
public self-awareness and identity salience is presented.Research
hypotheses are developed. The study describes in detail three experi-
ments examining the impact of advertising appeals on green purchase
intentions under different benefit associations (study 1) as well as the
moderating roles of public self-awareness and identity salience on
such an effect (study 2 and study 3). The last section covers the discus-
sion and conclusions.
2. Conceptual development and hypotheses
2.1. Green consumption and advertising appeals
Green consumption, as Pieters (1991) defines, is consumption activ-
ity that satisfies human needs or wants with minimaldetrimental
impact on the natural environment.Prior research has investigated
consumers' responses to green consumption across a wide variety of
products and services, such as energy-efficient automobiles (Green &
Peloza, 2014), eco-friendly containers (Kronrod et al., 2012), and gaso-
line products (Davis,1994).Despite the fact that consumers'demo-
graphic characteristics and general attitudes are important predictors
of their sustainable consumption behaviors (Sheehan & Atkinson,
2012; Stern, 2000), prior research indicates that using different types
of advertising appeals can also significantly affect consumers' attitudes
and behavior toward sustainable consumption (Kronrod et al., 2012;
Obermiller,1995; White et al.,2011; White & Simpson,2013). For
example,Kronrod et al.(2012) examine the role of assertive appeal
across various environmental contexts, including economizing water,
reducing air pollution and recycling plastic containers, and find that
appeal efficacy depends on the perceived importance of the issue at
hand. Specifically, when consumers perceive sustainable consumption
as important, they respond better to assertive appeal, whereas when
sustainable consumption is viewed as unimportant, consumers respond
negatively to assertive appeal. In addition, White et al. (2011) explore
how gain and loss appeals can encourage consumers to engage in sus-
tainable behavior such as recycling, and find that the effectiveness of
the appeal type relies on whether a particular mind-set is activated.
These findings suggest that the execution of advertising appeals is of
vital importance to the success of green consumption.
In practice, marketers always use two types of advertising appeals
(i.e., abstract and concrete appeals) to motivate consumers' green con-
sumption behavior. We define abstract appeal as advertising appeal that
contains vague wording and describes the features of sustainable prod-
ucts in a more abstract and unspecific way, and concrete appeal as adver-
tising appeal that includes detailed and rich information and describes
the features of sustainable products in a more concrete and specific
way (Leonidou et al., 2011).
The presence of these two types of advertising appeals in practice is
intriguing because existing research strongly suggests that concrete
appeal is typically more influential than abstract appeal in affecting con-
sumers' responses to advertising. Ogilvy (1983) contends that adver-
tisements with specific and detailed messages are more credible and
more memorable than those with messages based on abstractness. In
addition, Ford et al. (1990) indicate that consumers are less suspicious
of objective than subjective advertising appeals. Similarly, Darley and
Smith (1993) also find that compared to subjective appeals, objective
appeals with concrete description of product characteristics produce
more favorable perception of brand attitudes and thus more favorable
purchase intentions. This background leads us to raise specific questions
with respect to the effectiveness of abstract and concrete appeal in the
context of sustainable consumption.
2.2. Benefits associate with sustainable consumption
Strikingly, green consumption associates with one of two benefits
frequently. One is the benefit of other, which highlights that the main
beneficiary of green consumption is some other individual or the society
at large. Another is the benefit of self, which highlights that the main
beneficiary is the consumer (Fisher,Vandenbosch,& Antia, 2008;
Green & Peloza, 2014; Peloza, White, & Shang, 2013). Some researchers
contend that green consumption is most likely to happen when green
products associate with the benefit of other. Webb, Mohr, and Harris
(2008) posit that socially responsible consumption is invariably socially
oriented other than self-centered. Prior research finds that when pur-
chasing environmentally friendly products,consumers always focus
on the good of the environment instead of individual interest (Davis,
1994). They may even give up personal profit if the purchase of green
products benefits the society (Griskevicius,Van den Bergh,& Tybur,
2010). Further to this point,Peattie and Crane (2005) indicate that
green consumption that offers future benefits to the entire generation
of consumers is of greater efficiency than green consumption that only
provides individual benefits in generating consumers' green purchase
intentions. These findings suggest that environmentally friendly con-
sumption is more likely to occur when such consumption associates
with the benefit of other.
In contrast, other researchers argue that providing the benefit of self
is more appropriate for encouraging green consumption behaviors. This
body of research holds the notion that most pro-environmental behav-
iors are based on egoistic consideration (De Groot & Steg, 2008; Stern,
2000). For example,Holmes, Miller, and Lemer (2002) show that
consumers are more inclined to participate in pro-social actions when
a form of benefit to the self follows the request for help. In addition,
Peattie (2001) notes that highlighting cost-saving often prompts
consumers to behave in consumption that generates environmental or
social welfare. Consistent with these findings, Luchs et al. (2010) also
find that in the process of green consumption, if consumers' personal
profit is damaged, they will generate a sense of resistance toward the
product,thus influencing their product choice.Therefore,providing
the benefit of self is a strong incentive for green consumption that has
little to do with social goodness.
2664 D. Yang et al. / Journal of Business Research 68 (2015) 2663–2675

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