Going green: How different advertising appeals impact green consumption behavior

Defeng Yang, Yue Lu, Wenting Zhu and Chenting Su

Journal of Business Research, 2015, vol. 68, issue 12, 2663-2675

Abstract: This research explores how abstract appeal (i.e., describing the features of green products in a more vague way) and concrete appeal (i.e., describing the features of green products in a more specific way) can encourage consumers to engage in green consumption behavior, such as purchasing green products. Across three experiments, this research tests the prediction that abstract (concrete) appeal is more effective in generating green purchase intentions than concrete (abstract) appeal in situations where the benefit association of green products is other (self). Public self-awareness and identity salience moderate the effect of appeal type and benefit association on green purchase intentions. In particular, when green products associate with the benefit of other, abstract appeal is more effective, whereas both abstract and concrete appeals are less effective when green products 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 implications 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 benefit association of the products and to consider the situations where public self-awareness and identity salience are present.

Keywords: Green consumption; Advertising appeals; Benefit association; Public self-awareness; Identity salience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296315001836
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:68:y:2015:i:12:p:2663-2675

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.04.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().