Direct Expression or Indirect Transmission? An Empirical Research on the Impacts of Explicit and Implicit Appeals in Green Advertising

Jin Sun, Chen Chen () and Junmei Lan
Additional contact information
Jin Sun: School of Business, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China
Chen Chen: School of Business, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China
Junmei Lan: School of Business, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 23, 1-19

Abstract: Green advertising has been shown to motivate consumers to engage in green consumption behavior. However, little is known about how resource scarcity affects the efficacy of explicit and implicit appeals in green advertising. To address it, the present research investigates the differential impacts of ecological resource scarcity (vs. abundant) and personal resource scarcity (vs. abundant) on consumers’ evaluations of explicit and implicit green advertising appeals. We proposed that the relationship between resource scarcity and green advertising appeals are mediated by consumers’ perception of green products’ effectiveness. We conducted two experimental designs to examine our hypothesis. The findings show that when consumers perceive ecological resource scarcity (vs. abundant), companies that emphasize the environmental attributes of green products (e.g., explicit appeals) are more effective in conveying green messages (study 1). Conversely, when consumers experience personal resource scarcity (vs. abundant), employing the approach of green understatement (e.g., implicit appeals) to highlight the performance advantages of green products would result in favorable consequences (study 2). Furthermore, this research reveals the critical role of perceived green products’ effectiveness in improving consumers’ attitude and purchase intention (studies 1 and 2). Resource scarcity will not always decrease consumers’ pro-environmental intention. Interestingly, ecological resource scarcity and personal resource scarcity lead to opposite preferences for green advertising appeals. These findings contribute to the literature on resource scarcity in the domain of green consumption, as well as having significant practical implications for advertisers and marketers in conveying effective information for green product promotion.

Keywords: green advertising appeals; ecological resource scarcity; personal resource scarcity; perceived green product effectiveness; green consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/16192/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/16192/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:23:p:16192-:d:993246

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().