Can Evoking Nature In Advertising mislead Consumers? the Power of ‘executional Greenwashing

Béatrice Parguel (), Florence Benoît-Moreau and Cristel Russell
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Béatrice Parguel: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Florence Benoît-Moreau: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: ‘Executional greenwashing' refers to the use of nature-evoking elements in dvertisements to artificially enhance a brand's ecological image. Based on classic models of persuasion, a first experiment reveals that evoking nature does mislead consumers, especially if they have low knowledge of environmental issues in the product category. Two complimentary experiments, based on current international policies, show that whereas a raw figure featuring the product objective environmental performance is not sufficient to help non-expert consumers revise their judgment, accompanying the figure with a traffic-light label eliminates the ‘executional greenwashing' effect amongst both experts and non-experts. Theoretical and regulatory implications are discussed.

Keywords: Publicité; Marketing; Environmental Labeling; Advertising Execution; Greenwashing; Marketing communications (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06
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Published in EMAC Conference, Jun 2014, Valence, Spain

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01415431

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