Misleading consumers with green advertising? An affect-reason-involvement account of greenwashing effects in environmental advertising

Autor(en)

Desiree Schmuck, Jörg Matthes, Brigitte Naderer

Abstrakt

Drawing from the affect-reason-involvement model, we examine how misleading advertising about the environmental features of products, or greenwashing, affects how consumers perceive ads and brands. Using data from two experimental studies with quota-based samples in the United States (N = 486) and Germany (N = 300), we compare nondeceptive claims with two types of claims often used in greenwashing: vague claims and false claims. We also identify the presence of pleasant nature-evoking images and test for interaction effects with two types of environmental involvement: environmental concern and environmental knowledge. Results indicate that while vague claims do not enhance consumers' perceived greenwashing regardless of their environmental knowledge or concern, false claims do, which consequently harms consumers' attitudes toward those ads and brands. In the United States, consumers' environmental knowledge moderates that effect, whereas all consumers in Germany could identify false claims as attempts at greenwashing. Moreover, associating greenwashing claims with nature-evoking images activates an affective persuasive mechanism that appeals to consumers' affinity for nature, which not only positively influences their evaluations of ads and brands but also influences their attitudes toward ads and brands more strongly than perceived greenwashing. In closing, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Journal

Journal of Advertising

Band

47

Seiten

127-145

Anzahl der Seiten

19

ISSN

0091-3367

Publikationsdatum

2018

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft, 508014 Publizistik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Communication, Marketing, Business and International Management

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/56b70834-402f-46d3-8141-dbe71e61db5d