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Appendix
Appendix A: List of items for each variable Variable (Adopted from)
1. Perceived Consumer Skepticism (Aji & Sutikno, 2015)
• Most green claims in advertising are intended to mislead rather than to inform customers.
• I do not believe most green claims made in advertising.
• Because green claims are so exaggerated, consumers would be better off if such claims in advertising were eliminated.
2. Perceived Environmental Concern (Mohr, Eroǧlu & Ellen, 1998)
• I believe that environmental issues are unimportant - important
• I believe that environmental issues are something that does not really matter to me - … really matters to me
• I believe that environmental issues are not personally relevant - personally relevant
• I believe that environmental issues are uninvolving - involving
• I believe that environmental issues are of little concern to me - of great concern to me
3. Brand Loyalty (Heitmann, Lehmann, and Herrmann, 2007)
• It is very likely that I would purchase Coca-Cola again.
• I am willing to pay a price premium over competing products to be able to purchase Coca-Cola again.
• I would only consider purchasing Coca-Cola again, if it would be substantially cheaper. (R)
• Commercials regarding competing brands are not able to reduce my interest in buying Coca-Cola again.
• I would purchase Coca-Cola again, even if it receives bad evaluations by the media or other people.
4. Self-brand Connections (Escalas & Bettman, 2003)
• Coca-Cola reflects who I am
• I can identify with Coca-Cola.
• I feel a personal connection to Coca-Cola.
• I use Coca-Cola to communicate who I am to other people.
• I think Coca-Cola helps me become the type of person I want to be.
• I consider Coca-Cola to be “me” (it reflects who I consider myself to be or the way that I want to present myself to others)
• Coca-Cola suits me well.
5. Advertisement Evaluation (before greenwashing information) (Gorn, Pham &
Sin, 2001)
• The advertisement is unpleasant - pleasant
• The advertisement is bad - good
• I dislike - like the advertisement
• I react unfavorably - favorable to the advertisement
• I feel positive - negative to the advertisement (R)
• The advertisement is not fun to read - fun to read
6. Greenwashing information (Ettinger, 2018; van der Hoeven, 2013)
In 2013 the Danish consumer ombudsman declared Coca-Cola guilty of greenwashing its advertisements about its plant-based bottle, which debuted in 2009. The company claimed that the PlantBottle is environmental-friendly compared to traditional bottle packaging. Besides, Coca-Cola stated that it was reducing the companies carbon footprint with the adaptation of the PlantBottle. However, when asked for evidence of its green claims, Coca-Cola did not want to release the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the PlantBottle. The Danish consumer ombudsman stated that Coca-Cola had exaggerated the environmental benefits of the PlantBottle as the company could not provide any proof. The company initially claimed that the PlantBottle saved up to 25 percent of CO2 emissions, but after the greenwashing scandal, they readjusted the percentage to 7.5.
7. Advertisement Evaluation (after greenwashing information) (Gorn, Pham &
Sin, 2001)
• The advertisement is unpleasant - pleasant
• The advertisement is bad - good
• I dislike - like the advertisement
• I react unfavorably - favorable to the advertisement
• I feel positive - negative to the advertisement (R)
• The advertisement is not fun to read - fun to read
*(R) = reversed score
Appendix B: Assumptions to test the hypotheses Assumptions hypothesis 1.
Assumption 1: Continuous dependent variable
This assumption holds since advertisement evaluation is measured at the interval level.
Assumption 2: Independent observations
Each participant completed the online survey without interacting with the other participants. Thus, the assumption of independent observations is met.
Assumption 3: The independent variable consists of related pairs
This assumption also holds because participants evaluated the same Coca-Cola advertisement on two occasions.
Assumption 4: Normality
The Normal Q-Q plot shows that the difference in advertisement evaluation is normally distributed. In addition, the skewness is 0.53 and the kurtosis is -0.70. Suggesting a normal distribution since the skewness lies between -2 and 2 and the kurtosis is smaller than 4.
Assumption 5: No outliers
The boxplot shows that the variable, difference in advertisement evaluation, does not contain any outliers.
All in all, the five assumptions are all met. Hence, the data can be used for the performance of a paired-samples t-test.
Assumptions hypothesis 2.
Assumption 1: The assumption of linearity
The scatterplot shows a positive linear relationship between environmental concern and the difference in advertisement evaluation.
Assumption 2: The independence of residuals
This assumption is not a concern for cross-sectional surveys. Thus, the independence of the residuals assumption is met.
Assumption 3: Normality of residuals
The Normal P-P Plot shows that the residuals are approximately normally distributed.
Assumption 4: Homoscedasticity of residuals
The scatterplot indicates that the residuals are approximately equally spread. Therefore, the assumption holds since there is homoscedasticity.
Assumption 5: No influential outliers
Three outliers were identified with the standardized residuals method using a cutoff value of two. The linear regressions results with the outliers differed considerably compared to the results when we remove the three outliers. For this reason, the three outliers are removed.
Regression results with outliers
B SE B t p
Environmental concern 0.50 .22 2.29 .025
N = 63.
R Square = .08.
Regression results without outliers
B SE B t p
Environmental concern 0.60 .28 2.10 .04
N = 60.
R Square = 0.07.
Assumption 6: No presence of multicollinearity
The VIF scores of environmental concern, brand loyalty, and self-brand connections indicate no presence of multicollinearity since the VIF scores are well below five. Namely, the VIF score of environmental concern is 1.02, the VIF score of brand loyalty is 1.37, and the VIF score of self-brand connections is 1.37.
All in all, the six assumptions are all met after the removal of three outliers.
Assumptions hypothesis 3.
Assumption 1: Independent observations
Each participant has completed the online survey individually. Thus, there was no interaction between the participants while they were making the online questionnaire.
Therefore, the assumption of independent observations has been met.
Assumption 2: Normality
This assumption presumes a normal distribution of the dependent variable. The Normal Q-Q plot indicates that the dependent variable, the difference in advertisement evaluation, is normally distributed. In addition, the skewness is 0.53, and the kurtosis is -0.70. Thus, the dependent variable, the difference in advertisement evaluation, is normally distributed since the skewness lies between -2 and 2, and the kurtosis is smaller than 4.
Assumption 3: Homogeneity
Levene’s test indicates the confirmation of the homogeneity assumption. Namely, Levene’s test is non-significant as the p-value .503 exceeds the significance level of .05.
Consequently, the null hypothesis, which suggests homogenous variances, is not rejected.
Assumption 4: Homogeneity of regression slopes
The interaction effect between environmental concern and self-brand connections has a p-value of 0.92. Since the p-p-value exceeds the significance level of .05, it can be assumed that there is homogeneity of regression slopes.
Assumption 5: Linearity
This assumption entails that the relationship between the covariate and the dependent variable must be linear. The scatterplot demonstrates a positive linear relationship between environmental concern and the difference in advertisement evaluation.
All in all, the five assumptions have been verified.
Assumptions hypothesis 4.
Assumption 1: Independent observations
Participants conducted the survey individually. Hence, the independent observations assumption holds for this particular dataset.
Assumption 2: Normality
The Normal Q-Q plot verifies the normal distribution of the dependent variable, the difference in advertisement evaluation. The skewness (0.53) and the kurtosis (-0.70) also indicate a normal distribution since the skewness lies between -2 and 2, and the kurtosis is smaller than 4.
Assumption 3: Homogeneity
Levene’s test indicates the verification of the homogeneity assumption. Namely, the p-value of .079 is bigger than the significant p-value of .05. Thus, the null hypothesis, which states that the variances are homogenous, is not rejected. Therefore, the assumption of homogeneity is met.
Assumption 4: Homogeneity of regression slopes
The homogeneity of regression slopes assumption is met because the interaction effect between environmental concern and brand loyalty exceeds the significance level of 0.05.
Namely, the p-value of the interaction effect is .79.