“Green advertising: the effects of imagery, lettering and the moderating role of perceived environmental threat on lettering on purchase intentions and
attitudes towards the advertisement and the purchase of the product”
Arianna Melchiori – S3790274 January 2020
Supervisor: Dr. J.I.M. De Groot Co-Assessor: Prof. J.W. Bolderdijk
Agenda
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Background 3. Conceptual Model
4. Methodology 5. Results
6. Final Discussion 7. References
Introduction
Green consumption: "an environmentally responsible consumption where consumers consider the environmental impact of purchasing, using, and disposing of various products, or using various green services" (Moisander, 2007).
o "Green" products à have a minimal environmental impact during their lifecycle (Joshi & Rahman, 2015).
Green advertising: marketing activities to promote the environmentally friendly aspects of business operations and the eco- friendly product features (Leonidou et al., 2011):
o to show the company's commitment to pro-environmental efforts (Papadas, Avlonitis, & Carrigan, 2017).
o to reduce uncertainty around promotions, positively influence consumers' purchasing intentions (Dangelico
& Vocalelli, 2017).
o to position products as green, sustainable goods in consumers’ minds (Eren-Erdogmus et al., 2016)
Introduction
Research Questions
1. To what extent are nature images and lettering type effective in promoting consumers' intentions to purchase green products and additionally, in generating favourable attitudes toward the green advertisement and the advertised product?
2. To what extent is the perceived threat about environmental pollution important to increase the effectiveness of upper- case lettering on green purchase intentions and additionally on attitudes toward the advertisement and the purchase of the product?
Theoretical Background
Nature Imagery
Exposure to pleasant nature imagery leads to
positive feelings similar to those experienced in contact with real nature
(Hartmann et al., 2016)
Nature imagery has positive psychological and physical effects on individuals (Raanaas, Patil
& Hartig, 2012) à lead people to prefer natural
landscapes and natural images inherently
Nature imagery is used in adverIsements to trigger
posiIve associaIons between the product adverIsed and brand and
the nature picture itself (Hartmann & Ibañez, 2010)
Theoretical Background
Lettering
o Upper-case lettering can capture one’s attention and enhance the importance attached to the words because upper-case is reserved for particular purposes (e.g. for bans “DO NOT SMOKE”).
o Experience higher levels of fear arousal, and thus, they pay more attention to the information of the message (Bandura et al., 1982)
o Related to perceived strength and authority (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974) à people are expected to sense an authoritative image combined with an authoritative tone that influences their words and actions (Bowman et al., 2004; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
o Nature imagery & Lettering àinteraction effect between nature imagery and upper-case lettering à both are congruent with and foster the concept of nature protection.
Theoretical Background
Perceived Environmental Threat
o Fear induced by awareness of environmental threats might motivate pro-environmental coping behaviour (Hartmann et al., 2014)
o Protection Motivation Theory: people feel the need to remove the perceived threat and the best solution is to adopt coping behaviour, so to pursue the message claimed by the threat (Maddux & Rogers, 1983)
o Environmental communications focused on threats increased behavioural intentions about natural resource conservation, recycling and green purchasing (Davis, 1995).
o Fear motivates coping behaviour (Janis, 1967), and it leads to aversive behavioural reactions seeking an absence of punishment (Holbrook & O’Shaughnessy, 1984)
Conceptual Model
Methodology
Sample
348 participants: 63.1% of women (n= 188), age= 26.87, Italian Nationality: 85.9%
final sample consisted of 298 participants
o participants that already had a bamboo toothbrush (n= 26)
o participants who stated they did not regularly use a toothbrush to clean their teeth (n= 5) o participants (n=19) younger than 18 years
Data collection
Social medias, direct messages, WOM Research Design
Methodology
Pre-test
Based on Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez’s (2010) experiment
Result: most aligned and most pleasant the nature image depicEng a waterfall
o people find more pleasant pictures of water or moist vegetaEon (Hartmann et al., 2010) because they present specific characterisEcs that were adequate for survival and reproducEon than others
Data Analysis
o Two-way MANCOVA à hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 o perceived environmental threat as a
covariate
o PROCESS model 1 à hypothesis 4
Results
Manipulation checks
1) Manipulation check for nature imagery
Welch’s F (1, 255.53) = 76.44; p<.01 à successful
nature condition group (M= 5.86, SD= 1.18) versus neutral condition group (M= 4.33, SD= 1.77)
2) Manipulation check for lettering congruence Welch’s F (1, 289.77) = 1.28, p= .25 à failed
upper-case group (M= 4.86, SD= 1.35) versus lower-case group (M= 4.51, SD= 1.31)
3) Manipulation check for lettering
Welch’s F (1, 295.07) = 5.03, p<.05 (p= .02) à successful
upper-case group (M= 3.53, SD= 1.66) versus lower-case group (M= 3.32, SD= 1.47)
Results
Influence of imagery on the intention to purchase a bamboo toothbrush and attitudes toward the advertisement and the purchase of the product
Purchase Intentions: F(1, 298)= 0.008, p = .929
Attitude toward the advertisement: F(1, 298)= 0.211, p= .647 Attitude toward the purchase of the product: F(1, 298)= 1.571, p= .211
Influence of lettering on the intention to purchase a bamboo toothbrush and attitudes toward the advertisement and the purchase of the product
Purchase Intentions: F(1, 298)= 1.735, p= .189
Attitude toward the advertisement: F(1, 298)= 0.064, p= .801 Attitude toward the purchase of the product: F(1, 298)= 1.976,
p= .161
Influence of the interaction effect between type of image and lettering on the intention to purchase a bamboo toothbrush and attitudes toward the advertisement and the purchase of the product
Type of image * Type of lettering: F(1, 298)= 0.828, p= .479
Influence of perceived environmental threat and type of leOering on purchase intenPons of the bamboo toothbrush and the aQtudes toward the adverPsement and the purchase of the product
Purchase IntenPons: b= - 0.087, t(294)= - 0.723. p= .470 AQtude toward the adverPsement: b= - 0.167, t(294)= - 0.763. p= .446
AQtude toward the purchase of the product: b= - 0.095, t(294)= -0.463. p= .643
Final Discussion
Hypothesis 1 was not supported.
Nature imagery results in affective and restorative responses that are more internal and health-related (e.g., stress relief, illness restoration)
o the positive effects of nature imagery may have some boundaries, they depend on the type of context it is applied.
The green background is as effective as the nature imagery in influencing the affective responses of consumers à connection to natural elements (Moller et al., 2009).
o the green colour may be enough to let people experience the same restorative effects of the nature imagery condition
Hypothesis 2 was not supported.
The combination of pleasant imagery and upper-case lettering are not congruent with the affective responses they arouse
Manipulation check of “I think that the use of letter type capitalisation (upper- or lower-case) in the ad is aligned with the message it entailed,” was not successful
o participants did not perceive any difference in the congruence with the message claim between upper- and lower-case lettering
o unperceived congruence may have led participants not easily to understand the advertisement.
Lettering had a positive but yet not significant effect on intentions to purchase and attitude toward the purchase of the product
Final Discussion
Hypothesis 3was not suported
Interaction effect nature imagery - upper-case lettering resulted in positive even though broadly not significant results for purchase intentions and attitude toward the purchase of the product
Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 2005)
o attitudes toward the advertisement and the purchase of the product were largely insignificant, they did not influence purchase intentions à no relationship between attitudes and purchase intentions
Trend in purchase intentions: lettering was not that relevant when paired with nature imagery, lettering seemed relevant with neutral imagery.
Final Discussion
Hypothesis 4 was not supported.
Increasing tension aroused by the fear appeal of the threatening message plus the fear appeal of upper-case
lettering, beyond a certain threshold led to anxiety à adverse effects on the attitude towards the advertisement and hence, also on intentions (Henthorne et al., 1993)
o Once fear levels are too high, people react with counterproductive behaviours: they end up reducing the fear level without removing the threat source or adapting to it (Henthorne et al., 1993)
Manipulation check: “I think that the use of letter type capitalisation (upper- or lower-case) in the ad is threatening”
à successful
o Participants perceived a difference between upper- and lower-case in arousing threat for the environment à higher degree of perceived environmental threat when the text was written in capital letters.
The higher the perceived an environmental threat, the stronger the intention to purchase the green product and more favourable their attitudes toward the advertisement and the purchase of the green product (no specific hypothesis)
Final Discussion
Implications
o Positive effects of nature imagery may have some boundaries in the context in which they are applied
o effects of nature imagery do have an impact only on “internal” behaviours such as stress relief but do not have the same effect on “external” behaviours such as purchasing.
o lettering had a relevant impact on neutral imagery but not on nature imagery as the mean scores of the two combinations with nature imagery showed a relatively small difference for purchase intentions.
Limitations Future Research
Comparison nature imagery with a green background Compare nature imagery with different colours à verify effect boundaries of nature imagery
experimental conditions customised to the Italian participants Test the effects of nature imagery and lettering on other nationalities
References
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