Environmentally-Oriented Voluntary Simplicity Messages in
Advertisements: Do They Affect Brand Trust?
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Environmentally-Oriented Voluntary Simplicity Messages in
Advertisements: Do They Affect Brand Trust?
Faculty of Economics and Business MSc Marketing Master Thesis June 18th, 2018 Pascal Meijerink Populierenlaan 1-42 +31657654597 b.r.meijerink@student.rug.nl S 2768984
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ABSTRACT
This study researched what effect the addition of a specific kind of environmentally-oriented anti-consumption message, one promoting voluntary simplicity, has on certain brand perceptions and associations. In order to do so, a field experiment was conducted to explore the effect that adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement has on consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand, how this relationship is moderated by people’s biospheric values and whether it affects consumers’ level of brand trust. Analysis of the data revealed that an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message did not have a significant effect on consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand. Moreover, this relationship was not moderated by biospheric values, nor did the experiment find a direct effect of the message on brand trust. In line with previous research, this study provided additional evidence that when consumers’ perceive a brand to be responsible, their brand trust increases.
Keywords: voluntary simplicity, brand trust, responsibility, environmentally-oriented anti
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PREFACE
In front of you lies my Master thesis, the culmination of both my MSc Marketing and four years of studying in Groningen. Writing this Master thesis gave me the opportunity to delve deeper into the subject of environmentally-oriented anti-consumption. Although I was aware of the existence of anti-consumption before the start of this thesis, I was not very knowledgeable about it. However, by writing this thesis, I have learned a lot about this subject, and I hope to use the things that I have learned in the future.
This thesis would not have been possible without my supervisor, Mathilde van Dijk, and her constructive feedback that made this thesis what it is today. For that, I would like to thank her. Both the knowledge that she shared and the advice that she has given me over the last couple of months were not only very important, but also very educational.
I hope you enjoy reading my thesis.
Pascal Meijerink
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TABLE OF CONTENT
Abstract 3 Preface 4 1. Introduction 6 2. Theoretical Framework 102.1. Corporate Social Responsibility 10
2.2. Voluntary Simplicity 11
2.3. Brand Trust 12
2.4. The Relationship between Voluntary Simplicity and Brand Trust 13
2.5. Biospheric Values and their Moderating Role 14
3. Methodology 16
3.1. Participants and Design 16
3.2. Procedure 16 3.3. Main Variables 16 3.4. Control Variables 18 3.5. Additional Variables 18 4. Results 19 4.1. Analysis of Scales 19 4.2. Reliability Check 19 4.3. Main Analysis 20 4.4. Additional Analysis 24 5. Discussion 25 5.1. General Discussion 25 5.2. Theoretical Contribution 26 5.3. Practical Contribution 26
6. Limitations and Future Research 28
7. Conclusion 31
References 31
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1. INTRODUCTION
When you visit the homepage of Essent, a Dutch energy supplier, you will almost immediately see a heading that translates to “saving energy”. Once you click on this link, you are redirected to another webpage full of tips that may help you reduce your energy consumption (Essent, 2018). Although Essent is an energy company, it still urges its customers to save energy and reduce their consumption. Similarly, American fashion company Patagonia decided to place a very unusual advertisement in The New York Times during “Black Friday” in 2011 (see Figure 1). In this full-page advertisement, Patagonia displayed one of their most popular jackets and asked people not to buy it if they did not need it due to the environmental costs associated with producing the jacket (Nudd, 2011).
Both Essent and Patagonia seem to be aware of the existence of anti-consumption. Even when people’s financial situations allow them to purchase a certain product or service, they do not always do so (Lee, Motion & Conroy, 2009). Although there may be several reasons why a consumer would make the deliberate decision not to consume something, environmental reasons are often involved. In those cases, we speak of environmentally-oriented anti-consumption (EOA), which can be described as “acts directed against any form of anti-consumption, with the specific aim of protecting the environment” (García-de-Frutos, Ortega-Egea, & Martínez-del-Río, 2016, p. 3). Environmentally-oriented anti-consumption is recognized as an important way in which the world can transition towards sustainable products and services and can even serve as a part of a possible solution to environmental problems such as global warming (Black & Cherrier, 2010). EOA is thus a very important research area since it helps us understand how these types of decisions can make a difference with respect to environmental sustainability. Moreover, consumers who engage in EOA by not buying and consuming the products or services of a company can greatly impact the economic profit of that company (García-de-Frutos et al., 2016), which makes knowledge about this concept very valuable to firms.
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8 years ago (Zhang, Wang & You, 2015) and seem to care more about corporate social responsibility (Carroll & Shabana, 2010; Du, Bhattacharya & Sen, 2010). This means that companies that engage in processes that are harmful to the environment are faced with a decision: they can either keep silent, or they can admit as much in their marketing communications. It seems like Essent and Patagonia are part of the latter category.
In the case of Patagonia, the message that was promoted in their “Black Friday” advertisement was one promoting voluntary simplicity (see e.g. Ballantine & Creery, 2010). What remains unclear, however, is how these types of messages affect consumers’ perceptions of the brand, which is why this paper will take a closer look at this. After all, how consumers perceive your company and the associations they have with your company is of paramount importance (Keller, 2015). One very important aspect of how a firm is perceived by its customers is brand trust. Brand trust is a key component in the success of companies’ relationship marketing efforts (Sung & Kim, 2010). Marketing communications, such as advertising, play an important role in consumers’ perceptions of a brand (Keller, 2015), and thus also in their perceptions of brand trust (Hagtvedt, 2011). Therefore, it is very important to understand how certain marketing communications affect brand trust. That is why this paper will examine the effect of advertisements that include an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message on brand trust and how this relationship is mediated by consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand. Moreover, it will also research how biospheric values moderate the relationship between adding the voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement and perceived responsibility.
9 with environmentally-oriented anti-consumption as well as existing literature dealing with brand trust, extending both of those research directions. It is new in the sense that these two research directions have not been previously combined and studied together. On a broader level, this research also adds to the large body of literature researching corporate social responsibility (CSR), as environmentally-oriented anti consumption practices and messages can be classified as a part of CSR.
Additionally, the present research will also build on the existing research regarding biospheric values by arguing that they act as a moderator in the proposed relationship between adding a voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement and the brand’s perceived responsibility. This helps create an even better understanding of how such values are relevant in forming consumers’ perceptions and attitudes. This better understanding of how biospheric values influence consumers’ attitudes is very relevant given the large body of literature researching consumer attitudes, since these attitudes play an important role in predicting actual buying behaviour (e.g. Fennis & Stroebe, 2016; Ajzen, 2005)
Practical relevance of this paper can be derived from the fact that it helps marketers in understanding the effects of their marketing decisions even better. By examining if the inclusion of a message promoting voluntary simplicity changes brand trust, marketers can use this knowledge to better understand brand trust and the drivers of it. This is very valuable to them, since brand trust is a concept that is very important in the relationship marketing of a brand (Sung & Kim, 2010) and has been identified as an important driver of brand loyalty (Sung & Kim, 2010) and brand equity (Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alemán, 2005), two very important concepts to many firms. If the addition of a voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement indeed affects brand trust, marketers will have access to another tool that could be used to build their desired brand trust and brand equity.
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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1. Corporate Social Responsibility
Before taking a look at the concepts of voluntary simplicity, brand trust and biospheric values and proposing hypotheses, a closer look will be taken at the concept of corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be defined as organizational policies and actions that take stakeholders’ expectations as well as the triple bottom line (economic, environmental and social performance) into account (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). Even though the basic idea that companies have certain responsibilities towards society as a whole that extend beyond simply making profits is something that has been around for quite a long time, many authors agree that the idea of CSR as well as public environmental awareness really started to develop around the 1960s (see e.g. García-de-Frutos et al., 2016; Carroll & Shabana, 2010). The foundation for corporate social responsibility was mainly built on a social environment that was quickly changing, as pressure from activists and others to adopt certain CSR policies and practices increased (Carroll & Shabana, 2010).
In the decades since then, CSR has grown in both significance and importance (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). Initially, the drivers for social responsibility were primarily external. Businesses that engaged in such practices did not really look for something specific in return (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). However, many businesses nowadays realize that engaging in CSR practices may actually be in the firms’ own self-interest. For example, engaging in CSR may lead to a better reputation for companies (Zadek, 2000), reduced risks (Carroll & Shabana, 2010), as well as an increased firm value (Jo & Harjoto, 2011).
11 consumers included civil rights and women’s rights, but since then the scope of these topics has broadened to also include concepts such as sustainability (Carroll & Shabana, 2010).
More than ever before, consumers seem to care about CSR activities and have higher expectations about them then they did years ago (Carroll & Shabana, 2010; Becker-Olsen, Cudmore & Hill, 2006). When companies engage in CSR activities, the perception of these activities by consumers is not always the same. The engagement in CSR activities by itself is often not enough to improve consumers’ beliefs, intentions and attitudes with respect to the brand (Becker-Olsen et al., 2006). What is also of importance is whether the timing of these CSR practices and activities is reactive or proactive, with proactive timing leading to a more positive increase in consumer beliefs (Becker-Olsen et al., 2006). Moreover, if consumers perceive firms to be insincere in their CSR activities, they may even punish the firms, for example by decreasing their intentions to buy products from the company in question (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001).
Engaging in environmentally-oriented anti consumption (EOA) is thus one of the ways in which consumers can punish companies. But companies could also be proactive and include EOA messages in their advertisements as part of their CSR activities, which could affect certain brand perceptions such as brand trust. The remainder of this chapter will dive deeper into the concepts of environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity, brand trust and biospheric values. This paper will argue why including an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement will lead to a higher level of brand trust and why this effect is mediated by perceived responsibility. In addition, it will argue that the relationship between adding the voluntary simplicity message and perceived responsibility is moderated by consumers’ biospheric values.
2.2. Voluntary Simplicity
12 2002). Even though voluntary simplicity is a rather holistic lifestyle and people may adopt this lifestyle for a variety of reasons, for instance for self-centered aims (Iyer & Muncy, 2009), this paper will focus on the environmental reasons that are associated with voluntary simplicity. A lot of research has shown that environmental concern is one of the primary motivations for living simply (e.g. Alexander & Ussher, 2012). Furthermore, voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle that has been closely associated with environmentally-oriented anti-consumption practices (Shaw and Newholm, 2002).
Given the wide variety of products that have a production process that involves some form of environmental harm, adding a small statement to a brand’s advertising that promotes the voluntary simplicity lifestyle is a viable option to many brands. This is exactly what Patagonia did in their “Black Friday” advertisement in 2011 (see the example given in the introduction). However, before managers make the decision whether or not they should add such a message, it is important to realize how this addition will change the perceptions that consumers have towards the brand or company.
2.3. Brand Trust
Brand trust has been identified as a key factor in the failure or success of efforts in relationship marketing (Sung & Kim, 2010). Some researchers have even gone as far as to argue that trust is the most powerful relationship marketing tool that a company possesses (Berry, 1996).
The development of brand trust as a concept was a consequence of the realization that the relationship between a consumer and a brand is in many ways similar to a relationship between two people and may have similar characteristics (Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alemán, 2001). Like in a personal relationship, trust in a relationship between a brand and an individual is considered as an important characteristic for valuable interactions (Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alemán, 2001). Although existing literature uses a variety of different definitions for brand trust, most of which are closely related to one another, this paper defines brand trust as “a feeling of security held by the consumer that the brand will meet his/her expectations”, as defined by Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alemán (2001, p. 1242).
13 namely the brand’s expertise, which relates to the extent to which consumers perceive a brand as being knowledgeable and skilful (Sung & Kim, 2010). In addition to this, there is a second key component of brand trust that is more affective and emotional in nature, namely the brand’s trustworthiness (Sung & Kim, 2010). Most consumers also expect a brand to provide quality performance in a way that is honest and sincere (Sung & Kim, 2010) and that the brand will not take advantage of a consumer’s vulnerability (Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alemán, 2001).
When it comes to the effect that adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement has on brand trust, it is the second component of brand trust, trustworthiness, that is most relevant. Since a statement in an advertisement promoting a certain lifestyle does not change any actual product attributes or performance, a brand’s expertise is likely to remain unaffected. However, trustworthiness could be affected given its more emotional and affective nature. Nevertheless, this paper decided to focus on the concept of brand trust as a whole given the fact that existing literature has not explicitly defined the two previously mentioned components as standalone concepts that are measured on their own and because previous research about both the antecedents and consequences of brand trust usually capture the brand trust concept as a whole.
2.4. The Relationship between Voluntary Simplicity and Brand Trust
14 H1: Including an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message in an
advertisement leads to a higher level of consumers’ perceived responsibility of a brand.
Existing literature has documented that there are multiple consumer beliefs that increase brand trust. These beliefs include for example the beliefs that the company or brand is helpful and consistent (Sung & Kim, 2010). Importantly, literature has documented that the consumers’ belief that a brand is responsible also increases brand trust (Kang & Hustvedt, 2014; Sung & Kim, 2010; Sung, Kim & Jung, 2010). Given this finding by multiple authors, this paper presents the following hypothesis:
H2: A higher level of consumers’ perceived responsibility of a brand leads to a higher
level of brand trust.
2.5. Biospheric Values and their Moderating Role
Obviously, not everyone responds to the same message in a similar fashion. People care about different things and have different values. One of the values that a consumer may score either high or low on is biospheric values. Biospheric values are relevant for understanding a person’s environmental intentions and beliefs (De Groot & Steg, 2008) and are an important part of one’s self-identity (Van der Werff, Steg & Keizer, 2014). This value instrument has been identified as a useful tool to understand the relationships between a person’s beliefs, values and intentions that are related to environmental behaviour (De Groot & Steg, 2008). People who score high on biospheric values are more self-determined to act in a pro-environmental way (De Groot & Steg, 2010). In addition, people who score high on this value instrument will base their decision to act in either an environmentally friendly or environmentally unfriendly way mainly on the perceived benefits and costs for the biosphere and the ecosystem as a whole (De Groot & Steg, 2008).
15 Cervellon, 2012; O’Cass, 2000). The extent to which a consumer shows environmental concern, a concern that is more prominent for people who score high on biospheric values, is very important in changing consumer behaviour (Cervellon, 2012). Additionally, this also changes the decision-making process that a consumer exhibits in purchase situations (Roberts & Bacon, 1997). Consequently, consumers who score higher on biospheric values should increase their perceived responsibility of the brand even more when they are confronted with an advertisement that includes an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message, since they care more deeply about environmental issues and are more highly involved. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H3: The effect of including an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message
in an advertisement on the level of consumers’ perceived responsibility of a brand is strengthened when people score higher on biospheric values.
In Figure 2, the paper presents the conceptual model to visualize the hypothesized relationships between the variables.
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3. METHODOLOGY
3.1. Participants and Design
175 people (61 male, 114 female, Mage = 26,43, SDage = 10,45) participated in a field experiment study on a voluntary basis. The experiment used a 2 (voluntary simplicity message advertisement vs. no voluntary simplicity message advertisement) x 1 (biospheric values) between-subjects, full-factorial design.
3.2. Procedure
Participants of the study were approached through social media. The study ran for a total amount of 19 days, between the dates of April 19th and May 7th. In order to test the given hypotheses, this paper made the decision to use the fashion industry as a context and created two advertisements for a fictitious fashion brand. The participants were informed that this fictitious new brand called UniClo was launching a new advertisement for one of their jackets and that they would have to answer a few questions about UniClo and the advertisement (Appendix B). They were then shown either the advertisement for the control condition (Appendix C) or the advertisement for the environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message condition (Appendix D). After that, participants had to fill out a brief questionnaire in which the necessary variables were measured (Appendices E-H) as well as some other variables for additional analysis (Appendices I-K).
3.3. Main Variables
Manipulation: Using random selection, half of the participants were exposed to a control
advertisement without an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message. The other half of the participants were exposed to the same advertisement, but this one included an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message. Before people were exposed to the advertisement, they were confronted with a short story about the brand UniClo. Appendix B shows the exact story that participants were exposed to. This short story was added to ensure that people paid attention to the advertisement. The decision to use the fictitious brand UniClo was made so that pre-existing brand knowledge would not confound the possible influence of adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message, similar to Hagtvedt (2011).
17 associations with or thoughts about the advertisement that were unforeseen and not taken into account and could thus affect the outcome of the study. The study conducted a cognitive interview with three respondents using a “thinking aloud” method, where the respondents were exposed to the advertisement and the small story about UniClo and were asked to say their thoughts out loud while they read the story and looked at the advertisement. Then, they were asked whether they thought if the provided information was clear. Participants were also exposed to the control advertisement after they had shared their thoughts about the advertisement with an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to share their thoughts about this advertisement and to see if they could identify the difference. Next, the participants were once again asked whether they perceived the information to be clear. Main results indicated that all participants found that the information that was provided was clear, that the difference between both advertisements was clear and that no thoughts or associations that were unaccounted for were brought forward during the cognitive interviews. Appendix A provides a bit more detail about the respondents’ exact thoughts and answers.
Responsibility: Consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand was measured using a
part of the NMBP (New Measure of Brand Personality) as used by Geuens, Weijters & De Wulf (2009). Participants were asked how characteristic certain words were for the brand in question. They had to rate how down to earth, stable and responsible they found the brand. For all of the exact questions that the participants were shown, please refer to Appendix E. All the answers were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from not very characteristic of the brand to
very characteristic of the brand.
Biospheric Values: Participants’ biospheric values were measured using the scale as
used by De Groot & Steg (2008). People had to rate the importance of four values (e.g. unity with nature: fitting into nature) “as a guiding principle in their lives” (De Groot & Steg, 2008) on a 9-point Likert scale ranging from -1 (opposed to my values), 0 (not important) to 7 (extremely important). All of the exact values can be found in Appendix F.
Brand Trust: This variable was measured using the scale that was used by Sung & Kim
(2010). The participants were asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly
disagree to strongly agree to what extent they agreed with four statements (e.g. “I rely on this
18 related to brand trust and vice versa, the order in which respondents got to see the questions that measure these two variables was randomized. In other words, half of the participants first had to rate their perceived responsibility of the brand and then brand trust, while the other half first had to rate brand trust and then their perceived responsibility of the brand.
3.4. Control Variables
The study controlled for participants’ age, gender, education and ownership of outdoor clothing. These control variables can be found in Appendix H. Age was self-reported in an open question, and gender was self-reported in a multiple choice question. In order to measure education, participants were asked what the highest level or degree of school that they had completed was. Answers to this question were multiple choice. The lowest option was no schooling completed and the highest possible option was having completed a doctorate degree. Appendix H shows the exact answer possibilities. Furthermore, participants were asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree to what extent they agreed with the following statement: “I consider myself as someone who owns a lot of outdoor clothing” to control for ownership of outdoor clothing (Appendix H).
3.5. Additional Variables
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4. RESULTS
4.1. Analysis of Scales
Before testing the main hypotheses of this paper, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to examine the scales that were used to measure the necessary variables in the field experiment. The exploratory factor analysis used the Principal Component Analysis as extraction method and used VARIMAX rotation. Examination of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin’s measure of sampling adequacy revealed that it had a value of 0,79, which is higher than the recommended value of 0,5. Furthermore, Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was significant (χ²(253) = 2220,50, p = 0.00). Taking a closer look at the communalities to ensure that the percentage of the variance in each variables was well explained by all of the factors that were extracted also revealed no problems, given that each communality was higher than the threshold value of 0,4, with the lowest communality having a value of 0,63. The fundamental assumptions for factor analysis were thus satisfactory.
After the confirmation that all the necessary assumptions for factor analysis were satisfactory, a closer look at the loadings of each item revealed that seven factors should be used. Results of the factor analysis can be found in Table 1 (Appendix L). Using a cut-off value of 0,5, six factors were in line with the scales used in the experiment. The items formed good factors for biospheric values, purchase intention, and the activity, aggressiveness, simplicity and emotionality dimensions of a brand. However, one problem was encountered: according to the factor analysis, all the items that were used to measure the consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand and consumers’ brand trust should clearly load into one factor. Even after forcing the factor analysis to result in 8 factors, the same problem persisted. One potential reason for this problem could be that responsibility and brand trust have a causal relationship, which is in line with hypothesis 2 of this paper as well as previous literature (e.g. Sung & Kim, 2010). Therefore, despite this problem in the factor analysis, the paper decided to proceed with both scales as separate factors, in line with previous literature.
4.2 Reliability Check
20 scale used to measure this construct was repeatedly tested on reliability and validity in the original paper by Geuens et al. (2009) with sample sizes that were much larger than the sample size of this paper, the simplicity dimension was still used in the additional analysis of this paper. The paper also checked what would happen to the Cronbach’s alpha if certain items of the scales were to be deleted. However, examination of this revealed that no Cronbach’s alpha would increase by a large amount and therefore no items were deleted. Ultimately, the paper thus ended up using the exact scales as described in the Methodology section of this paper.
4.3. Main Analysis
Before an ANOVA was run to test the first hypothesis, the basic assumptions of an ANOVA were checked. First, it was checked whether or not the residuals had a Normal distribution using a Shapiro-Wilk test. The non-significant result of this test (p = 0.24) showed that the residuals indeed had a Normal distribution. However, Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances had a significance of 0.04 (<0.05), which indicated that the assumption homogeneity of variance assumption did not hold. In the experiment, participants were not put into different groups by manipulating their biospheric values score. A one-way ANOVA revealed that there was no significant difference in biospheric values between the control group and the manipulation group (F(1,156) = 1.32, p = 0.25). Therefore, I still continued with the analysis.
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TABLE 3. Main results from the 2x1 ANOVA on perceived responsibility (N = 158)
Notes: * Significant at a 5% level **Significant at a 1% level
Next to the previously mentioned ANOVA, a 2 (voluntary simplicity message advertisement vs. no voluntary simplicity message advertisement) x 1 (biospheric values) ANCOVA was conducted with age, gender, education and ownership of outdoor clothing as control variables. Testing the assumptions of an ANCOVA revealed that the residuals had a Normal distribution (Shapiro-Wilk test with a p-value of 0,10) and that according to Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances, the homogeneity of variance assumption was not violated (p = 0.20). The main results of the ANCOVA can be found in Table 4. In line with the previous analysis, no significant main effect was found for adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary
TABLE 4. Main results from the 2x1 ANCOVA on perceived responsibility (N = 158)
Notes: * Significant at a 5% level **Significant at a 1% level
2-Way ANOVA
Source df Mean Square F p
Voluntary Simplicity Message 1 2,54 1.15 0.29
Biospheric Values 20 2,00 0.86 0.63
Voluntary Simplicity Message * Biospheric Values
15 2,44 1.37 0.18
Error 121 1,79
2-Way ANCOVA
Source df Mean Square F p
Voluntary Simplicity Message 1 2,54 1.03 0.32
Biospheric Values 20 2,00 0.78 0.71
Voluntary Simplicity Message * Biospheric Values
15 2,44 1.42 0.15
Gender 1 0,44 0.25 0.62
Age 1 11,98 6.96 0.01**
Education 1 0,03 0.02 0.90
Ownership of Outdoor Clothing 1 0,63 0.37 0.55
22 simplicity message to an advertisement (F(1,117) = 1.03, p = 0.32) on the perceived responsibility of the brand. Moreover, the interaction term also failed to reach significance (F(15,117) = 1.42, p = 0.15). These results are in line with the previous analyses and reject hypotheses 1 and 3. When it comes to the covariates, most failed to reach significance as well: gender (F(1,117) = 0.25, p = 0.62), education (F(1,117) = 0.02, p = 0.90) and ownership of outdoor clothing (F(1,117) = 0.37, p = 0.55) did not have any significant effects on consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand. Only age was revealed to have a significant effect on the dependent variable (F(1,117) = 6.96, p = 0.01). Results indicated that people who are older perceive the responsibility of the brand to be lower.
In order to test hypothesis 2, which argued that a higher level of consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand leads to a higher level of brand trust, as well as to retest hypotheses 1 and 3, Hayes’ PROCESS model 7 for moderated mediation was used. The analysis set bootstrap samples to 1000 and included age, gender, education and ownership of outdoor clothing as control variables. The main results of this analysis can be found in Tables 5a and 5b. The analysis revealed no significant main effects of adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement on perceived responsibility (t(7,150) = 0.35,
p = 0.73), nor did it reveal a significant effect of the interaction term on the consumers’
perceived responsibility of the brand (t(7,150) = -0.35, p = 0.73), rejecting hypotheses 1 and 3, in line with previous analyses. Furthermore, gender did not have a significant main effect on the perceived responsibility of the brand (t(7,150) = -0.27, p = 0.79), nor did education (t(7,150) = 0.41, p = 0.68) or ownership of outdoor clothing (t(7,150) = 0.08, p = 0.94). However, age once again showed a significant effect on perceived responsibility (t(7,150) = -3.16, p = 0.00), similar to the ANCOVA.
Examination of the influence of variables on brand trust revealed that consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand indeed had a significant effect on brand trust (t(6,151) = 12.76, p = 0.00), providing evidence in support of the second hypothesis of this paper. The addition of an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message did not have a significant main effect on brand trust (t(6,151) = 0.33, p = 0.75), and neither did gender (t(6,151) = -1.41,
p = 0.16), education (t(6,151) = 1.86, p = 0.06), or ownership of outdoor clothing (t(6,151) =
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TABLE 5a. Main results from the Hayes’ PROCESS model 7 for moderated mediation with
Perceived Responsibility as dependent variable (N = 158).
Notes: * Significant at a 5% level **Significant at a 1% level
TABLE 5b. Main results from the Hayes’ PROCESS model 7 for moderated mediation with
Brand Trust as dependent variable (N = 158).
Notes: * Significant at a 5% level **Significant at a 1% level
Overall, the analyses revealed no support for the first and third hypotheses of these paper and no support for a moderated mediation effect. However, evidence for the second hypothesis of the paper was found. Table 6 summarizes the main findings of the paper.
Perceived Responsibility
Source Coefficient SE t p
Voluntary Simplicity Message 0.29 0.85 0.35 0.73
Biospheric Values 0.21 0.25 0.87 0.39
Voluntary Simplicity Message * Biospheric Values
-0.06 0.17 -0.35 0.73
Gender -0.06 0.23 -0.27 0.79
Age -0.04 0.01 -3.16 0.00**
Education 0.03 0,07 0.41 0.68
Ownership of Outdoor Clothing 0.01 0,07 0.08 0.94
Brand Trust
Source Coefficient SE t p
Voluntary Simplicity Message 0.04 0.14 0.33 0.75
Gender -0.20 0.14 -1.41 0.16
Age -0.02 0.01 -2.21 0.03*
Education 0.09 0,05 1.86 0.06
Ownership of Outdoor Clothing -0.08 0,04 -1.91 0.06
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TABLE 6. Main findings.
4.4 Additional Analysis
Next to the main analyses of this paper, some analyses were performed with the additional variables that were measured to explore whether or not the addition of an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message had an effect on participants’ purchase intentions, liking of the advertisement or on the activity, aggressiveness, simplicity or emotionality dimensions of the brand. In order to do so, a MANOVA was conducted after the assumptions were checked. According to Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances, the homogeneity of variance assumption was not violated for purchase intention (p = 0.35), liking of the advertisement (p = 0.80), the activity dimension (p = 0.85), the aggressiveness dimension (p = 0.25), the simplicity dimension (p = 0.97) or the emotionality dimension (p = 0.19). However, the Shapiro-Wilk test for Normality indicated that the assumption that the residuals follow a Normal distribution was violated for purchase intention (p = 0.00), liking of the advertisement (p = 0.00), the activity dimension (p = 0.01), the aggressiveness dimension (p = 0.01) and the emotionality dimension (p = 0.00). Only for the simplicity dimension was this assumption not violated (p = 0.05 > 0.05). Due to these results, the decision was made to still perform the MANOVA, but to also add a Kruskal-Wallis test for all the variables that violate this assumption to assess the reliability of the MANOVA results.
Results of the MANOVA indicated that adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message did not lead to a significant difference in purchase intention (F(1,156) = 1.06, p = 0.30), liking of the advertisement (F(1,156) = 0.18, p = 0.67), nor on people’s
Main Findings Hypothesis
H1: Including a voluntary simplicity message in an advertisement
leads to a higher level of consumers’ perceived responsibility of a brand.
Rejected
H2: A higher level of consumers’ perceived responsibility of a brand
leads to a higher level of brand trust.
Supported
H3: The effect of including a voluntary simplicity message in an
advertisement on the level of consumers’ perceived responsibility of a brand is strengthened when people score higher on biospheric values.
25 perception of the activity (F(1,156) = 0.17, p = 0.69), aggressiveness (F(1,156) = 0.17, p = 0.68), simplicity (F(1,156) = 2.63, p = 0.11) or emotionality (F(1,156) = 0.05, p = 0.82) dimensions of the brand. Performing a Kruskal-Wallis test on all the variables except for the simplicity dimension revealed the same results, as it indicated that the addition of the environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message did not lead to a significant difference in purchase intention (χ²(1, N =158) = 0.73, p = 0.39), liking of the advertisement (χ²(1, N =158) = 0.07, p = 0.79), nor on people’s perception of the activity (χ²(1, N =158) = 0.20, p = 0.65), aggressiveness (χ²(1, N =158) = 0.21, p = 0.64) or emotionality (χ²(1, N =158) = 0.01, p = 0.93) dimensions of the brand. Overall, adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement does not lead to a significant difference in people’s purchase intention of the advertised product, liking of the advertisement itself, or in people’s perception of the activity, aggressiveness, simplicity or emotionality dimensions of the brand.
5. DISCUSSION
5.1. General Discussion
This paper researched the relationship between adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message, consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand and brand trust. In addition, it researched how the relationship between the addition of the environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message and consumers’ perceived responsibility was moderated by people’s biospheric values. Three main hypotheses were proposed: that adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message increases consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand, that this relationship is moderated by biospheric values, and that higher levels of perceived responsibility lead to a higher level of brand trust. The paper found no evidence for the first two relationships, but evidence was found in support of the hypothesis that a higher level of perceived responsibility leads to a higher level of brand trust.
26 about the environment, even if it is not true, which could lead to consumers not reacting positively to the CSR practice or even punishing the company (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). Consumers could for example believe that this is simply a marketing trick to make the brand look more favourable or to sell more products, even if the message encourages consumers not to buy said products. Additionally, many consumers that are exposed to advertisements are aware of the persuasive intent of advertisements, which means that the impact that the advertised message has decreases and that they are less likely to be persuaded by the advertisement (Fennis & Stroebe, 2016) This, in turn, could lead to consumers not increasing their perceived responsibility of the brand or their brand trust.
5.2. Theoretical Contribution
The results of this paper contribute to existing literature by, to the best of the author’s knowledge, being the first to examine the effect that adding an environmentally-voluntary simplicity message has on how responsible consumers perceive a brand to be and how high their level of brand trust is. The aim of this paper was to start filling the gap in existing literature on how environmentally-oriented anti consumption messages affect brand image and it does so by showing that the addition of an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message does not significantly increase or decrease people’s brand trust or their perception of how responsible the brand is, adding to the streams of literature dealing with brand trust and environmentally-oriented anti-consumption. By doing so, it also builds on existing literature dealing with corporate social responsibility and shows that not all CSR initiatives necessarily lead to a positive reaction, in line with previous research (e.g. Becker-Olsen et al., 2006). In addition, the paper contributes to existing literature by finding evidence in support of the hypothesis that consumers who perceive a brand to be more responsible have a higher level of brand trust, which provides further evidence for similar findings by other authors (e.g. Kang & Hustvedt, 2014; Sung & Kim, 2010).
5.3. Practical Contribution
27 (Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alemán, 2005), one way to do so would be by aiming to increase consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand, as this increase leads to a higher level of brand trust. Secondly, the results also show that adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to (one of their) advertisements does not appear to be a useful tool in building marketing managers’ desired brand equity, brand loyalty or brand trust, given that this addition does not lead to a higher level of brand trust, nor does it lead to a higher score on the responsibility, activity, aggressiveness, simplicity or emotionality dimensions of the brand. Moreover, adding a voluntary simplicity message does not increase people’s purchase intention for the advertised product, nor does it increase the liking of the advertisement itself. As such, marketing managers should probably be wary about adding such a message to their advertisement(s). A critical note is important here. Given that this is the first study to research the consequences of adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity to an advertisement, there may very well be certain brand beliefs, perceptions or associations that are indeed changed when such a message is included to a brand’s marketing communications, which means that it could still be a helpful tool to alter brand associations that have not been studied in this paper.
28 environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity to manipulate people into buying more products. Therefore, companies should critically assess what the consequences of adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message are for them before they actually include it in their marketing communications.
Results of this research indicated that age has a significant effect on how responsible people perceive a brand to be as well as on their level of brand trust. People who are older seem to perceive brands as less responsible and have lower levels of brand trust. This finding may be relevant to marketers whose objective is to increase either their brand trust or their perception of responsibility. Given the fact that people who are older have lower levels of brand trust and perceive the brand as being less responsible, brands that (mainly) target consumers that fall into an older demographic should be aware of this and possibly increase the effort and/or money they spend on a marketing campaign with the goal of increasing consumers’ perceived level of responsibility or brand trust relative to younger demographics.
6. LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH
As with any research, some limitations exist and must thus be considered. In this section, these theoretical and methodological limitations will be discussed and avenues for future research will be provided.
29 marketing communications in real life, as we are exposed to more than a thousand commercial messages per day, and many of these do not reach our focal attention (Fennis & Stroebe, 2016). Future research could thus try to conduct an experiment with a similar set up while providing participants with some form of reward (or alternative methods to ensure focal attention of the advertisement) to see if results would still be the same.
A second limitation of this study is that the validity of the results could be impacted by a bias in the participants’ answers. Participants had to rate how important certain values related to nature and the environment were to them. Even though participation in the experiment was completely anonymous, there may still have been some social desirability bias that played a role in the answers that the participants gave. Most people probably feel that it is socially desirable to care about the environment and nature and may thus indicate as much in their responses by giving themselves a higher rating on the values, even if it does not reflect how they truly feel. After all, people’s explicit and implicit attitudes towards something are not always the same (Fennis & Stroebe, 2016). This may not have been a problem if everyone was equally susceptible to the bias. However, we cannot assume that everyone is affected to the same extent by the social desirability bias. Because of these individual differences, this could have affected the biospheric values measure by resulting in higher scores for some people who care less about the environment in reality. Consequently, this may mean that some people who scored higher on biospheric values actually cared less about the environment and biosphere as a whole than people who scored lower on biospheric values.
30 The results of this study also provide some ideas for future research. The advertisements to which participants were exposed in the experiment were from the fictitious brand “UniClo”, a decision that was made to ensure that pre-existing brand knowledge would not affect the outcome of the study. However, future research could explore whether or not there are interactions between adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to advertisements and existing brands. Perhaps these messages would lead to higher levels of brand trust or perceived responsibility for some existing brands, while it would have different results for other existing brands. For example, if a brand already has a pre-existing reputation that it is trustworthy and that it cares about the environment, the environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message may be perceived as more credible by consumers and may thus lead to an increase in brand trust. On the other hand, a brand without a pre-existing reputation of environmental concern that includes an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message may not see an increase in their brand trust or perhaps even a decrease given that the message is likely to be received as less credible.
In this study, both the control and manipulation advertisements used negative framing. However, most marketing communications in the real world use positive framing. Therefore, an interesting idea for future research could be to explore how the addition of an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to a positively framed advertisement affects brand trust, consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand or other brand associations or perceptions. It would be possible that adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message, which is inherently negatively framed, to an otherwise positively framed advertisement, leads to negative effects for the brand (e.g. a decrease in brand trust or perceived responsibility, or the effectiveness of the advertisement). Previous literature has already shown that congruency of text and images often lead to a higher effectiveness of advertisements (e.g. Chang & Lee, 2010), so it would be interesting to explore whether an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message that uses framing congruent with the other text in the advertisement would have a different effect on certain brand perceptions and associations than an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message that is incongruent with the other text in the advertisement.
31 messages to marketing communications, given the importance of brand personality in existing research.
As this study started to fill a research gap in current literature on how a specific kind of environmentally-oriented anti consumption message influences brand image and certain brand perceptions, future research may extend this line of research by exploring how different kind of environmentally-oriented anti-consumption messages influence different perceptions of a brand or company. This could provide marketing managers with more insights and tools to build effective marketing campaigns.
7. CONCLUSION
Despite the fact this this paper only found support for the hypothesis that a higher level of perceived responsibility of the brand leads to a higher level of brand trust and no support for the predictions that including an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message affects consumers’ perceived responsibility of the brand and brand trust, this study still gives some first insights into the consequences of adding an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message to an advertisement. Given the limitations of this study, as well as the relatively narrow scope by focussing on perceived responsibility and brand trust and not many other brand associations or perceptions, this study provided a starting point for more research into the topic of how environmentally-oriented anti consumption messages affect a brand’s image. Moreover, the present study provided some ideas to extend and improve the research into this particular topic, which will hopefully help future research gain more insight into the areas covered by this paper.
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36
APPENDICES
Appendix A - Pre-Test Set-Up and Results
A pre-test was conducted by doing a cognitive interview with 3 respondents on a voluntary basis. These cognitive interviews used a “thinking aloud” method. Respondents were first exposed to the small story about UniClo (Appendix B) and then to the advertisement that included an environmentally-oriented voluntary simplicity message (Appendix D). They were asked to read the story and look at the advertisement while sharing their thoughts out loud. Then, they were asked whether they believed the information that was provided to be clear or not. A short summary of the thoughts that the participants shared follows:
Participant 1: This participant read the story and then commented on the jacket,
describing it as “grey/blackish”. Then, the participant proceeded to take a look at the UniClo logo next to the jacket and said that he was not aware of this brand. After that, he read the environmental information provided in the advertisement and commented that he did not know that these costs were associated with the production of the jacket. Then, he read the environmentally-oriented simplicity message aloud and said that he thought that the brand did not want him to buy the jacket. When he finished looking at the advertisement, he was asked whether or not he found the provided information to be clear, to which he answered that it was indeed clear to him.
Participant 2: The second participant read the story and then started looking at the logo
of the brand, which she said she had not seen before. She noticed that the advertisement did not have many colours. She read the information about the environmental costs associated with the production of the jacket and said that the advertisement had “a bit of a sustainability aspect”. She then commented on the voluntary simplicity message, saying it was some kind of “prompt” not to buy the jacket. This participant also found the information to be clear.
Participant 3: This participant read the story about UniClo and then said he saw a grey
37 After this, participants were also exposed to the advertisement for the control group (Appendix C). All three of the participants correctly identified that the “bold statement at the bottom” was missing, but said that the rest of the advertisement was the same. They found the information provided in this advertisement to be clear as well. Participant 1 called the control advertisement “more interpretation based”, saying that this advertisement did not clearly tell him what to do
Appendix B – Story about UniClo for all experimental groups
UniClo is a relatively new fashion brand. In the picture below, you will see an advertisement for one of their jackets that they plan to use in one of their upcoming campaigns. Please take a close look at this advertisement, as you will be asked some questions about UniClo and the advertisement later.
Appendix C– Advertisement for the control group
38
Appendix D – Advertisement for the manipulation group
Appendix E– Responsibility measure from the New Measure of Brand Personality (NMBP) by Geuens et al. (2009).
Please rate how characteristic you find the following items of UniClo, the brand of which you have just seen an advertisement, on a scale from 1 (not characteristic of the brand) to 7 (very
characteristic of the brand).
This brand is down to earth. This brand is stable.
This brand is responsible.
Appendix F– Biospheric values measure from De Groot & Steg (2008).
Please rate the importance of the following values as a guiding principle of your life on a scale ranging from -1 (opposed to my values), 0 (not important) to 7 (extremely important).
39 Respecting the earth: harmony with other species.
Unity with nature: fitting into nature.
Protecting the environment: preserving nature.
Appendix G– Brand trust scale from Sung & Kim (2010).
Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements regarding UniClo, where 1 means strongly disagree and 7 means strongly agree.
I trust this brand. This brand is safe. This is an honest brand. I rely on this brand.
Appendix H– Control variables measures
What is your gender? What is your age?
What is the highest degree/level of school you have completed? o No schooling completed
o Nursery school to 8th grade o Some high school, but no diploma o High school graduate
o Some college credit, but no degree (=MBO) o Associate degree (=HBO)
o Bachelor’s degree (WO) o Master’s degree (WO) o Doctorate degree (= PhD)
Please rate to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statement on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree):
40
Appendix I- Purchase intention, adapted from Taylor & Baker (1994), including an attention check.
Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 means strongly disagree and 7 means strongly agree.
The next time I need a jacket, I will choose this one.
If I had needed a jacket during the past year, I would have selected this one. Please select “strongly disagree” here to ensure that you are paying attention. In the next year, if I need a jacket, I will select this one.
The questions were adapted from the original scale by replacing the service that was used in the original study with the jacket that was advertised in this study.
Appendix J - Liking of the advertisement from Cox & Cox (1988)
Please rate the extent to which you agree with the following statement on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree):
I like the advertisement of UniClo.
Appendix K - Other dimensions from the New Measure of Brand Personality (NMBP) by Geuens et al. (2009).
Please rate how characteristic you find the following items of UniClo, the brand of which you have just seen an advertisement, on a scale from 1 (not characteristic of the brand) to 7 (very
42
Appendix L
TABLE 1. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Cronbach’s Alpha
Rotated Component Matrix Component Cronbach’
s Alpha
Items 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
BV 1. Preventing pollution: protecting natural
resources.
,049 ,872 ,086 ,037 ,050 ,091 -,070
,893
BV 2. Respecting the earth: harmony with other
species.
-,039 ,879 -,026 ,124 ,057 -0.11 ,027
BV 3. Unity with nature: fitting into nature. -,080 ,828 ,035 ,087 -,079 ,028 ,063 BV 4. Protecting the environment: preserving
nature.
,033 ,871 ,129 ,012 ,041 -,075 -,076
RE 5. This brand is down to earth. ,813 ,132 ,030 -,096 ,094 ,097 ,096
,775
RE 6. This brand is stable. ,767 ,069 ,062 ,096 -,050 ,056 ,171 RE 7. This brand is responsible. ,702 -,032 ,133 ,380 ,038 ,161 -,174 BT 8. I trust this brand. ,765 -,095 ,142 ,301 -,122 ,071 -,174
,879
BT 9. This brand is safe. ,726 -,153 ,210 ,335 -,195 ,010 -,045 BT 10. This is an honest brand. ,712 ,010 ,133 ,274 ,194 -,045 -,163 BT 11. I rely on this brand. ,697 -,098 ,143 ,229 ,069 -,038 -,229 PI 12. The next time I need a jacket, I will choose
this one.
43 PI 13. If I had needed a jacket during the past year,
I would have selected this one.
,147 ,125 ,910 ,163 -,017 ,017 ,072
,931
PI 14. In the next year, if I need a jacket, I will
select this one.
,248 ,069 ,878 ,133 ,023 ,031 -,034
AC 15. This brand is active. ,343 ,155 ,126 ,818 ,122 ,028 ,061
,908
AC 16. This brand is dynamic. ,260 ,141 ,211 ,844 ,138 ,105 ,032 AC 17. This brand is innovative. ,354 ,076 ,179 ,786 ,051 ,106 -,021
AG 18. This brand is aggressive. -,075 ,025 -,092 ,207 ,808 -,054 -,075 ,651
AG 19. This brand is bold. ,108 ,025 ,082 ,008 ,867 ,199 -,043
SI 20. This brand is ordinary. ,108 -,044 -,077 -,009 ,008 ,009 ,789 ,499
SI 21. This brand is simple. -,042 ,006 ,102 ,041 ,-115 -,101 ,783
EM 22. This brand is romantic. -,011 ,041 ,275 ,000 ,098 ,859 ,015 ,670
EM 23. This brand is sentimental. ,186 -,013 -,121 ,196 ,043 ,834 -,126
Notes: BV= Biospheric Values, RE = Responsibility, BT = Brand Trust, PI = Purchase Intention, AC = Activity, AG = Aggressiveness, SI
