Can evoking nature in advertising mislead consumers? The power of ‘executional greenwashing' - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue International Journal of Advertising Année : 2015

Can evoking nature in advertising mislead consumers? The power of ‘executional greenwashing'

Résumé

This paper examines the ‘executional greenwashing’ effect, defined as the use of nature-evoking elements in advertisements to artificially enhance a brand's ecological image. Using classic models of information processing and persuasion, the research tests whether ‘executional greenwashing’ differs as a function of consumer knowledge about environmental issues in the product category and whether environmental performance information can counterbalance the effect by helping consumers form an accurate evaluation of the brand's ecological image. Three experiments with French consumers reveal that evoking nature does mislead consumers in their evaluation of a brand's ecological image, especially if they have low knowledge of environmental issues. Two indicators of environmental performance, based on current international policies, are tested to counteract ‘executional greenwashing’. Whereas a raw figure is not sufficient to help non-expert consumers revise their judgment, accompanying the figure with a traffic-light label eliminates ‘executional greenwashing’ amongst both experts and non-experts. Theoretical and regulatory implications are discussed.
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-01463025 , version 1 (09-02-2017)

Identifiants

Citer

Béatrice Parguel, Florence Benoît-Moreau, Cristel Russell. Can evoking nature in advertising mislead consumers? The power of ‘executional greenwashing'. International Journal of Advertising, 2015, 34 (1), ⟨10.1080/02650487.2014.996116⟩. ⟨hal-01463025⟩
106 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More