Social and Environmental Issues in Advertising

Sukki Yoon, Sangdo Oh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315392523
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

In the past few decades, attention has turned to the need to apply commercial marketing concepts, knowledge, and techniques to promote goods, services, and actions that enhance consumer well-being and social welfare through socially and environmentally responsible advertising, for example, recycling promotions. Critics argue, however, that for-profit advertisers who endorse social responsibility are inherently serving commercial purposes and diluting the value of socially responsible advertising. Scholars in many fields—advertising, marketing, communications, and psychology—explore ways to encourage consumers, companies, and policymakers to adopt socially responsible behaviours, and to provide theoretical and practical insights regarding effective applications of pro-social and pro-environmental marketing messages.

This book comprises ten chapters that contribute to advertising theory, research, and practice by providing an overview of current and diverse research that compares, contrasts, and reconciles conflicting views regarding social and environmental advertising; uncovering individual differences in perception of advertising messages and their consequences for social and environmental behaviours; reconciling societal and business interests; identifying a message factor that determines eco-friendly behaviours; and identifying source factors that enhance and weaken advertising effectiveness. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Advertising.

Pro-environment advertising messages: the role of regulatory focus

Namita Bhatnagar^a and Jane McKay-Nesbitt^b

^aUniversity of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada; ^bBryant University, Smithfield, RI, USA

This paper examines individuals’ (promotion versus prevention) regulatory focus effects on a variety of environmentally responsible reactions. Results of two studies show that chronic promotion focus is associated with environmental concern, favorable attitudes towards pro-environment advertising recommendations, intentions to do what the ad recommends, and positive affect directed at the self upon adhering to ad recommendations. Conversely, chronic prevention focus while not significantly associated with environmental concern, attitudes, intentions, or positive affect has a marginally positive association with negative affect toward the self and others who do not follow pro-environmental ad recommendations. Furthermore, priming promotion focus strengthens attitudes toward recommended behavior, intentions to follow through, and other-directed positive (and negative) affect. Priming prevention focus also strengthens other-directed negative (and positive) affect. No fit effects between individuals’ regulatory focus and pro-environmental ads framed with recycle, reduce, or recycle and reduce orientations is found. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Introduction

It is widely recognized that our environment needs to be protected and that individuals can play an important role in providing that protection. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency reminds individuals that ‘Today we realize that each thing we do can help or hurt our planet in many ways. We all need to take ownership of environmental protection’ (http://www.epa.gov/gateway/learn/greenliving). Our goal is to contribute to a healthy environment by identifying factors that enhance our willingness to respond to pro-environment advertising messages and to behave in an environmentally responsible manner.

While there has been an increase in studies analyzing the association between psychosocial variables and pro-environmental attitudes and behavior (e.g., Bamberg and Moser 2007; Baek, Yoon, and Kim 2015), to our knowledge none have looked at individual differences in regulatory focus (Higgins 1987) as a potential determinant of these outcomes. Thus, we first investigate the relationships between individuals’ chronic regulatory focus and their environmental concern (Study 1).

Investigations of factors that contribute to pro-environmental advertising effectiveness have been reported in the literature for many years. Highly credible message sources are found to enhance the effectiveness of energy conservation messages (Craig and MCann 1978) and message content also contributes to pro-environmental message effectiveness (e.g., Chang, Zhang, and Xie 2015). Message content that emphasizes financial advantages is effective for water conservation messages (Delorme, Hagen, and Stout 2003), whereas a message’s regulatory focus influences the effectiveness of ads for environmentally friendly consumer products (Kareklas, Carlson, and Muehling 2012; Newman et al. 2012). Our research extends work that has considered factors that influence pro-environmental ads’ persuasiveness by exploring message-recipient-characteristic effects on such ads. Specifically, in Study 2 we examine the effects of an individual’s regulatory focus on (1) attitudes towards pro-environmental ad recommendations, (2) intentions to do what the pro-environmental ad recommends, and (3) affect directed at self and others who do or do not adhere to the ad recommendations.

Finally, given that themes pertaining to recycling and/or reduction are common in pro-environmental advertising messages (e.g., http://www2.epa.gov/recycle), we also examine the potential moderating role of such ad content in the relationship between message recipients’ regulatory focus and their responsiveness to pro-environmental ads.

Background, conceptualization, and hypothesis development

Regulatory focus theory (RFT)

Regulatory focus theory suggests that although individuals may share the same goals (e.g., a desire for a healthy environment), they differ in their preferences for the means of achieving those goals (Higgins 1987). Some individuals adopt a promotion focus while others adopt a prevention focus in goal pursuit. Promotion-focused individuals are concerned with achieving an ideal state (e.g., a healthy environment), are sensitive to gains (Shah, Higgins, and Friedman 1998), and eagerly strive to reach goals (Crowe and Higgins 1997). Prevention-focused individuals are concerned with preventing problems (e.g., an unhealthy environment), are sensitive to losses (Shah, Higgins, and Friedman 1998), and proceed cautiously as they pursue goals (Crowe and Higgins 1997).

Effects of individual differences in regulatory focus on attitudes and behaviors have been extensively explored in the literature (Higgins 1987; Polman 2012), and regulatory focus theory has been applied to the investigation of a variety of social issues. For example, regulatory focus has been shown to influence an individual’s (1) ability to start or maintain weight-loss or smoking-cessation programs (Fuglestad, Rothman, and Jeffery 2008); (2) perceptions of the ease or effectiveness of health behaviors (Keller 2006); and (3) thoughts and feelings about physical activity (Latimer et. al. 2008). Interestingly however, although there is evidence that individual differences are important environmentally responsible behavior determinants (e.g., turning lights off at home; Ngo, West, and Calkins 2009), to date little attention has been paid to the relationship between individual differences in regulatory focus and environmental concern or environmentally responsible behaviors.

Environmental concern and environmentally responsible behavior

Environmental concern is an attitude construct that captures an individual’s views about the environment (Weigel and Weigel 1978). Environmental concern is sometimes viewed as (1) relatively enduring beliefs about the environment that could predispose an individual to act in an environmentally responsible manner (Weigel and Weigel 1978); (2) a three-dimensional construct consisting of affective, cognitive, and conative dimensions (Best and Kneip 2011; Diekmann and Preisendorfer 2003); or (3) as a worldview that emphasizes the need to balance humankind’s needs with the natural environment’s needs (Dunlap and VanLiere 1978).

Environmentally responsible behaviors are generally considered to be behaviors that are focused on protecting the natural environment (Cleveland, Kalamas, and Laroche 2005). Some frequently investigated environmentally responsible behaviors include actions to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels by using public transportation, riding a bicycle, walking (Ngo, West, and Calkins 2009), turning heat down, or turning off lights and appliances (Cleveland, Kalamas, and Laroche 2005; Yoon, Kim, and Baek 2015). Avoiding disposable diapers or plastic shopping bags (Polonsky, Garma, and Grau 2011), using energy efficient light bulbs (Cleveland, Kalama, and Laroche 2005), and recycling products or packaging are other examples of environmentally responsible behaviors that have been examined in the literature (Yoon, Kim, and Baek 2015).

There is evidence that environmental concern leads to a variety of environmentally responsible behaviors. Thogersen and Olander (2006) found that individuals who express higher versus lower levels of concern about various environmental issues are more likely to recycle consumer products than those who express lower levels of concern. Others have demonstrated that individuals who hold pro-environmental attitudes will pay more for green products and do not consider this to be inconvenient (Laroche, Bergeron, and Barbaro-Forleo 2001). Similarly, Joireman and his colleagues (2004) found that expressing more concern about the negative environmental impact of commuting by car leads to greater public transportation use. Ngo and her colleagues (2009) also found that green attitudes encourage indoor greenhouse gas reduction behaviors (e.g., turning off lights, recycling). Other researchers found that adolescents’ pro-environmental attitudes significantly predicted their environmentally friendly product choices and explained about 22% of the variance in pro-environmental behaviors (Meinhold and Malkus 2005).

Consideration of future consequences (CFC), environmentally responsible behavior, and regulatory focus

Individuals have also been shown to differ with respect to concern for the consequences of their behavior. Some individuals are more concerned with future or long-term consequences whereas others are more concerned with immediate or short-term consequences of their current behavior (Strathman et al. 1994). This individual difference in concern for behavioral consequences has been frequently measured with a unidimensional consideration of future consequences (CFC) scale (Strathman et al. 1994). The unidimensional CFC scale assesses the extent to which an individual considers future (i.e., long term) versus immediate (i.e., short term) consequences of current behavior and the extent to which an individual’s current behavior is influenced by the consideration of those consequences.

There is evidence that individuals who report high levels of concern for the future (CFC) also exhibit high levels of environmentally responsible behaviors such as recycling (Ebreo and Vining 2001; Lindsay and Strathman 1997). This finding is not surprising given that recycling makes materials available for other uses in the future and contributes to the long-term health of the environment. Similarly, high-CFC versus low-CFC individuals report greater preferences for using public versus private transportation (Joireman, Van Lange, and Van Vugt 2004).

More recently, employing a two-dimensional scale to assess CFC, Joireman and his colleagues (2012) demonstrated that individuals who consider the long-term consequences of their behavior (i.e., score high on a CFC-Future subscale) report high promotion-focus but not prevention-focus scores (Lockwood, Jordan, and Kunda 2002). Conversely, individuals who report greater concern for the short-term consequences of their behavior (i.e., score high on a CFC-Immediate subscale) score high on prevention-focus but not promotion-focus measures. Thus, while both promotion- and prevention-focused individuals consider the consequences of their actions, promotion-focused individuals appear to be concerned with more long-term consequences while prevention-focused individuals appear to be concerned with more short-term consequences of their actions. Joireman and his colleagues (2012) suggest that this relationship occurs because promotion-focused individuals, in keeping with a future orientation, adopt distal and abstract ideal self-goals (i.e., hopes and aspirations) whereas prevention-focused individuals, in keeping with a more present orientation, adopt more proximal and concrete self-goals (i.e., duties and obligations).

In summary, because it is argued that being environmentally concerned necessitates a concern for the long-term, future consequences of behavior, and because there is evidence that promotion-focused individuals ha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction to the special issue on social and environmental issues in advertising
• 1. Pro-environment advertising messages: the role of regulatory focus
• 2. How consumer knowledge shapes green consumption: an empirical study on voluntary carbon offsetting
• 3. ‘Kid tested, mother approved’: the relationship between advertising expenditures and ‘most-loved’ brands
• 4. Do bans on illuminated on-premise signs matter? Balancing environmental impact with the impact on businesses
• 5. Impact of fear appeals on pro-environmental behavior and crucial determinants
• 6. Effort investment in persuasiveness: a comparative study of environmental advertising in the United States and Korea
• 7. The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation
• 8. In distrust of merits: the negative effects of astroturfs on people’s prosocial behaviors
• 9. Empowering social change through advertising co-creation: the roles of source disclosure, sympathy and personal involvement
• Index