Affective Cue and Message Ambiguity in Persuasion: Implications for Green Advertising

Transcription

1 Affective Cue and Message Ambiguity in Persuasion: Implications for Green Advertising ABSTRACT Green marketing has become an important academic research topic as the significance of environmental issues has lead consumers to become more green conscious. To build a wellestablished green brand identity, ecological sound benefits that is well communicated is vital. Previous research focus on how product attribute claims exert influence on green advertising persuasiveness, yet the role of affective benefits within the context of green advertising is largely unassessed. Present findings reveal that advertising affective cue interacts with message ambiguity to impose differential effects on consumers with divergent levels of environmental conscious. Drawing from Heuristic-Systematic Model (Chaiken, 1980) and Affect Infusion Model (Forgas, 1995), two experimental studies show that when green advertising message is ambiguous, affective cues can heuristically bias high involved consumers systematic processing. Study 1 indicates consumers show more favorable attitude to positive than negative affective cues, while negative cues can bias evaluation to respond more negatively in message ambiguous condition. Study 2 reveals high environmental concern consumer s responses are biased by affective cues in message ambiguity condition, while low environmental concern consumer s responses are not. Present finding contributes valuably by revealing that employment of adequate affective cues under different message ambiguity context is crucial in approaching diverse consumers.

2 Affective Cue and Message Ambiguity in Persuasion: Implications for Green Advertising INTRODUCTION Green marketing has become an important academic research topic as the significance of environmental issues has lead consumers to become more green conscious (Kalafatis, et.al, 1999; Crane, 2000; Jansson, 2011). To build a well-established green brand identity, ecological sound benefits that is well communicated is vital. Past advertising focused on the cognitive persuasion of environmentally sound product attributes claims (Roozen & De Pelsmacker, 1998), yet the role of affective benefits within the context of green advertising is largely unassessed. The underlying postulation for the prevailing cognitive persuasion strategies in green marketing, is assuming heightened green consciousness will facilitate consumers to adopt high involvement attitude towards advertising message (Swenson & Wells, 1997; Fuller,1999). However as Coddington (1993) points out, green brand positioning also implies satisfying emotional needs and building an affective relationship with the customer. Thus how affective cue influences consumer s attitude toward green advertising deserves significant attention. This has special relevancy as one of the reasons that impedes green advertising persuasiveness is confusion which is related to message ambiguity (Carlson, Grove & Kangun, 1993). This thereby points out an important need to understand how affective cue interact with message ambiguity in green advertising. Furthermore, since consumers vary in degree of commitment and knowledge about the environment (List, 1993), it is essential to understand how differing green consciousness differ in response to the green advertising. Drawing on heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, 1980) and Affect Infusion Model (Forgas, 1995), present study investigates into these important areas, to examine how the emotions evoked by affective cue interact with message ambiguity when consumers exhibit different levels of green consciousness. Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses STUDY 1 The employment of affective appeal as the central message in green advertising can be classified in terms of the positive or negative affective cues. Positive affective cue advertising Positive affective cue advertising communicates nature relevant benefits to create nature affection sensations. This approach draws from studies that postulate nature-protective behavior cannot be well explained by using a pure rational/cognitive approach, whileas emotional affinity is a better indicator for nature-protective behavior (Kals, Schumacher, & Montada, 1999). Environmental values stems from a sense of connectivity with nature, which illustrates a perception of sameness between the self, others, and the natural world. As a result nature experience influence consumer environmental attitudes and eliminates the boundary between self and nature (Dutcher, Finley, Luloff & Johnson, 2007). Furthermore, consumer s exposure to green advertising that portrays nature scenario will lead to emotional experiences and benefits in consumption that simulates real nature experience (Hartmann, Ibanez & Sainz, 2005). Negative affective cue advertising Negative emotional appeals are applied in consumer marketing to sell products which appeal to

3 consumers' needs to conform to social norms and voluntary compliance (Ray & Wilkie, 1970; Laroche et al., 2001). In green advertising, negative appeal is often illustrated via the deterioration of the environment to arouse environmental consciousness to evoke sound environmental behavior. By focusing on fear and guilt advertiser attempt to persuade consumers into environmental consciousness conduct (Banerjee, Gulas & Iyer, 1995). According to the affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995), mood based distortions can occur in judgment process. Mood affects the level of total cognitive processing, to bias the evaluation of argument quality, and to heuristically affect brand attitudes. Positive moods create less elaborate processing, which decrease the level of evaluation on the message, and in turn mediates brand attitude to facilitate more favorable response (Batra & Stayman, 1990). Therefore, we hypothesize, H1: Consumers will respond more favorably in (a) attitude toward green advertising and (b) purchase intention, when exposed to positive affective cue than negative affective cue advertising. According to the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, 1980), people use heuristic and systematic processing to assess the validity of the message. During the evaluation process, mood can affect to bias the information processing. Based on the affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995), the level of affect infusion into judgments differs along a processing continuum, as heuristic processing are more likely to be influenced by affect than systematic processing. However, positive and negative affect induce motivational differences in processing (Bohner, Crow, Erb, & Schwarz. 1992). For individuals with positive emotions such as feeling comfortable and confident about their situations, they are less likely to engage in a detailed assessment of the environment, thus are more likely to adopt simple heuristic strategies (Fiedler, 1988; Schwarz, Bless & Bohner, 1991). In contrast, when individuals experience negative emotions such as sensing risk, they tend to prompt detail analyze of environmental (Schwarz, 1990). In situations where message is ambiguous, heuristic processing bias (such as mood) is most likely to occur (Schwarz, Bless & Bohner, 1991). Thus, we hypothesize when the green advertising message is unambiguous, a person evoked with negative affective cue, will adopt systematic processing to evaluate message and will not be biased by heuristic processing (Chaiken, 1989). However, when the green advertising message is ambiguous, a person evoked with negative affective cue, is likely to be biased by heuristic processing to respond significantly more negative than when the message is unambiguous. On the other hand, a person evoked with a positive affective cue, are more likely to adopt heuristic processing so their response are under less influence of the message ambiguity. H2a: Consumers evoked with positive affective cue will show similar positive attitude and purchase intention to green ads in both message ambiguous and unambiguous situations. H2b: Consumers evoked with negative affective cue will show attitude and purchase intention to green ads significantly more negative in message ambiguous situation than in message unambiguous situation. METHOD Procedure and Participants We used a web-based experimental design to recruit participants from a large online survey website. A 3 (affective cue: information only, affect and clear information, affect and mixed information ) x 2 (ad message ambiguity: ambiguous, unambiguous) between subjects design is used. Each questionnaire contained three parts: (1) instruction, product description, and the scenario with the valence cues and message ambiguity manipulation, (2) dependent measures and

4 manipulation check, and (3) personal information. Attitude toward green advertising (Nysveen et al. 2005) and purchase intention (Dodds et al. 1991) are measured using a seven point scale. In total, 201 (124 males and 77 females) was recruited after eliminating responses with systematic bias. Stimuli The valence of affective cue Participants learned that the manufacturer of a new green product ipure cell phone, was seeking the opinions of potential consumers. Positive and negative affective cue stimulus from the result of pretest is adopted to evoke positive and negative attitude towards green advertising respectively. Pretest 1 verified the positive and negative pictures elicited different attitudes (M = 6.44 vs 1.15, t = , p <.001). By following Shiv and Fedorikhin (1999, 2002), the valence of the affective cues and the product information were always pitted against each other. The differences were designed to be reasonably large given the actual differentiation in the market. Pretesting showed that battery life and weight were considered the most important features (M = 6.23 vs 5.73). Camera pixel and screen size were less important than battery life and weight (M = 4.14 vs 4.68, p<.05). Respondents read the ipure print ads and obtain the information about the product features. In the affect-and-clear-information condition, participants receive the negative affective cue with superior features including longer battery life and weighed less (13 hours and 137g) than the alternative with the positive affective cue (6 hours and 500g). Participants in the affect-and-mixed-information condition look at the same ads, but the product features were altered so that the negative affective cue was better on two unimportant features than alternative (Camera pixel resolution: 100 vs. 20; and LCD Screen size: 3.5 vs. 2 inch). The results suggested that consumers on the average reported more positive (M = 6.42 versus M = 5.339,t = 5.52, p <.001), and less contaminated (M=5.19 versus M=6.23,t = -5.13, p <.001) while exposed to positive affective cues version Ad Message ambiguity In the message ambiguous condition, the ad displayed company s commitment to environmental protection by being environmentally friendly. In contrast, in the unambiguous message condition, the ad theme claims company s effortful commitment to environmental protection by reducing 20% air pollution. RESULTS Main effect of affective cues The findings show positive affective cues leads to more favorable attitude toward green ads and purchase intention (F =25.72 p <.001; F=22.47, p<.001) than negative affective cues, which supports H1a and H1b. The findings are evident irrespective of whether affective cues were pitted against mixed or clear product benefits. Post hoc analyses showed respondents have more favorable attitude toward the ads and higher purchase intention when paired with the positive affective cue in the two affect-and-information conditions than in the information-only condition (p<.001). Interaction between affective cues and ad message ambiguity As predicted, the results of the ANVOA showed a significant main effect of affective cues (F = 39.97, p <.001; F = 40.27, p <.001) and ad message ambiguity (F = 9.73, p <.01; F =

5 11.97, p <.01) on attitude toward ads and purchase intention, and a significant interaction between affective cues and message ambiguity on attitude toward ads (F = 23.70, p <.001) and purchase intention (F = 30.64, p <.001). Consumers evoked with positive affective cue will show similar positive attitude (M=5.93 vs. 5.21) and purchase intention (M=5.84 vs ) to green ads in both message ambiguous and unambiguous situations. On the contrary, consumers evoked with negative affective cue will show attitude and purchase intention to green ads significantly more negative in message ambiguous situation (M=4.41 vs. 4.13) than in message unambiguous situation (M=5.69 vs. 5.70). Thus, H2a and H2b are supported. STUDY 2 Green consumer is defined as: anyone whose purchase behavior is influenced by environmental concerns (Shrum et. al 1995). Consumers differ in their attitudes, knowledge and concern about the environment, thus they can be categorized by their degree of commitment to the environment (List 1993). Based on heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, 1980), high involvement leads consumer to adopt systematic information processing, whereas low involvement leads consumers to heuristic information processing. Hence green consumers who are highly involved with environmental issues because of its central value to them, are likely to adopt systematic information processing in evaluating green advertising. Alternatively, non green consumers who have relatively low concern with the environmental issue are likely to adopt heuristic processing in evaluating green advertising. Therefore building on the findings of study 1, we hypothesize that for high involved green consumers who are more likely to use systematic processing, in conditions where the message is ambiguous, positive affective cue will heuristically bias the attitude of the advertising so they will respond more favorably than negative affective cue. In contrast, in conditions where the message is unambiguous, negative affective cue will facilitate systematic processing to encourage cognitive persuasion, so they will respond more favorably than positive affective cue. Non green consumers who generally show low concern to the message content, are more likely to use heuristic processing, thus their attitude toward green advertising is influenced by the positive or negative affective cues, regardless of ad message ambiguity. Hence positive cue will evoke more favorable response than negative cue across both conditions. H3a: For high environmental concern consumer: When green advertising message is ambiguous, positive affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green ad and purchase intention than negative affective cue. When green advertising message is unambiguous, negative affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green ad and purchase intention than positive affective cue. H3b: For low environmental concern consumer: METHOD Positive affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green ad and purchase intention than negative affective cue in both message ambiguous and unambiguous condition. Procedure and Participants

6 Study 2 uses a 2 (affective cues: positive, negative) by 2 (message ambiguity: ambiguous, unambiguous) by 2(environmental concern: high, low) experimental design. Environmental consciousness was measured as a within-subject variable in order to assess the difference for the same individual while both affective cues and message ambiguity were manipulated as betweensubject variables. The research procedures in Study 2 were identical to Study 1. The only difference in Study 2 was that the participants were assessed for the environmental concern. To measure the construct of environmental concern, this study uses six items from Kilbourne and Pickett (2008). Each item was measured based on a seven-point Likert scale with 1= strongly disagree to 7= strongly agree. The coefficient alpha for environmental concern was.922. In total, 179 valid responses were obtained (108 males and 71 females). RESULT The results shows significant interaction among affective cues, message ambiguity and environmental concern on attitude toward ads (F = 4.814, p <.05) and purchase intention (F = 5.43, p <.05). For high environmental concern consumer, positive affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green ad and purchase intention than negative affective cue while exposed to ambiguous message; whereas, negative affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green ad and purchase intention than positive affective cue in unambiguous message (F=16.12, p <.01). For low environmental concern consumer, positive affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green ad and purchase intention than negative affective cue, regardless of message ambiguity (F=0.66, p =0.42). GENERAL CONCLUSIONS Present study contributes to illuminate how consumers respond differently to the effect of affective cue and message ambiguity in green advertising. Previous research focus on how product attribute claims exert influence on green advertising content persuasiveness and consumer attitudes (Roozen & De Pelsmacker, 1998). Our findings reveal that affective cue interacts with message ambiguity to impose differential effects on consumers with divergent levels of environmental conscious to influence green advertising persuasiveness. Overall, the hypothesis of this study received empirical support in two experimental studies. The results are in line with this prior research on heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, 1980) to show that when green advertising message is ambiguous, affective cues can heuristically bias high involved consumers systematic processing. Study 1 manifest consumers exposed to positive affective cues show overall more favorable attitude toward green advertising in all conditions, while negative affective cue bias evaluation to respond more negatively in message ambiguous condition. Study 2 reveals that for high environmental concern consumer, when green advertising message is ambiguous, positive affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green adverting and purchase intention than negative affective cue. However, when green advertising message is unambiguous, negative affective cue will facilitate more favorable attitude toward green ad and purchase intention than positive affective cue. For low environmental concern consumer, since they generally show low concern to the message content, hence positive cue will evoke more favorable response than negative cue across all conditions. Moreover, study 2 reveals that systematic and heuristic processing can exert independent and additive effects on persuasion for highly involved consumers. For managerial implication, present finding contributes valuably to green advertisements persuasion by revealing that the employment of adequate affective cue under different message ambiguity context is crucial in approaching consumers with diverse environmental consciousness.

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