Desert or rain

Abstract

PurposeGiven the observable increase in images of nature in advertising on a global scale, this study aims to ask whether such creative strategies should adapt imagery to the natural environment of the target audiences or could it be standardised globally.Design/methodology/approachTwo samples of respondents living in different geographic locations with contrasted climates and natural environments were exposed to a set of experimental green advertisements visually featuring different categories of natural scenery and one urban landscape. Attitude towards each advertisement and emotional responses evoked by it were measured and compared across the range of stimuli and the two samples.FindingsResults did not support either the hypothesis that individuals prefer advertisements showing the natural habitat in which they had grown up or the hypothesized universal preference for advertising imagery displaying savannah type landscapes. However, the observed preferences across both samples for advertisements featuring natural landscapes with abundant green vegetation and clear water are consistent with evolutionary psychology, which proposes that perception of beauty in a landscape is universal and hypothesizes preferences for landscapes with those characteristics.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was experimental in nature and based on only two specific geographic locations, as well as on one product and experimental brand. Findings and conclusions must therefore be adopted with due caution. Future research should be conducted on a broader geographic scale, across a wider range of natural and cultural environments, and with a greater variety of products and brands.Practical implicationsResults discourage the adaptation of nature imagery to the geographic location of a target audience, and support a global strategy based on the standardised use of landscapes universally perceived to be beautiful, following the principles of environmental aesthetics.Originality/valueThis is the first study to apply evolutionary and environmental psychology to an investigation of the influence of a target audience's natural environment on its behavioural responses to natural imagery in advertising.

Comparison on the Impact of Standardization and Adaptation on International Marketing

“…Heterogeneities among countries cause international companies to view and form their marketing strategy on a country-by-country basis (Hise & Young-Tae Choi, 2011). Culture has no major effect on product, price, place and process (Hartmann & Vanessa Apaolaza-Ibáñez, 2013). Instead, the major effect is on promotional efforts, meaning that companies should adopt an adapted promotional strategy when penetrating a different cultural environment.…”

“…Standardization is a trade-off between the potential economic benefits of a standardized strategy, as well as the performance obtained by adapting to the demand of local markets. Moreover, researchers argue that different advertisements from different countries might create confusion amongst customers; thus standardized advertisements may help escape this (Hartmann & Vanessa Apaolaza-Ibáñez, 2013). However, advertisers may also encounter repression by national legislation.…”

“…An important strategic decision for international advertisers is whether to localize, by adapting advertising campaigns to common characteristics of local target audiences, or globalize, by producing standardized campaigns on an international or even global scale. Concentrating on the adopt of images of the natural environment in green advertising, research concludes that imagery should not be adapted to the climate, vegetation or scenery characterizing the target audience's geographic location (Hartmann & Vanessa Apaolaza-Ibáñez, 2013). Contrarily, it is acceptable to assume that a standardized practice of nature imagery will be an effective strategy.…”

Dual Pathways of Value Endorsement in Green Marketing

“…Therefore, green marketers need to integrate the consumer value and global value espoused by these enterprises. Green enterprises weigh these two types of environmental values to obtain the value endorsement of the target consumers; that is, when enterprises launch their green products, they need to establish how green marketers can effectively meet the unmet demands of consumers and communicate the enterprises' environmental values to win the consumers' value endorsements [4,13].…”

The Influence of the Evolutionary Past on the Mind: An Analysis of the Preference for Landscapes in the Human Species

“…Some studies suggest that the selective pressures imposed on early hominids in Africa during the Pleistocene, specifically in the savanna environments, were so decisive for the evolutionary history of the human species that, to date, there seems to be a universal preference for this type of landscape (Orians and Heerwagen, 1992; Falk and Balling, 2010; Klasios, 2016; Townsend and Barton, 2018). Some authors often struggle to test this assertion (see Sommer, 1997; Han, 2007; Falk and Balling, 2010; Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez, 2010, 2013). However, there is controversy regarding this argument because in some studies, it was evidenced that people prefer images of landscapes similar to those of the environment in which they live (Balling and Falk, 1982; Lyons, 1983; Van den Berg et al, 1998).…”