How does green advertising skepticism on social media affect consumer intention to purchase green products?

Abstract

Underpinned by the stimulus–organism–response model, this study explores the underlying mechanism through which green advertising skepticism on social media affects consumer green purchase intention. It also investigates the boundary factors that moderate this indirect relationship. Performing structural equation modeling on data collected from an online survey on Sina Weibo, this study finds that green advertising skepticism on social media negatively affects green purchase intention through the mediation of perceived information utility. Moreover, interdependent self‐construal positively moderates, and independent self‐construal negatively moderates this indirect relationship. These findings suggest that truthful and consumer‐tailored green advertising is crucial to green product marketing.

What you see is meaningful: Does green advertising change the intentions of consumers to purchase eco‐labeled products?

“…This study combines the two research collection methods and obtains scientific data in the fastest way. The samples collected are representative, and the sample distribution is similar to the sample distribution of prior green advertising and green consumption research (Luo, Sun, Shen, & Xia, 2020).…”

Donation or Discount: Effect of Promotion Mode on Green Consumption Behavior

“…In addition, other researchers investigated the influence of individual values [ 4 ] and environmental concern [ 6 ] on consumer green consumption. From the perspective of advertising, Sun and Wang (2020) [ 15 ] found that social media can positively affect intention, while green advertising skepticism may reduce it [ 16 ]. However, most of the previous research only explained why consumers prefer or refuse green products from the point of consumers themselves, instead of investigating what method or advertising enterprises can use to promote green products.…”

“…Additionally, Sun (2020) [ 15 ] suggested that social media marketing positively affected subjective norms and product knowledge, which, in turn, increased purchase intention for green products. However, green advertising skepticism on social media may reduce this preference [ 16 ].…”

“…First, the current research advances our understanding of how to increase consumer purchase intention of green products. Although past research on green products has found some drivers of green product purchases [ 4 , 5 , 9 , 10 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], there is limited research on how to promote green products from the perspective of promotion mode. In addition, recent research has only explored the match between promotion mode and consumers’ self-construal tendency [ 12 ].…”

Communicated and attributed motives for sustainability initiatives in the energy industry: The role of regulatory compliance

“…When such situational causes are apparent, extrinsic attributions are more likely to be made (Kelley & Michela, 1980). In addition, although corporate prosocial values are considered as important in ethical consumer decision making (Shaw, Grehan, Shiu, Hassan, & Thomson, 2005), consumers tend to perceive prosocial marketing actions as company‐focused and manipulative, and are therefore inclined to question the sincerity of corporate motives (Heath & Chatzidakis, 2012; Luo, Sun, Shen, & Xia, 2020).…”