How down to earth are you? An exploratory study regarding green advertising and generation Z consumers

With new data released by NASA showing the year 2021 is tied for the 6th warmest year (2021 Tied for 6th Warmest Year in Continued Trend, NASA Analysis Shows, 2022), the issue of climate change is pertinent, hence why consumers and brands alike are eager to make positive environmental change. Unfortunately, companies who trick consumers into thinking their products are more environmentally friendly than they are (i.e. greenwashing) have been an issue since the mid-1980s and are only increasing (Adegeest, 2021; Gurung, 2020; Watson, 2016). Research done by Fernandes et al. (2020) has shown that consumers are unable to easily identify deception in advertising. Her team also discovered the impactful idea of green literacy interventions, or the inclusion of educational materials to assist consumers in deflecting greenwashed advertising attempts. My research, which focuses on Generation Z, not only seeks to partially replicate the Fernandes et al. (2020) study, but also to develop a deeper understanding of how members of Generation Z perceive, interact with, and respond to green advertising. Through an experimental 2 (ad type: acceptable vs. deceptive) by 2 (green advertising literacy intervention: present vs. absent) between-subjects design study, I found some support for the green literacy intervention resulting in an increased understanding of deceptive claims. The green literacy intervention did not have significant impacts on purchase intentions, brand or advertising attitudes, ad reliability, or perceived advertising deception for the target Ziploc brand advertisements. However, participants appeared to process the green ads only peripherally, paying attention to the visuals and not fully scrutinizing the claims, showing potential support for the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Even though I did not test for ELM, the interview responses indicated a possible focus on peripheral elements of the advertisements (executional greenwashing, images, layout) and less on the arguments. This could possibly be due to peripheral processing. The green advertising literacy intervention also appeared to increase their persuasion knowledge about green marketing and deception, indicating support for the Persuasion Knowledge Model. Moreover, three main themes emerged from my 15 semi-structured interviews: the idea of “executional greenwashing” being synonymous with “good”, green advertising itself being viewed more positively than the companies promoting it, and finally that the intent to help the environmental crisis diminishes as the problem grows larger. Findings could be used in practical ways: including assisting companies with the knowledge needed to successfully market their environmentally safe products to Generation Z, such as implementing social media influencers into the campaigns.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Advertising

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Moore, Alexus

Contributors dc:contributor

• Nelson , Michelle R
• Mabry-Flynn, Amanda D
• Ham, Chang Dae

• greenwashing
• generation z
• mixed-methods
• interviews
• surveys

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Alexus Moore

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115779

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115779