A survey on green advertising: effectiveness and consumer response / Etty Muharleyn Mohd Jefri

Advertising is a form of either mass communication or direct-to-consumer communication that is non personal and is paid for by various business firms, non-profit organizations, and individuals who are some way identified in the advertising message and who hope to inform or persuade members of particular audience (Advertising, Promotion, and Supplemental Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications, Terence A. Ship, pg. 621, 2003). The emergence of the green challenge has brought about changes in consumers buying behavior making it a highly debatable topic from the point of view of academics. Corporations have contributed to changes within the corporate structure in order to meet consumer’s green needs by becoming more environmentally responsible which is reflected through cleaner manufacturing processes and green promotion (Kassarjia, 1971; Kinnear et Menon & Menon, 1997; Porter & Van der Linde, 1995; Scerbinski,1991; Ottman, 1993, Fitz gerald, 1993). This study refers to the existing literature on general advertising and environmental advertising which is concerning the effectiveness of environmental claims in advertising to consumers and environmental consciousness of consumers. It also examines how key dimensions of consumer’s responses, the extent of the importance on certain themes that consumers consider such as company image, environmental labels, and product recycling symbols (D’Souza, 2005), and consumer involvement (Chan, 2000) may affect the communication effectiveness. The advertising challenge here tends to be the flash promise of pleasure, of gratification, the promise of a benefit. Strong positioning can help, especially in a crowded product category.