Green Advertising and the Reluctant Consumer

Author(s): George M. Zinkhan and Les Carlson

Source: Journal of Advertising, Vol. 24, No. 2, Green Advertising (Summer, 1995), pp. 1-6
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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Green Advertising and the Reluctant Consumer
George M. Zinkhan and Les Carlson

As ecological concerns evolve and diffuse throughout society, advertisers are interested in developing green
(i.e., environmental) messages and are interested in targeting green customer segments. Unfortunately for
advertisers, many green consumers have negative attitudes about business, and they often have negative
impressions of the advertising industry. Here, this dilemma is examined from a variety of perspectives.

George M. Zinkhan is the Coca- The Greening of Corporate America

Cola Chair of Marketing at the
University of Georgia, where he also
serves as department head.
Les Carlson is Associate Professor of
Marketing at Clemson University.
The authors would like to thank
Barbara Stern for her insightful
comments on a previous draft of this
paper.
A wide variety of technological breakthroughs in the late 19th and 20th
centuries have transformed the human world. These breakthroughs include
advances in media (e.g., the television), communication (e.g., the Internet),
production (e.g., miniaturization), and others (e.g., the home computer). All
of these breakthroughs have had the effect of "shrinking the world." Or, to
use another cliche, these technological revolutions create a "global village."
One consequence is that we realize that we are travelling on space-ship
earth with only limited resources. Given this chain of events, a concern with
environmental (or green) issues is heightened. As citizens and as consum-
ers, we worry about the future and wonder whether or not there will be
enough resources to ensure that everyone has a chance to achieve "the good
life." As participants in a capitalist economy, we turn to corporations to
transform our thoughts into goods and services. In this sense, corporations
are the agents of our desires.
How do corporations respond to the environmental concerns of consumers
and regulators? One way to respond is to create "green advertising" -
promotional messages that may appeal to the needs and desires of environ-
mentally concerned consumers. This special issue is devoted to an examina-
tion of green advertising: its methods and consequences.

Corporate Responsibility
Organizations are responsible to a number of different stakeholder groups,
including owners, customers, suppliers, employees, financial institutions,
government regulators, and the public at large. Any one action that an
organization can take may please some of these stakeholders while, at the
same time, alienating others. Under some theories of the firm, corporations
exist to maximize shareholder wealth. That is, the stockholders (as owners)
are the primary stakeholder group; and the preferences of the other stake-
holder groups are somehow subordinate to owner preferences. Even if one
accepts this extreme theory of owner self-interest, there are still a number
of circumstances in which green advertising and/or green marketing would
be advisable or profitable (for owners to pursue). These circumstances in-
clude the following three possibilities: a) the emergence of a green consumer
segment; b) the greening of other stakeholder groups, notably owners; and
c) the increase in responsible business development. Of course, these three
Journal of Advertising, circumstances are not necessarily independent of one another; but, for con-
Volume XXIV, Number 2
Summer 1995
venience, they are discussed separately.

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2 Journal of Advertising
The Emergence of the Green Consumer
Segment
Since the 1960s, there has been a growing concern
about the future of the earth and its inhabitants. Do
we have enough resources to sustain the standard of
living that is enjoyed by most American consumers?
As more and more citizens answer "no" to this ques-
tion, they become "green consumers." That is, they
become consumers who are worried about more than
just the purchase and the consumption processes.
They are also concerned about the production pro-
cess, in terms of scarce resources consumed, and they
are concerned with product disposal issues (e.g., recy-
cling). As the number of green consumers grows, or-
ganizations recognize that these individuals may be
cohesive enough to create a large and feasible market
segment. Thus, organizations may pursue green mar-
keting strategies because they find it profitable to do
so. Organizations may become green because they
realize that one segment of the customer base is green-
ing.
Unfortunately for organizations, green consumers
are also quite likely to harbor anti-corporate biases.
The survey by Shrum et al. (in this issue) confirms
this ironic situation. Green consumers are the very
segment most likely to distrust advertisers and are
quite likely to pursue behaviors and activities that
confound business people.
The Emergence of Green Stakeholder
Groups
Just as consumers may be green, owners (or em-
ployees or suppliers) can also become green. For ex-
ample, some stock fund managers have put together
portfolios that consist entirely of firms meeting some
standard of corporate responsibility; and this "envi-
ronmentally friendly" label is used to attract inves-
tors. Some of these "socially responsible" funds have
proven to be profitable for their owners, although
others have proven to be costly. Business owners, too,
may decide to pursue a socially responsible business
policy, motivated by personal commitment. Ben
Cohen, a co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, is an
articulate spokesman of this ownership philosophy.
In a speech delivered at Harvard University, Cohen
(1994) states:
At Ben & Jerry's, we do take our charitable contri-
butions seriously; we devote 7.5 percent of our
pretax profits to charity. But while giving away a
portion of our profits is nice, it is a minor thing
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2 Journal- - of Advertsi
compared to the positive social impact we can have
by making the way we run our business every day
reflect our conscious caring for the people around
us. We call it "Caring Capitalism."
As described above, a caring capitalist pursues green
strategies for their own sake, because this is the right
thing to do. From this perspective, it is much more
important to do the right thing (in a moral sense)
than to do things right (in a technical sense). As
more and more owners think this way, green market-
ing and green advertising will flower and bear fruit.
Similarly, concerned suppliers (or concerned gov-
ernment regulators) can also prod a corporation to-
ward pursuing green strategies. In this issue,
Scammon and Mayer document the activities that
regulators have recently undertaken to encourage (or
restrain) green advertising.
Business Development (as a
Responsibility)
Green marketing represents an opportunity for busi-
ness development. That is, a corporation recognizes
that its customers are not now green but would like
to be. This situation could be interpreted as an oppor-
tunity to raise consumers' consciousness of green is-
sues. In this context, business managers serve to lead
a society toward a more ideal world. However, this
presupposes a proactive, rather than a reactive, man-
agement style. As Cohen (1994) points out:
Corporations have been granted the right to be-
come the major depositories and bestowers of
wealth in our society ... With all of this power,
there is just no way business can walk away from
the world's pressing problems ... Business must be
part of the solution ... We have to decide what
corporate responsibility means .. A commitment to
social responsibility must be expressed in core cor-
porate activities: what you produce, how you pro-
duce it, how you treat your employees.
Certainly, there are potential problems lurking in
Cohen's approach. In one sense, business leaders may
be usurping the power of public officials. Business
leaders are not formally "elected" in the same way
that senators or state legislators or judges are elected,
following a democratic process. Nonetheless, as Cohen
argues, corporations can exist to serve the public good.
Just as corporations in the 17th century were
granted charters by the king, so too is the modern
corporation granted a charter by an informal (non-
democratic) process. This charter (or social contract)
remains implicit; but this fact does not diminish its
importance. A corporation exists to perform societal
Summer 1995
Summer
functions; but, if citizens perceive that corporations
do not serve the public good (in addition to accom-
plishing its core mission), then the corporate charter
could be revoked. Perhaps this reality is more appar-
ent to oil companies than it is to shoe manufacturers,
yet all corporations exist as a means to accomplish
broad societal goals and to satisfy customers' needs.
There is no doubt that a corporation devotes most of
its energy to its core mission; but, under some cir-
cumstances, management may consider long-run pub-
lic welfare when making crucial decisions.
When does public welfare outweigh stockholder
claims and interests? This is not an easy question to
answer. Nevertheless, optimists hope that sagacious
business development is not at odds with the con-
cerns of the environmental movement.
The Six Papers in this Special Issue:
Methods and Findings
A wide variety of perspectives and methods are
represented in this collection of green articles. Most
authors seem to agree that green advertising is in the
introductory phase of its life cycle. Thus, there are a
number of attempts (relying upon both logic and em-
pirical data) to define the notions of "green" and "green
advertising." There are two experiments and two con-
tent analyses. Two authors use pre-existing (second-
ary) data. There is one survey, using a probability
sampling method. For the most part, those authors
who have collected data (using either the ad or the
person as the unit of analysis) have relied upon con-
venience sampling methods.
The Critical Essay
In the lead article, Kilbourne presents foundations
research by identifying and defining different dimen-
sions of "green." Since the foundations of a field of
inquiry are so basic that they cannot be supported by
anything within that science, a scientist may gather
evidence to support foundational claims by means of
direct experience, measurement, or logic (Murrow and
Hyman 1994). Kilbourne takes the logic-oriented ap-
proach and creates a figure to demonstrate different
levels of ecological concern. Even though advertising
is a relatively young field of inquiry and not all re-
searchers agree that advertising should strive to be-
come a science, the conception of "green advertising"
has, to date, received relatively little research atten-
tion. Thus, it is appropriate to introduce this special
issue with a paper that focuses on defining "green."
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1995 33
In the past, authors who have attempted to define
advertising concepts have reported that, in fact, there
seem to be multiple (valid) definitions of key terms
(cf. Dobni and Zinkhan 1990; Villanova et al. 1990;
Murrow and Hyman 1994; Anderson 1995). There is
no question that a multiplicity of meanings has the
potential to impede communication and research.
Nonetheless, given our brief experience with founda-
tions research in the advertising literature, it ap-
pears that we have no alternative other than to live
with the uncertainty and confusion which results from
the recognition of multiple definitions.
A Content Analysis of Green Ads
The second article, by Banerjee et al., employs a
convenience sample of 173 print ads and 95 TV ads.
Using a content analysis method, the authors iden-
tify three types of green ads, depending on a) the type
of ad sponsor (profit vs. not-for-profit organization);
b) the focus of the ad (advertiser-oriented vs. con-
sumer-oriented); and c) the depth of the ad (shallow
vs. moderate). The ads in this analysis can also be
viewed as deriving from secondary data, as the au-
thors obtained the sample advertisements from a
green marketing consultant and an ad agency. Sec-
ondary data may be particularly useful at the early
stages of social science inquiry. However, with a con-
venience sample, it is not possible to estimate popula-
tion parameters; and descriptive research is quite
difficult in the absence of probability sampling meth-
ods. As argued by several authors in this issue, green
advertising research is currently at the descriptive
phase. Thus, as advocated by Banerjee et al., there is
a need for future researchers to invest the resources
necessary to obtain probability samples so as to fur-
ther the goals of descriptive research.
A Legal Perspective on Green
Advertising
In any emerging area of advertising practice, there
is always a concern about legal and ethical issues.
Marketers have a tendency to "push the envelope,"
especially when promoting products in new media or
when creating new types of appeals (e.g., green ap-
peals). In the third article, Scammon and Mayer ex-
amine the regulatory actions that have been under-
taken in the area of green advertising. Of course,
legal research is quite different from other kinds of
social science research. Nevertheless, Scammon and
Mayer's method can be viewed (in social science terms)
4 Journal of Advertising
4 Journal of Advertising~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~___
as a census, as the authors attempt to gather infor-
mation about all legal cases that fit a certain descrip-
tion (e.g., legal actions initiated by the Federal Trade
Commission). Once again, the authors rely upon a
kind of secondary data, as they draw conclusions based
upon pre-existing records. Among other findings, the
authors conclude that state agencies (i.e., state attor-
ney generals) serve a valuable social function by fo-
cusing attention on emerging business practices and
legal issues (in this instance, business practices re-
lated to green advertising). However, federal bodies
(such as the Federal Trade Commission) take their
cues from state regulators; and, when the FTC takes
regulatory action, state agencies then focus their at-
tention on other (emerging) issues. In this sense, state
attorney generals are innovators; and federal agen-
cies are early adopters. It would be intriguing to de-
termine whether or not state and federal employees
have the same views and opinions about their respec-
tive roles. Scammon and Mayer infer the attitudes of
regulators; but an interesting follow-up study would
involve testing whether or not these inferred atti-
tudes are consciously perceived by the regulators
themselves.
An Experimental Approach
The Schuhwerk and Lefkoff-Hagius article is one of
two to employ an experimental design. Here, 71 un-
dergraduates were recruited to participate as a con-
venience sample and were exposed to one of two ads
for a hypothetical laundry detergent. The authors
find that "involvement with the environment" does
not have a significant effect on the way that consum-
ers respond to green appeals (vs. the way they re-
spond to other appeals, such as financial ones). One
implication is that advertisers can develop specific
green appeals that may be attractive to a broad spec-
trum of the population. Another implication is that
the public does not seem to be divided into segments
based on 'involvement with the environment," mak-
ing it possible for corporations to develop green mes-
sages with universal appeal.
The Obermiller article also reports experimental
results. In this instance, the author performs two
experiments and recruits 95 adults for the first study
and 205 for the second. In both instances, as is com-
mon with experimental work, convenience sampling
is used to obtain subjects. The general purpose of the
two experiments is to determine which kinds of ap-
peals are the most effective for consumers when the
communication goal relates to social marketing. For
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-
example, environmentalists may want to convince
more citizens to recycle on a regular basis and may
invest resources in an advertising campaign to moti-
vate this behavior.
The article considers positive and negative strate-
gies for achieving this social objective and labels these
strategies as "the sick baby" approach and "the well
baby" approach. The first strategy uses a message
that emphasizes the severity of the problem (e.g., "we
have only enough energy resources to last for 20 more
years, given current rates of consumption"). The well
baby strategy uses a message that emphasizes the
importance and potential effectiveness of individual
action (e.g., "only you can prevent forest fires").
Obermiller finds that communication effectiveness
varies by situation. That is, it is difficult to identify a
generic communication strategy that will work for all
audiences and all product categories. Of course, this
conclusion mirrors much of our extant knowledge
about advertising. To date, we are not able to offer
precise formulae to explain and predict how and why
advertising works. If the world were so simple as
this, there would indeed be little need for advertising
agencies and communication specialists. The
unpredictability of human behavior always makes
communication a challenge. As many successful copy-
writers know, there is always the potential for being
successful in advertising by breaking the mold, by
following a counter trend, by doing things which vio-
late accepted wisdom about communication effective-
ness.
The Survey: Those Skeptical Green
Consumers!
The last article, by Shrum et al., uses secondary
data obtained from an ad agency. The data were origi-
nally collected using a stratified random sample and
contain responses from 3346 heads of household. This
article is the only one in the special issue to use a
probability sampling method; however, the authors
caution the readers that the sample "does not reflect
the general population on several variables (e.g., race,
income, education)." Of course, the same caution
should be issued for all of the empirical articles in the
special issue.
This study is a good source of concrete information
about what's happening in the green marketplace.
One conclusion is that green consumers are more
receptive to print than TV ads. It also turns out that
those consumers most likely to buy green products
are, by nature, more skeptical of advertising in gen-
Summer 1995
Summer
eral and are not brand loyal. Thus, there is a serious
dilemma for marketers who desire to target the green
consumer, who is somewhat cynical about marketing
activities and is likely to discount advertising mes-
sages and to distrust corporate motives. As always,
marketers and advertisers are relatively quick to iden-
tify new trends, and they move quickly to capitalize
on these trends. Nonetheless, there is an "anti-capi-
talist" streak attached to the green movement; and
green consumers are difficult to target and difficult to
convince. This insight provides one explanation of
why green marketing has made so little progress since
the 1970s. As implied by several authors in this is-
sue, the notion of "green marketing" may itself be an
oxymoron.
The Reluctant Consumer Revisited
American consumers are reluctant about green ad-
vertising for a variety of reasons. Carlson et al. (1993)
report that many green advertising claims are both
vague and ambitious. If previous corporate attempts
to project a green image have been flawed, then con-
sumers' prior experiences with the genre may color
their perceptions. When consumers find a new prod-
uct to be incompetently produced and promoted, they
avoid it. In the same way, consumers may be suspi-
cious about green advertisers and their overly-ambi-
tious claims.
In addition to American consumers' predilection to
resist green advertising appeals, the green consumer
is "reluctant" in another sense. Americans are reluc-
tant recyclers. Consumers eagerly adopt green atti-
tudes and beliefs because it is socially acceptable and
chic to be green. In a survey setting, consumers are
quite willing and eager to describe themselves as
recyclers. In reality, recycling is not so widespread as
self-report data would lead us to believe.
This phenomenon leads to a major problem for green
researchers. From a long history of social science re-
search, we have learned that behaviors do not always
match attitudes. The gap becomes even wider if we
attempt to investigate self-reported behaviors. First,
there is the problem that consumers might not re-
member their actual behaviors. Second, consumers
may have difficulty estimating the frequency with
which they engage in a particular behavior (e.g., how
many times they recycled aluminum cans last month).
Third, there can be considerable social pressure (and/
or response bias) associated with certain activities;
and this social pressure is likely to be particularly
strong for green behaviors.
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1995 55
In brief, self-report measures about behavior are
not particularly well suited for green research. Fol-
lowing the same logic, measures of behavioral inten-
tions are not well suited for green research; and there
are similar problems related to attitudinal measures.
There are many reasons to suspect that green atti-
tudes will not be strongly linked to green behaviors.
With respect to measurement, the articles in this
special issue do not go much beyond consumer atti-
tudes or intentions. In future investigations of green
advertising, researchers would be well advised to
study actual behaviors. We must learn to live with
the fact that consumers are reluctant (or unable) to
tell us about their green behaviors, even though their
green attitudes may be highly developed.
Advertising in the 20th and 21st
Centuries
In a thought-provoking book, Easterbrook (1995)
argues that Western society is well on its way to
establishing a sustainable, zero-emission means of
existence. Business people and consumers have
changed their behaviors to such an extent that
Easterbrook predicts that, by the early twenty-first
century, pollution can be banned in the developed
world. If this prediction comes to pass, then "environ-
mentalism" as we now understand it may no longer
be necessary. Western economies may develop insti-
tutions that provide a high standard of living for
consumers while, at the same time, conserving natu-
ral resources for future generations.
Advertisers have an important role to play in script-
ing such a happy outcome, for they have the resources
and the skills to shape public opinion. As argued by
Ben Cohen, corporations and advertisers must be part
of the solution to environmental problems. The ad-
vertising industry adapts and evolves to adjust to
marketplace realities. A key reality in the late twen-
tieth century is that consumers want to be green.
Ergo, advertisers want to be green as well.
References
Anderson, Cheri L. (1995), "Computer as Audience," paper pre-
sented at American Academy of Advertising Conference, Nor-
folk, VA, March.
Carlson, Les, Stephen J. Grove, and Norman Kangun (1993), "A
Content Analysis of Environmental Advertising Claims: A
Matrix Method Approach," Journal of Advertising, 22 (3), 27-
40.
Cohen, Ben (1994), "What Does Business Do?" speech given at
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
_ ________ _ _. _
6 Journal of Advertising

Dobni, Dawn and George M. Zinkhan (1990), "In Search of Brand Villanova, Lisa, George M. Zinkhan, and Michael R. Hyman (1990),
Image: A Foundation Analysis," Advances in Consumer Re- "On Defining and Measuring Store Image," in Developments
search, 17, 110-119. in Marketing Science, 13, B.J. Dunlap, ed., Provo, UT: Acadmey
Easterbrook, Gregg (1995), A Moment on the Earth: The Coming of of Marketing Science, 466-470.
Age of Environmental Optimism. New York: Viking Press.
Murrow, J. L. and Michael R. Hyman (1994), "Direct Marketing:
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