Effects of Implicit vs. Explicit Green Claims for Inherently Ungreen Products on Consumers’ Virtual Nature Experience, Brand Attitude, and Purchase Intention

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Objectives This study examined effects of green claims made by inherently ungreen product companies, specifically focusing on whether implicit green claims using natural imagery would be more effective than explicit green claims using detailed environmental statements. We compared the effects of implicit vs. explicit green claims on consumers’ virtual nature experience, brand attitude, and purchase intention.
Methods Two rounds of online experiments were conducted with a sample of 350 U.S. adults and experimental stimuli representing the two different green claim conditions.
Results Overall, our results show that implicit green claims lead to stronger virtual nature experience than explicit green claims. In other words, inherently ungreen products that are traditionally perceived as not environmentally friendly and not associated with nature can be transformed by an implicit green claim to evoke virtual nature experience. In contrast to previous findings, which showed that implicit green claims positively influenced brand attitude, our study findings demonstrate no such effects in the context of inherently ungreen products.
Conclusions Our results show that male and female participants respond differently regarding virtual nature experience and purchase intention across claim types.

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