SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Business Administration
No 2011:8:
Advertising Media and the Green Environmental Aspect
Claudia A. Rademaker ()
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that consumer trust in
advertising is low and continues to diminish. Researchers have also found
that a big share of advertising investments is placed in less favorable
media which can contribute to consumers’ increasing disbelief towards
advertising. The results of the present study add to these previous
findings by showing that the consumers’ trust levels in advertising vary
among the 11 different media studied and that the marketing managers’
beliefs about consumers are not consistent with the consumers’ attitudes
toward and usage of advertising media. Ignoring this phenomenon may have
consequences for companies investing in less favorable media and thereby
adding to consumers’ increasing disbelief towards advertising.
The
greatest discrepancy was found for ads on TV. The marketing managers seem
to believe incorrectly that ads on TV are not only more trusted but also
more used by consumers than the consumers claim. The consumers were found
to have more negative attitudes toward TV advertising than what the
marketing managers believe about consumers. TV is also perceived by the
consumers as more harmful for the green environment than the marketing
managers believe about consumers.
The results show that the consumers
have more positive attitudes toward direct marketing than the marketing
managers believe about them. The consumers perceive direct marketing as
better, less irritating and less harmful for the environment compared to
the marketing managers’ beliefs about them. In addition, the consumers
claim to make more use of ads in many of the paper-based media than TV
advertising when they want to buy different products. This was found to be
not consistent with the marketing managers’ beliefs about consumers. The
consumers were found to have more negative attitudes toward advertising
through the mobile phone than the marketing managers believe about
consumers. Advertising through the mobile phone is considered by the
consumers as one of the worst, most irritating and least trusted medium
among the 11 advertising media studied. Moreover, the consumers consider
the mobile phone to be more harmful for the green environment compared to
the marketing managers’ beliefs about consumers.
The results also show
that the marketing managers feel more personal responsible towards caring
for the green environment than the consumers. In addition, both the
marketing managers and the consumers were found to have equally high
demands and expectations of organizations to act responsibly toward the
green environment. This contradicts previous findings that showed that the
green environmental aspect is among the factors that are the least
considered when marketing managers work with marketing communication in
general and advertising media selection in particular. Furthermore, this
study found that green environmental responsibility attitude (GERA) is
weakly related to the perception on the green environmental aspect of
advertising media. Thus, the discrepancies found in this study between the
consumers and marketing managers regarding their green environmental
perceptions on the 11 different advertising media should be explained by
other factors.
Keywords: Advertising Media; Attitudes; Consumers; Marketing Managers; Green Environment; Green Environmental Responsibility Attitude (GERA); (follow links to similar papers)
47 pages, December 7, 2011
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