Performance Appeals, Environmental Knowledge, and Emotions for Green Advertising

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of the green performance appeals in an advertisement on purchase intentions, which are mediated by anticipated positive emotions (i.e., happiness and hope). This study also explores that the mediation model is moderated by individuals’ environmental knowledge. Three experimental conditions were utilized in which three types of green performance appeals (before, after, before–after appeal) were presented in the advertisement of a mock denim brand. Web-based online survey data (N = 201; Amazon MTurk) were analyzed by using ANOVA and PROCESS procedure using SPSS 23.0. The results of this study indicated that when the green-message of fashion products used after-use and before-after appeals, the effect of the green-message can increase individuals’ anticipated happiness and hope, leading to purchase intentions. This strategy of message-appeals especially works for people with low environmental knowledge.