Green Advertising on Social Media: Brand Authenticity Mediates the Effect of Different Appeals on Purchase Intent and Digital Engagement

Abstract This research investigates the effects of digital context on perception of green advertising. We challenge the common advertising practice of posting similar content across platforms by showing how the same ad is received differently by consumers on different digital channels. We use social norms theory (SNT) to build our hypotheses and test them with two experiments. We demonstrate that on a news website, brand quality is the mechanism for the persuasive effect of an appeal (product, environmental, or hybrid). However, on Instagram (Study 1) and Facebook (Study 2), brand authenticity is the persuasive mechanism for generating purchase intent and digital engagement. Results provide converging evidence for brand authenticity as a pivotal factor for green brand success on social media.