Bitter or sweet? The interactive impact of message framing and environmental attitude on the effectiveness of green advertising

ABSTRACTThis study explores the external stimulus and internal psychological characteristics that influence green advertising's effectiveness while considering the interactive effect of message framing and environmental attitudes and the mediating role of process fluency. The results showed that if a consumer has a strong environmental attitude, gain-framed green advertising more significantly impacts their attitudes toward green advertising and products and their pro-environmental behavior intentions than loss-framed advertising. Conversely, if the consumer has a weak environmental attitude, loss-framed green advertising more significantly impacts their attitudes toward green advertising and products than gain-framed messaging but does not affect their pro-environmental behavior. Additionally, it was found that process fluency mediates the interactive effect of message framing and environmental attitudes on the effectiveness of green advertising.KEYWORDS: Message framinggreen advertisinggain-framingloss-framingenvironmental attitude AcknowledgementsThanks to the responsible editors and reviewers for their comments to this study, which greatly improved the study.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Science Foundation [grant number 22LLXC017YB].Notes on contributorsLinya FuLinya Fu, MSc, is a PhD student of School of Journalism and Communication at Wuhan University. Her research interests include advertising and media economy.Jian GaoJian Gao, PhD, is a lecturer of School of Business Administration at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics. His research interests include green lifestyle and green consumption behavior. He earned his PhD in management from Jilin University, China.