Can evoking nature in advertising mislead consumers? The power of ‘executional greenwashing'

TLDR

The study investigates the “executional greenwashing” effect, where nature‑evoking elements in ads artificially boost a brand’s ecological image. It tests whether this effect varies with consumer environmental knowledge and whether environmental performance information can counteract it. Two environmental performance indicators, aligned with current international policies, are used to mitigate the effect. Experiments with French consumers show that nature cues mislead low‑knowledge consumers, but a traffic‑light label with a raw figure eliminates the bias for both experts and non‑experts, highlighting regulatory implications.

Abstract

This paper examines the ‘executional greenwashing’ effect, defined as the use of nature-evoking elements in advertisements to artificially enhance a brand's ecological image. Using classic models of information processing and persuasion, the research tests whether ‘executional greenwashing’ differs as a function of consumer knowledge about environmental issues in the product category and whether environmental performance information can counterbalance the effect by helping consumers form an accurate evaluation of the brand's ecological image. Three experiments with French consumers reveal that evoking nature does mislead consumers in their evaluation of a brand's ecological image, especially if they have low knowledge of environmental issues. Two indicators of environmental performance, based on current international policies, are tested to counteract ‘executional greenwashing’. Whereas a raw figure is not sufficient to help non-expert consumers revise their judgment, accompanying the figure with a traffic-light label eliminates ‘executional greenwashing’ amongst both experts and non-experts. Theoretical and regulatory implications are discussed.