The Effectiveness of Environmental Claims among Chinese Consumers: Influences of Claim Type, Country Disposition and Ecocentric Orientation
This study empirically examines how environmental claim type affects the communication effectiveness of environmental advertising claims among Chinese consumers, and how two individual difference variables—country
disposition and ecocentric orientation—moderate the claim type-effectiveness relationship. The present findings reveal that environmental claim type, country disposition, and ecocentric orientation
all exert significant influences on communication effectiveness. Specifically, it is shown that substantive environmental claims generate greater communication effectiveness than associative environmental
claims for both high-involvement and low-involvement purchases. For both types of purchases, environmental claims also generate more positive responses from consumers exhibiting a strong ecocentric orientation
than from those exhibiting a weak ecocentric orientation. In addition, when compared with those holding a negative country disposition toward the source country, consumers holding a positive country disposition
express more favorable responses toward environmental claims in high-involvement purchases. Finally, the present study also reveals that country disposition and ecocentric orientation jointly exert significant
moderating effects on the claim type-effectiveness relationship in high-involvement purchases. These results remind marketers of the importance of adopting a situational perspective by taking country disposition
and ecocentric orientation into account when determining which types of environmental claims should be employed to appeal to their targeted Chinese consumers.
Keywords: CHINA; COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS; COUNTRY DISPOSITION; ECOCENTRIC ORIENTATION; ENVIRONMENTAL ADVERTISING; ENVIRONMENTAL CLAIM TYPE
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 April 2004
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