Abstract

Firms often emphasize “green” benefits for products that are only partially more sustainable than alternatives (e.g., a more sustainable packaging with similar product ingredients). The current article posits that such strategies can lead to a perceived claim–fact discrepancy and examines to what extent this makes consumers feel deceived and detracts from attitudes and purchase intentions, even though consumers can intrinsically value the (partial) sustainability improvements. In addition, given that marketing communication often relies on puffery such as exaggerated language and (visual) hyperbole, the article also investigates the effect of the use of puffery versus more subdued claims. Findings from two experiments unveil that when the actual sustainability of packaged products is (partially) discrepant with an overt sustainability claim, this leads to higher perceived deception. The use of puffery has both pros and cons, such that it adds to perceived sustainability but also to perceived deception, and it moderates the effects of actual sustainability. Furthermore, the results provide initial support for the idea that sustainability improvements in only peripheral attributes (packaging) are perceived as more deceptive than sustainability improvements in only central attributes (product contents).

摘要

公司经常强调与替代品相比仅部分更具可持续性的产品的“绿色”效益（例如，具有相似产品成分的更可持续的包装）。当前的文章假定此类策略会导致感知到的声明与事实之间的差异，并研究这在多大程度上使消费者感到受骗并影响态度和购买意图，即使消费者可以从本质上重视（部分）可持续性改进。此外，鉴于营销传播通常依赖夸张的语言和（视觉）夸张等夸张手法，本文还研究了夸张手法的使用与更柔和的说法的效果。两项实验的结果表明，当包装产品的实际可持续性（部分）与公开的可持续性声明不一致时，这导致更高的感知欺骗。使用泡芙有利也有弊，它既增加了感知的可持续性，也增加了感知的欺骗性，并且缓和了实际可持续性的影响。此外，结果初步支持这样一种观点，即仅外围属性（包装）的可持续性改进被认为比仅中心属性（产品内容）的可持续性改进更具欺骗性。