Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Resource Scarcity Appeal In Green Advertisements On Green Consumption

In recent years,environmental problems,such as haze,water pollution,energy shortage and land desertification,have become increasingly severe environmental problems.Consumers’ attention to environmental protection has continued to increase.It has been recognized that human activities may have disastrous consequences on human society and the earth.In order to ensure the long-term survival of future generations and achieve sustainable economic and social development,it is imperative to curb environmental degradation and improve the ecological environment.Under the realistic influence of the awakening of consumers’ environmental awareness and the strong advocacy of the concept of green development by the state,green consumption has gradually become a new consumption with great market prospects."Green" has become a very popular theme in the market.More and more enterprises are committed to the research and development and production of green products and services.Consumers also hope that the business activities of enterprises will be more environmentally friendly.Surveys show that nearly 90% of consumers believe that providing environmentally friendly products to society is a long-term market opportunity for enterprises.The concept of "healthy,low carbon and environmental protection" is quietly entering consumers’ daily life and expanding its influence.In order to seize the green market,get the first place in the green market,and continue to expand the green market by promoting green consumption,enterprises has begun to actively carry out green marketing strategies.Green advertising is an extremely important marketing tool for enterprises to carry out green marketing strategies.Green advertising can disseminate products and environmental information such as green,environmental protection,low carbon,energy saving to consumers,and promote consumers’ green purchase intention andbehavior.Terra Choice Environmental Marketing found that the number of green advertisements today is nearly 10 times that of 20 years ago.The effectiveness of green advertising has attracted the attention of scholars and marketing practitioners.According to the different themes of advertisements,green advertisements can be divided into four categories: product-oriented green advertisements,which describe the green characteristics of product attributes as the content of advertisements,process-oriented green advertisements,which emphasize that products are beneficial to the environment through some way in the production process,image-oriented green advertisements,which emphasize the image of enterprises protecting the environment as the theme of advertisements,and environmental information-oriented green advertisements,which classify the environmental facts in the content of the advertisement.However,most of the existing studies focus on the first three types of green advertisements.The in-depth study on environmental fact green advertisements is relatively rare,especially on the scarcity of natural resources in environmental information.The study on the impact of resources scarcity appeal in green advertisements on consumers is very rare.In recent decades,with the rapid development of economy,the global demand for material resources has risen rapidly.Resource exhaustion has become one of the most important environmental problems facing mankind.For some green products related to resource consumption(such as new energy vehicles,energy-saving household appliances,etc.),The green advertisement of enterprises may involve energy shortage,resource scarcity and other resource scarcity demands.However,unlike other green advertisements,resource scarcity appeals may have both positive and negative effects on consumers’ green purchase behavior and intention.On the one hand,the information transmission of environmental issues such as natural resources can enhance consumers’ attention to the environment,change consumers’ attitudes towards environmental protection,and promote consumers to have a positive green purchase intention.On the other hand,the scarcity of resources will cause people to have a sense of crisis and competition,make people more stingy and selfish,hope to get more benefits and social welfare,which may lead consumers to become more self-interested and unwilling to dopro-social behavior and altruistic behavior.Therefore,whether enterprises should adopt resource scarcity appeal in green marketing and how to use resource scarcity appeal requires further deep research and exploration.It is necessary to deeply analyze the influence mechanism and effect of resource scarcity appeal on green purchase behavior and intention.However,there is still a lack of sufficient research and attention in the academies.Based on this,this study focuses on the impact of resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements on green purchase intention.Self-construal is introduced as a moderating variable,environmental awareness and competitive awareness as mediating variables,and a moderated mediator model is constructed to explore the mechanism of resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements on green product purchase intention.Based on previous studies,this study proposes that for two different types of green products-egoistic green products and altruistic green products,the impact of resource scarcity appeal on consumers’ purchase behavior will be different.In view of the difference of this effect,this paper chooses the consumer trait variables as the boundary conditions,and explores the consumers’ purchase intention and its influencing mechanism after different types of self-construal consumers receiving the information of resource scarcity appeal.At the same time,environmental awareness and competitive awareness are introduced as mediating variables.According to the different types of consumers’ self-construal,two mediating paths are formed for both egoistic and altruistic green products.Specifically,for the interdependent self-construal consumers,the resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements affects the purchase intention of two types of green products through the mediating effect of environmental awareness;for the independent self-construal consumers,the resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements affects the purchase intention of two types of green products through the mediating effect of competitive awareness.Four experiments were conducted to verify the above mechanisms and hypotheses.The following conclusions were drawn: Firstly,the effect of resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements on the purchase intention of different types ofgreen products was different.Resource scarcity appeal could significantly affect the purchase intention of egoistic green products,but had no significant impact on the purchase intention of altruistic green products.Secondly,self-construal moderates the impact of resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements on green purchase intention.For egoistic green products,both interdependent and independent self-construal consumers,resource scarcity appeal can improve consumers’ green purchase intention;for altruistic green products,resource scarcity appeal can improve the purchase intention of interdependent self-construal consumers,but will reduce the purchase intention of independent self-construal consumers.Thirdly,there is a moderated mediating effect of environmental awareness and competitive awareness between resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements and green purchase intention.Resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements has different effects on consumers’ environmental awareness and competitive awareness of different types of self-construal consumers,and then has different effects on purchase intention of two types of green products.Specifically,resource scarcity appeal can improve the environmental awareness of interdependent self-construal consumers,but it has no significant impact on their competitive awareness.Through the mediating role of environmental awareness,resource scarcity appeal can improve their purchase intention of egoistic green products and altruistic green products.Resource scarcity appeal can improve the competitive awareness of independent self-construal consumers,but it has no significant impact on their environmental awareness.Through the mediating role of competitive awareness,resource scarcity appeal can improve their purchase intention of egoistic green products,while reduce their purchase intention of altruistic green products.Based on the conclusions above,this study fills in the relevant research on green advertising and green consumption,and enriches the theoretical research results on green consumption.In theory,this study introduce as a new research variable,the resource scarcity appeal in the field of green consumption and green advertising,launches the research on the effect of green advertising from the perspective of advertising content,and provides new ideas,new perspectives for the existingresearch.Based on this research variable,the mechanism model of the influence of resource scarcity appeal on green purchase intention is constructed,and the moderating role of self-construal and the mediating role of environmental awareness and competitive awareness are identified;two mediating paths between resource scarcity appeal and purchase intention of egoistic green products and altruistic green products for different self-construal consumers are discussed.In marketing practice,this study has important reference value for enterprises to carry out green marketing strategies and to advertise green products.It provides a rational decision-making method for enterprises in choosing the theme and content of green advertisements.It proposes that enterprises should establish the connection between resource scarcity appeal in green advertisements and green purchase,and attach importance to the relationship between resource scarcity appeal and self-construal type,and match the connection between environmental awareness,competitive awareness and green product purchase.