Research On The Driving Mechanism Of Benefit Appeals In The Green Advertising On Green Consumption Behavior

Environmental problems such as climate change,depletion of natural resources,and air pollution have aroused widespread concern of the government,enterprises and the public,and also promoted the emergence of green consumption.Many enterprises realized that the developing trend of green consumption,and began to integrate the green concept into their products.Green advertising is the most frequently used means in practicing green marketing.How to improve the effect of green advertising and promote the transformation of green consumption concept into real behavior has always been the focus of enterprises.Consumers’ green purchasing behavior is driven by certain benefit appeals.According to the different beneficiaries of green consumption,consumers’ green purchasing behavior can be classified into self-benefit appeals and social-benefit appeals.In the implementation of green advertising,enterprises are faced with the choice of using self-benefit appeals or social-benefit appeals.In the current literature,there is no unanimous view about the effectiveness of the self-benefit appeals and the social-benefit appeals on green consumption behavior.Afterward,some scholars introduced other variables to explore the impact of selfbenefit appeals and social-benefit appeals on green consumption behavior,mainly focused on the perspectives of consumers’individual differences and situational characteristics.Notably,there is a matching effect between product benefits and advertising message types.When the benefit appeals match with the advertising message types,the advertising effect can be maximized.However,there is no research to study the matching relationship between green consumption benefit appeals and advertising message types.Exploring the effectiveness of green consumption benefit appeals from the perspective of advertising message types,in theory,helps to broaden the research perspective of green consumption benefit appeals,and enrich the research results of green advertising and green consumption.In practice,it has important guiding significance for enterprises to improve the green advertising effect.Thus,this study focused on the green consumption benefit appeals from the perspective of advertising message types,aiming to construct a comprehensive theoretical framework consists of green consumption benefit appeals,green purchase intention,and advertising message types.The framework also included perceived product quality,self-efficacy,collective efficacy,response efficacy and perceived manipulative intention as mediating variables,and introduced the sense of power as a moderating variable.This study discussed whether there is interaction effect between advertising message types(competence message vs.warmth message)and the green consumption benefit appeals based on the stereotype model;whether there is interaction effect between advertising message types(desirability message vs.feasibility message)and green consumption benefit appeals Based on construal levels theory;whether there is interaction effect between advertising message types(one-side message vs.two-side message)and green consumption benefit appeals.Specifically,this paper studied the mediating role of perceived product quality and collective efficacy in the interactive effect between green consumption benefit appeals and competence(warmth)message,the mediating role of self-efficacy and response efficacy in the interactive effect between green consumption benefit appeals and desirability(feasibility)message,and the mediating role of perceived manipulative intention in the interactive effect between green consumption benefit appeals and oneside(two-side)message.In addition,this study explored the moderating role of the sense of power among the above interactions.Three sub studies including six laboratory experiments and two field experiments were conducted to verify the hypotheses.The main conclusions are as follows:firstly,there is an interactive effect between the green consumption benefit appeals and the advertising message types(competence message vs.warmth message)on green purchase intention.In particular,when advertising expresses the self-benefit appeals of green consumption,competence message can trigger more positive green purchase intention.When advertising expresses the social-benefit appeals of green consumption,warmth message can trigger more positive green purchase intention.For self-benefit appeals,perceived product quality mediates the relationship between advertising message types(competence message vs.warmth message)and green purchase intention.For social-benefit appeals,collective efficacy mediates the relationship between advertising message types(competence message vs.warmth message)and green purchase intention.The sense of power moderates the interactive effect of green consumption benefit appeals and the advertising message types(competence message vs.warmth message)on green purchase intention.Secondly,there is an interactive effect between the green consumption benefit appeals and the advertising message types(desirability message vs.feasibility message)on green purchase intention.When advertising expresses the self-benefit appeal of green consumption,feasibility message can trigger more positive green purchase intention.When advertising expresses the social-benefit appeal of green consumption,desirability message can trigger more positive green purchase intention.For self-benefit appeals,self-efficacy mediates the relationship between advertising message types(desirability message vs.feasibility message)and green purchase intention.For social-benefit appeals,response efficacy mediates the relationship between advertising message types(desirability message vs.feasibility message)and green purchase intention.The sense of power has a moderating effect on the interaction of green consumption benefit appeals and the advertising message types(desirability message vs.feasibility message).Thirdly,there is an interactive effect between green consumption benefit appeals and the advertising message types(one-side message vs.two-side message)on green purchase intention.When the one-side message matches the social-benefit appeals,and the two-side message matches the self-benefit appeals,it can trigger more positive green purchase intention.The sense of power has moderating effect on the interaction of green consumption benefit appeals and the advertising message types(one-side message vs.two-side message).The main creativities of this article are as follows:firstly,from the perspective of advertising message types,this study explored the driving effect of green consumption benefit appeals on green consumption behavior,expanding the research perspectives of studying the relationship between green consumption benefit appeals and green consumption behavior.Secondly,this paper analyzed the cognitive differences caused by self-benefit appeals and social-benefit appeals for the first time,so as to deepen the understanding of green consumption benefit appeals,and provide more possible perspectives for studying the impact of green consumption benefit appeals on green consumption behavior.Thirdly,it introduced psychological perception variables such as perceived product quality,self-efficacy,collective efficacy,response efficacy and perceived manipulative intention,and deeply analyzed the psychological process of synergy between green consumption benefit appeals and advertising message types,which provides a new mechanism for driving green consumption behavior.Fourthly,by verifying the moderating effect of the sense of power,this paper proved that the interaction between green consumer benefit appeals and advertising message types is adjustable,so as to provide more in-depth thinking for scholars and enterprises.