Maximizing the Communicative Persuasiveness of Environmental Products: An exploratory study of the effects of nonverbal visual and material packaging design on product quality attributions

Published: 17 July 2018| Version 3 | DOI: 10.17632/mj8hxbsgsf.3
Contributors:
,

Description

Practitioners frequently use ecological designed semantic on packaging to provide consumers with information about the environmental quality of the product itself. However, discrepancies between packaging cues and actual pro-environmental product quality trigger confusion and mistrust regarding organic products (i.e., “greenwashing” a conventional product with ecological semantics, “conventional-washing” an organic product with conventional semantics”). This study sought to understand whether (nonverbal) ecological packaging semantics would equate to increases in attributed environmental product quality; the persuasiveness of nonverbal packaging design media (i.e., visual, material), effects on further quality attributions and marketing-relevant variables (e.g., trustworthiness, willingness to pay) and the influence of consumers’ environmental consciousness levels. Findings indicate robust spillover effects of ecological design communications on a product's perceived environmental friendliness, which in turn was correlated to further quality attributions and marketing-relevant variables (e.g., trustworthiness, willingness to pay). Moreover, individuals’ environmental consciousness (EC) showed as a relevant moderating variable, with spillover effects being more pronounced for individuals with rather low EC.

Files

Categories

Sustainability, Attribution, Ecological Product Design, Consumer Perception, Consumer Attitudes, Environmental Quality

Licence