Closing the Green Gap: The Impact of Environmental Commitment and Advertising Believability

Abstract

We investigated how consumer and message characteristics affect the consistency between message acceptance and purchase intention for green products (viz., green gap). Participants were 231 adults who were approached in various public places in South Korea (e.g., shopping malls). We used 2 mock advertisements with fictitious brand names. Our data showed that participants who were committed to environmentally friendly behaviors, as measured by their past proenvironmental behaviors, displayed a tighter relationship between accepting green advertising messages and intending to purchase green products. Furthermore, the acceptance–intention relationship was even stronger among participants who were strongly committed to environmentally friendly behaviors and who also found the advertising message believable. Our research findings add to the literature on the attitude–behavior relationship by demonstrating that both dispositional and message factors strengthen thought–action connections.