Promoting biodiversity: do consumers prefer feelings, facts, advice or appeals?

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore consumers’ responses to emotional and normative communication in comparison with traditional informational campaigns promoting pro-environmental behavior in the context of biodiversity. By adopting the approach of likeability of the communication, the paper identifies which type of communication strategy is liked by consumers’ and which dimensions define likeability in the context of biodiversity. The goal is to improve the effectiveness of communication messages delivered by social marketers or public policy makers through a better understanding of consumers’ responses to different communication strategies. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate which communications strategies are perceived as likeable in the context of promoting biodiversity and to explore the dimensions that underlie likeability of the communication a qualitative study was conducted. First, the information design with the different communication strategies has been developed. Second, focused interviews with 25 individuals have been conducted. Findings – Results indicate that communication strategies using positive emotions led to most favorable responses. Further, findings suggest that informational strategies seem to result in positive attitudes when they tap on procedural knowledge. Favorable judgments are linked with communication strategies that create awareness or which are relevant and informative. Research limitations/implications – Further empirical research is suggested exploring consumers’ responses to communication strategies that combine emotions and facts. Practical implications – Based on the findings of this study, social marketers and public policy makers are recommended to use a combination of communication strategies that evoke positive emotions and provide consumers with the facts necessary to take action. Originality/value – The paper allows for an integrated view and contributes to an increased understanding of responses to communication strategies and provides valuable practical implications for social marketers and public policy makers.

Effectiveness of biodiversity‐conservation marketing

“…Conservation marketing techniques evaluated in this body of research included written text or messages (Hart & Larson ; Schaffner et al. ), still images (Ross et al. ), videos (Weinstein et al.…”

“…Both studies found statistically significant differences in outcome scores depending on which video was viewed; however, it was not possible to calculate effect sizes due to the provision of insufficient detail except for 1 outcome in Pearson et al (2011) in which students reported increases in target behaviors from 23% to 85% (OR of 1.35 or small effect). It was not possible to conduct further synthesis of findings from the 14 studies that evaluated conservation-marketing techniques because of the poor methodological quality of these studies (e.g., 3 did not include a comparator group [Dikou & Dionysopoulou 2011;Shaw et al 2014;Schaffner et al 2015]).…”

Towards sustainable consumption: Predicting the impact of social‐psychological factors on energy conservation intentions in Northern Cyprus

“…Relating to current studies on pro‐environmental behaviours, Schaffner et al . () have found that attention is on negative emotions of the individual, yet both positive and negative emotions influence individuals’ intention to act pro‐environmentally. Emphasizing the preceding proposition, Bamberg () and Schaffner et al .…”

“…In this paper, positive or negative emotion refers to the positive or negative mental states when household electricity conservation behaviours are being performed (Wang et al, 2018). Studies have shown that both positive and negative emotional factors such as: pride, excitement, happiness, satisfaction, guilt, anger, contempt, shame and sadness can determine pro-environmental and conservation behaviours (Jhangiani et al, 2015;Schaffner et al, 2015Schaffner et al, , 2017Han and Hyun, 2018). Relating to current studies on proenvironmental behaviours, Schaffner et al (2015) have found that attention is on negative emotions of the individual, yet both positive and negative emotions influence individuals' intention to act pro-environmentally.…”

“…Fourth, positive and negative emotions can be essential factors, which can influence an individuals' behaviour and energy-related decision-making. Thus, emotional factors play vital roles as predictors of electricity conservation intentions (Brosch et al, 2014;Schaffner et al, 2015). Fifth, personal norms should be given attention when discussing environmental sustainability.…”