Green, greener, greenwashing? The effect of (mis)alignment between green brand logos and corporate environmental performance on perceived greenwashing, brand attitude, brand credibility and purchase intentions in a cross-national context.

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2021-08-01
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en
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Brand logos are considered a key design element in marketing communications and can be used to communicate a brands’ personality. Green advertising research suggests that the color green in marketing communications is associated with eco-friendliness and that false claims of ecofriendliness by brands can lead to accusations of greenwashing and in turn decreased consumer perceptions about the brand. The aim of this study was to replicate the effects of the color green from green advertising research by investigating the effects of (mis)alignment between green brand logo redesigns and corporate environmental performance (CEP) on consumers’ perceptions of greenwashing, brand attitude, brand credibility and purchase intention in a crossnational context. A scenario-based experiment was conducted among 148 Dutch and German participants using two levels of brand logo (original vs. green) and two levels of CEP (high vs. low). The results showed no significant effect of green brand logo redesign, no main effect of nationality nor significant interactions of brand logo color, CEP and nationality. However, the results imply a main effect of CEP in such a way that a high CEP indicates lower ratings for perceived greenwashing and higher ratings for brand attitude, brand credibility and purchase intention. Theoretically, these results do not support previous findings on the eco-friendly perception of the color green and the effect of misalignment between use of the color green and CEP on accusations of greenwashing. The results do support previous results on the positive effect of high CEP on brand evaluations. Further investigations are required to examine the effects of other design elements in brand logos that might influence the perception of ecofriendly brand personalities. In practice, marketing specialists should be aware that the most effective way to create an eco-friendly brand personality is to indeed engage in a positive environmental performance.
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Faculteit der Letteren