ENVIRONMENTAL CLAIMS AND ADVERTISEMENT EFFECTIVENESS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON PRINT ADVERTISEMENTS

The study investigates the effects of environmental claims and claim specificity on advertisement effectiveness. An experimental study is conducted using hypothetical print advertisements for three product categories, namely laundry machines, wrist watches, and DVD players. Findings indicate that the existence of environmental claims significantly improves respondent evaluations in the wrist watches and DVD players categories, whereas in the laundry machines category no such effects are observed. In addition, advertising claim specificity (using vague versus specific claims) significantly improves consumer evaluations of DVD players but does not seem to exert significant effects on evaluations of laundry machines and wrist watches. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.