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How Guilt Level Affects Green Advertising Effectiveness?

Marissa Jimnez and Kenneth C.C. Yang Journal of Creative Communications 2008 3: 231 DOI: 10.1177/097325861000300301 The online version of this article can be found at: http://crc.sagepub.com/content/3/3/231

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:3 (2008): 231254 SAGE PUBLICATIONS Los Angeles London New Delhi Singapore DOI: 10.1177/097325861000300301

ARTICLES

How Guilt Level Affects Green Advertising Effectiveness?

MARISSA JIMNEZ AND KENNETH C.C. YANG
The study employed a between-subject post-test only experimental design to examine whether guilt appeal levels affected green advertising effectiveness measured by consumers attitude towards the advertisement and the brand. Furthermore, guilt-aroused feelings were examined for their effects. The study was conducted among 121 students in a large public university in the southwest of the United States (US). Empirical results supported the effects of guilt appeal on green advertising effectiveness. Participants were found to have more favourable attitudes towards the green advertisement and advertised brand when exposed to a low guilt advertisement than to a high guilt advertisement. Among three guiltinduced feelings, angryirritated emotion and self-conscious emotion were found to moderate consumers attitudes towards the green advertisement and the advertised brand. Keywords: green advertising, advertising effectiveness, experiment, guilt appeal, guilt-aroused feelings

INTRODUCTION
The United States (US) comprises only 5 per cent of the worlds population, but has consumed about ve times more than an average Mexican, 10 times as much as an average Chinese and 30 times more than the average person in India (Motavalli 2004). William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, criticized that [i]ts not the population, its the consumption that can do us in (The Associated Press 2006: 2). These alarming facts are one of the driving forces that motivate socially responsible researchers to look for green advertising strategies to inuence green consumption and behaviours in response to the worsening environment.

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Particularly, advertisers within any corporation should play an active role in promoting sustainable development and societal goals because they have the resources and the skills to shape public opinions (Zinkhan & Carlson 1995). Consumer behaviour researchers have suggested that it does not only take the willingness to get involved to change behavioural patterns (Blackwell et al. 2001), it also requires that consumers needs and preferences for ecologically friendly products must be met in terms of the availability and affordability (Bhate 2001). More importantly, advertisers need to communicate with clarity the green products environmental benets, product performance and other attributes (Wong et al. 1996). As a result, green advertising should play a critical role in making consumers aware of the consequences of their consumption behaviour. For consumers to consider ecologically friendly products, it requires that all three forces, that is, consumer, corporations and government integrate their communication efforts to accomplish this effectively. It is also vital to understand how green advertising strategies can be integrated to communicate environmental issues, promote consumer involvement, promote sustainable development and raise consumers environmental concerns. Green Advertising Green advertising is dened as the promotional messages that may appeal to the needs and desires of environmentally-concerned consumers (Zinkhan & Carlson 1995: 1). Banerjee et al. (1995: 22) further dened green advertising as any advertising that meets at least the following criteria: explicitly or implicitly addresses the relationship between a product/service and the biophysical environment; promotes a green lifestyle with or without highlighting a product/service; and/or presents a corporate image of environmental responsibility. Green advertising is as an important social marketing instrument to promote environmentally friendly products, welfare, safety, risk minimization and the avoidance of dissatisfaction (Peattie & Peattie 2003) and has been in combination with other marketing strategies, which seek to encourage cooperation to full social goals (Wiener & Doescher 1991). Fox and Kotler (1980) suggested that, like other social advertising, green advertising campaigns need to promote social causes through advertising appeals that communicate cost reductions to consumers in exchange for engagement in pro-socialenvironmental behaviours or at least, the intention to act pro-environmentally. Since the 1970s, green advertising has been studied extensively to help develop effective environmental communication strategies targeting green consumers (Stafford et al. 1996). Some of these studies examined green advertising strategies for environmental manufacturing processes, green products and environmental consumption (Carlson et al. 1993; Olney 1991).
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Furthermore, marketing scholars have also studied environmental concerns to identify green message content (Ellen et al. 1991; Stafford et al. 1996). Their studies have analyzed how marketers communicate environmental benets of products through general product claims (Morris et al. 1995). Recent studies further examined consumer resistance to green advertisements messages because of believability and credibility concerns (DSouza and Taghian 2005). A recurrent theme in green advertising research has been what advertising appeals can make green advertising more effective (Banerjee et al. 1995; Krn et al. 2001; Wagner & Hansen 2002). These studies mostly employed content analysis methodology to examine various green advertising appeals (Iyer & Banerjee 1993; Stafford et al. 1996). For example, Iyer and Bannerjee (1993) created a typology of six green appeals with each one containing subcategories, including the emotional, nancial, euphoria, management, social responsibility and comparative green appeals. Similarly, Stafford et al. (1996) used seven green issues as advertising appeals: concern for waste, concern for wildlife, concern for the biosphere, concern for popular issues, concern for health, energy awareness and concern for environmental technology. Although content analysis studies of green advertisements have provided a thorough descriptive study in how green advertisements have been created (Stafford et al. 1996), these studies lack a causal assessment of which advertising appeals will be most effective in changing consumer green behaviour. To address the lack of experimental study in green advertising research, this study used an experimental method to better assess consumers responses to green advertisements as measured by their attitudes towards green advertisements and towards advertised green brands.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

Advertising practitioners have used various types of advertising appeals to help form and change attitudes to persuade consumers to buy (Edell & Burke 1987). One of the emotional appeals found to be very useful to feeling arousal in advertising has been guilt (Bozinoff and Ghingold 1983). Guilt appeals have been found to become more and more accepted as a persuasive technique (Burnett & Lunsford 1994; Mitchell et al. 2001). Guilt appeals also focus on the aspect of consumer behaviour that addresses a past or future violation of a norm or as failing to care for other people (Huhmann & Brotherton 1997). Lascu (1991) dened guilt as an internal emotional response involving penitence, remorse, self-blame and self-punishment experienced after violating or contemplating to violate an internalized standard. Kugler and Jones (1992) dened guilt as a ones own acknowledgement
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of having violated a personal standard. A sense of guilt was found to urge consumers to make some kind of retribution for the violation of a standard (Ghingold 1981). In past advertising research, guilt was often treated as a motivational medium and emotional appeal (Coulter & Pinto 1995). Bozinoff and Ghingold (1983) argued that guilt is similar to other negative emotions (for example, fear), but separate from these emotions because it has demonstrated that it can arouse guilt independently of other emotions in order to change message-specic attitudes (attitudes concerning the advertisement). In addition, empirical evidence supports that advertisements can be designed to arouse guilt using an emotional appeal in a predictable manner (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Ghingold 1981; Huhmann & Brotherton 1997). Recent guilt appeal research continues to explore the interaction of guilt with other consumer negative (such as shame or sadness) (Mitchell et al. 2001; Planalp et al. 2000) or positive feelings (such as happiness) (Planalp et al. 2000). Burnett and Lunsford (1994) and Huhmann and Brotherton (1997) have speculated whether negative emotional advertising appeals (such as guilt appeals) may inuence consumers attitudes and purchase intentions or purchase itself. Bozinoff and Ghingold (1983), Coulter and Pinto (1995) and Pinto and Priest (1991) have found that there were signicant relationships between the level of guilt on consumers attitudes. Coulter and Pinto (1995) found a signicant effect of guilt levels on consumers attitudes towards the adverisement (henceforth, Aad) and brand (henceforth, Ab). Bozinoff and Ghingold (1983) also found that the level of guilt appeals inuenced Aad. Coulter and Pinto (1995) further contended that there was an inverse relationship between the level of guilt, Aad and Ab. They argued that Aad and Ab were more favourable as the intensity of the guilt appeal decreased. Additionally, support for these was provided by Pinto and Priest (1991), who suggested that as the intensity of the guilt appeal increased, Aad became more negative. Coulter and Pinto (1995) speculated consumers resistance played a key role in explaining the inverse relationship. They argued that when consumers believed that a message was trying to force a response, they would feel intimidated and respond unfavourably due to their perceived deprivation of freedom (Coulter & Pinto 1995). They added that intense guilt appeals might be perceived as an attack to ones self or own behaviour and therefore, evaluate the advertisement very negatively (Coulter & Pinto 1995). Moreover, past studies examining the relationship between Aad and Ab in marketing literature have shown that Aad is a signicant predictor of Ab held after being exposed to the advertisement (Lutz et al. 1983). Multiple studies have additionally conrmed that Aad has a direct effect on Ab under a variety of conditions (Batra & Ray 1986; Edell & Burke 1987; Lutz et al. 1983). On the basis of the negative effects of guilt appeal levels on consumers Aad and Ab, the following hypotheses were proposed:
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Hypothesis 1: Consumers attitudes towards the green advertisement (Aad) were negatively inuenced by the guilt level in the green advertisement. Hypothesis 2: Consumers attitudes towards the advertised brand (Ab) were negatively inuenced in the green advertisement. The Mediating Role of Guilt-Induced Feelings and Green Advertising Effectiveness Recent literature on guilt appeals in advertising has explored aroused feelings as a result of exposure to guilt appeals in advertising (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Coulter & Pinto 1995; Delaney 2007; Mitchell et al. 2001; Pinto & Priest 1991). Types of guilt-induced feelings are likely to mediate the relationships between guilt levels and green advertising effectiveness. Past researchers have found that guilt appeals can activate, amplify or attenuate guilt and other emotions in varying degrees by advertisements (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Coulter and Pinto 1995; Delaney 2007; Lascu 1991; Mitchell et al. 2001; Pinto & Priest 1991). Lascu (1991) contended that negative emotions such as guilt arouse anxiety to a certain degree. For instance, Coulter and Pinto (1995) found that the high level of guilt appeal induced anger and the low guilt appeal induced happiness. Moreover, they also found that a high level of guilt appeals induced signicantly more negative emotions than either the moderate or low levels of guilt appeals. Bozinoff and Ghingold (1983) concluded that guilt appeals induced other emotions such as blame and regret. Pinto and Priest (1991) demonstrated evidence to support that guilt appeals aroused guilt, anger and happy emotions in varying degrees by the advertisement. Advertising researchers continued to argue that aroused emotions after being exposed to an advertisement affect consumers attitudes and behaviours (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Burnett & Lunsford 1994; Coulter & Pinto 1995; Delaney 2007; Ghingold 1981). In a similar manner, Yi (1990) argued that induced feelings inuenced attitude formation of the advertisement. Therefore, an aroused emotion after consumers were exposed to guilt appeal green advertising can affect consumers Aad and Ab (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Burnett & Lunsford 1994; Coulter & Pinto 1995). Coulter and Pinto (1995) concluded that the higher the guilt-aroused feelings (for example, angryirritated emotions), the more negative Aad and Ab consumers would develop. Bozinoff and Ghingold (1983) found similar results concluding that the relationship between guilt arousal appeals and message-specic attitudes was mediated by regret and blame. The higher the appeal was, the higher their feelings for blame and regret were. Englis (1990) concurred that when exposed to an intense guilt appeal in an advertisement, consumers would experience higher levels of anger, other negative emotions and lower levels of positive emotions.
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The given discussion has demonstrated the relationship between guilt-induced feelings and advertising effectiveness. Because guilt-induced feelings were formed after consumers were exposed to green advertisements using guilt appeals, we argued that the mediating role of guilt-induced feelings should be examined to better assess the effects of guilt appeal levels on green advertising effectiveness. Thus, the following two research hypotheses were proposed: Research Hypothesis 3: Consumers guilt-induced negative feelings after exposure to guilt appeal in the green advertisements negatively inuence consumers Aad. Research Hypothesis 4: Consumers guilt-induced negative feelings after exposure to the green advertisements negatively inuence consumers Ab.

METHODOLOGY
Selection of Experimental Design A post-test only between-subject experiment was conducted in order to establish causal relationships between guilt appeal levels and participants Aad and Ab. The post-test only experiment was chosen because it applied the highest degree of control, which enhanced its internal validity, and thus, its conclusions were accurate to this particular sample (Frey et al. 2000). In order to establish the highest degree of control for internal validity, this experiment manipulated the level of guilt appeals and the participants were randomly assigned to the treatment to create at least two equivalent conditions as it was required to be considered a full and true experimental design (Patten 2005). In addition, by using the post-test only between-subject design, participants were tested after exposure to only one type of advertisement (containing either level of guilt appeal), and each group was compared to assess their post-test attitudes towards the advertisement and the brand (Frey et al. 2000). Frey et al. (2000) added that this was a very powerful design because it not only took care of potential selection threat (by using random assignment), but it did not risk the sensitization threat. The sensitization threat might occur when participants take a pre-test that inuences the results of a subsequent post-test (Pyrczak 2003). This means that participants might become familiarized with the completed pre-test and their result scores might improve signicantly on the post-test (Pyrczak 2003). This type of experiment was also much easier to execute because participants were exposed only once to one type of advertisement and not multiple times to the different advertisements as the within-group design would do (Frey et al. 2000).
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Sampling Method and Sample Characteristics The study used a convenient sampling method to recruit 140 students in a large metropolitan southwestern university in the US to take part in the study. The convenience sampling method has the advantages of participants availability and willingness to volunteer, especially when offered some kind of reward (Frey et al. 2000; Pyrczak 2003). For that reason, the majority of the students were offered extra credit points by their professors for their participation in the study. Obermiller (1995) supported the use of convenience sampling if the research addressed theoretical hypotheses or questions about the effects of different advertising appeals on other variables, as it was the case of this study. He further added that convenience sampling was appropriate when there was no intention to generalize to a bigger population (Obermiller 1995). It is important to note that from those 140 students participating in this experimental study, some of them were removed from later data analysis on the basis of their responses to screening questions to avoid the threat to internal validity due to participants prior brand knowledge. Some participants were removed when their responses were validated for apparent errors. Consequently, the nal sample was composed of 121 students. Table 1 gives the sample demographics. Slightly more than half of the students were males (50.4 per cent), while the other half was females (49.6 per cent). Regarding their age difference, the majority of the respondents were between the ages of 2024 years (67.8 per cent). In terms of their political ideology, almost half of the respondents considered themselves liberals (49.6 per cent). A very high number of these students were born in the US (n = 98), which constituted 81 per cent of the sample. In addition, the majority of the students ethnical background was Latino-American, which represented 69.4 per cent of the participants. Finally, less than half of the students (43 per cent) reported to have a yearly income of below USD10,000. The rest of the students varied in terms of their income level (see Table 1). Development of Experimental Stimuli A pool of green advertisements from E-Magazine, an environmental magazine, was reviewed and selected for this study. This magazine was chosen because it targeted environmentally concerned consumers (as stated in its website) and all of its advertisements promote environmental causes or products. Magazine advertisements were chosen because of three main reasons: they reached a national audience; they had verbal and visual components that might create guilt; and they usually had an extended copy in which a variety of appeals, including guilt appeals, may appear (Huhmann & Bertherton 1997).
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Table 1 Demographic Profiles of the Sample Personal Characteristics Gender Age Male Female 1819 years old 2024 years old 2529 years old 3034 years old 3539 years old 4044 years old 45 and above Conservative Liberal Other US Citizen Mexican Citizen Dual Citizenship Other Caucasian/White Latino-American African-American Asian-American Other Below US$10,000 US$10,001US$20,000 US$20,001US$30,000 US$30,001US$40,000 US$40,001US$50,000 US$50,001 and above Cases 61 60 10 82 21 3 2 1 2 26 58 33 98 17 5 1 24 84 2 1 10 49 33 14 4 4 10 Percentage 50.4 49.6 8.3 67.8 17.4 2.5 1.7 0.8 1.7 22.2 49.6 28.2 81.0 14.0 4.1 0.8 19.8 69.4 1.7 0.8 8.3 43.0 28.9 12.3 3.5 3.5 8.8

Political Ideology

Nationality

Ethnicity

Income

In order to select the test advertisements, two procedures were conducted. The rst procedure was undertaken by a panel of two independent coders (that is, a communication professor and a marketing professional). They analyzed the guilt advertisements the principal investigator had selected containing different levels of guilt appeals. There were 34 advertisements found to have these characteristics from the issues September/October 2003 to January/February 2007. The judges were provided with the written operational denition of guilt to code these 34 advertisements. The operational denition of guilt appeals was based on an attempt to obtain post-exposure emotional reactions (Unger & Stearns 1983). A low level of guilt appeal was operationalized

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as inhibiting the elicitation of felt guilt due to consumers lack of attention to the message (McGuire 1969) and evoking happyamused emotions formed by laughter, happiness, smile and amusement (Coulter & Pinto 1995). A high level of guilt appeal was operationalized as inhibiting the elicitation of felt guilt because of consumers rejection to the emotional tension the message produces (McGuire 1969) evoking angerirritating emotions composed of irritated, annoyed and angry emotions (Coulter & Pinto 1995). To avoid participants prior brand preference and brand liking, a ctitious brand name, Nature Generation, was created for the environmental cleaning product in the tested advertisements. Cleaning products were chosen because they are low cost and consumer nondurable products that students were likely to purchase. Research suggested that the product price led to an increase in consumer involvement level (Schuhwerk & Lefkoff-Hagius 1995). In addition, it was important to select a product category that students were familiar with and was relevant to their daily life. This was based on the rationale that most college students would do their own laundry regardless of whether they lived in dorms, in their apartments or with their parents. Two test advertisements, varying in levels of guilt appeals, were developed for this study using Photoshop software. The low guilt appeal advertisement was slightly modied to have an appealing visual image other than the products themselves as they appeared on the original advertisement. This image portrayed a drawn colourful house showing its interior, a family living there and its surroundings. It included trees, animals, mountains and streets. Most importantly, the picture contained the houses water system initiating from the water released from the inside of the house, particularly the washer. This visual image was chosen because it reected the consequences of consumers actions. In addition, the slogan was modied stating: The conscious environmental actions start in your home with Nature Generation. This slogan aimed at eliciting readers elaboration about their actions in regards to the activities done at home. The copy of the advertisement promoted the cleaning products as chemical-free and fully biodegradable. The advertisement also added suggestions and statements of action that provided more evidence to support the environmental advantages of the advertised brand. The high guilt appeal advertisement had the same visual image, but different statements of action and suggestions compared to the low guilt appeal advertisement. However, the advertisements copy was developed more aggressively to hold consumers responsible for their actions. The slogan utilized was the same. The objective of the high guilt appeal was to arouse guilt-related feelings for using other commercial products that do not help them or the environment, but rather hurt animals and may lead to serious illnesses in themselves and their loved ones.

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Manipulation Check Pre-testing of the test advertisements was conducted to ensure the intended manipulation, while the manipulation check procedure was done to assess whether the guilt appeal level (low and high) was successfully manipulated in the actual study. This was to determine that the participants evaluated these stimuli as intended and to ensure that the treatment was reliable and valid (Frey et al. 2000). On the basis of the operationalization of guilt, four items were used to assess the manipulation check. These four items were modied from Coulter and Pinto (1995) and Plutchik (1980), including the following adjectives: after reading the advertisement, I feel blameworthy, annoyed, angry and upset. The scales used for the manipulation check had a Cronbachs alpha coefcient of 0.78. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure was run to examine if the manipulation of guilt levels in the test advertisements was successful. All variables selected for manipulation check demonstrated a signicant group difference between low and high guilt appeals. Descriptive statistics between high versus low guilt appeal groups also showed that there was a numerical tendency showing that the low guilt appeal repeatedly had a lower score than the high guilt appeal in the four statements. The low guilt appeal was perceived as less blameworthy (M = 2.52, SD = 0.98), less annoying (M = 2.15, SD = 0.88), less anger provoking (M = 1.97, SD = 0.93) and less upsetting (M = 2.00, SD = 0.86) as compared to the high guilt appeal, which was perceived as more blameworthy (M = 2.95, SD = 1.06), more annoying (M = 2.53, SD = 1.01), more anger provoking (M = 2.45, SD = 1.08) and more upsetting (M = 2.41, SD = 1.09). Instrument Development, Construct Validity and Reliability The study was taken from a large-scale study and only measures related to this study objectives and questions are reported here. A booklet questionnaire was developed to measure participants Aad, Ab, guilt appeal levels, guilt-induced feelings and demographics. Three 5-point semantic differential items ranging from 1 (lowest rating) to 5 (highest rating) were used to measure attitude towards the ad (Aad) (that is, unpleasantpleasant, unconvincingconvincing, unappealingappealing, badgood, harmfulbenecial, worthless valuable) (Wells 1964). A factor analysis procedure with principal component analysis and varimax rotation was conducted to examine the construct validity of Aad. The factor analysis indicated that all three items of the attitude towards the advertisement measure loaded heavily (with factor loading from 0.77 to 0.87) on the factor with a Cronbachs alpha coefcient of 0.77.
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Similarly, three 5-point semantic differential scales were developed to measure participants attitude towards the brand (Ab) (Bruner et al. 1992). A similar factor analysis procedure with principal component analysis and varimax rotation was conducted to examine construct validity of Ab. All three items loaded heavily (with factor loadings from 0.80 to 0.88) on the brand attitude factor. The extracted factor also had a high Cronbachs alpha coefcient of 0.80. Seventeen items measured guilt-induced feelings and guilt appeals and were derived from Coulter and Pinto (1995) and Plutchik (1980). These statements used 5-point Likert scales with 1 representing strongly disagree and 5 representing strongly agree. To assess the multidimensionality of the guilt and guilt-aroused feeling scale, a similar factor analysis procedure with principal component analysis and varimax rotation was conducted. Four factors were extracted with Eigen values ranging from 5.55, 2.31, 2.26 to 1.17. Five items loaded heavily (with factor loading from 0.50 to 0.82) on the rst factor. These items were formed by the following adjectives: angry, annoyed, upset, irritated and uneasy. On the basis of variables, Factor 1 was named, AngryIrritated Emotions Factor. Four items: ashamed, irresponsible, conscience-stricken and bad loaded most heavily (with factor loadings from 0.67 to 0.82) on the second factor. The factor was categorized as AshamedBad Emotions Factor. The third extracted factor included four items: like smiling, happy, like laughing and amused, and was named HappyAmused Emotions Factor. Three remaining items loaded most heavily (with factor loadings from 0.60 to 0.76) on the fourth factor, covering accountable, blameworthy and guilty. The factor was labelled as Self-Conscious Emotions Factor (refer to Table 2). Cronbachs alpha coefcients were run for scale reliability. All four factors had high alpha coefcients: AngryIrritated Emotions ( = 0.86), AshamedBad Emotions ( = 0.84), HappyAmused Emotions ( = 0.73) and Self-Conscious Emotions ( = 0.71). Participants demographic information, previous brand familiarity and participants knowledge of studys objectives were also measured.

FINDINGS
The Effects of Guilt Appeal Level on Green Advertising Effectiveness Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) procedure was used to assess the effects of guilt appeal levels on consumers Aad and Ab that measured green advertising effectiveness. Cronk (2004) discussed that one of the prerequisites in order to run MANOVA was to determine if the dependent variables were conceptually correlated with each other. Therefore, in order to determine the strength of the linear relationship between Aad and Ab, correlation procedure was performed. The results indicated that the relationship between Aad and Ab had a moderate
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Table 2 Guilt and Guilt-Aroused Feeling Measures (Principal Component Analysis with Varimax Rotation) Factor 1 After reading the ad, I feel angry. After reading the ad, I feel annoyed. After reading the ad, I feel irritated. After reading the ad, I feel upset. After reading the ad, I feel uneasy. After reading the ad, I feel good. After reading the ad, I feel ashamed. After reading the ad, I feel irresponsible. After reading the ad, I feel conscience-stricken. After reading the ad, I feel bad. After reading the ad, I feel like smiling. After reading the ad, I feel happy. After reading the ad, I feel like laughing. After reading the ad, I feel amused. After reading the ad, I feel accountable. After reading the ad, I feel blameworthy. After reading the ad, I feel guilty. 0.82 0.81 0.77 0.74 0.50 0.82 0.82 0.77 0.67 0.79 0.74 0.69 0.60 0.76 0.71 0.60 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4

positive correlation (r = 0.68, p = 0.00 < 0.01). Overall, the Pearson correlation suggested that the two dependent variables were correlated to each other. Therefore, MANOVA procedure was appropriate. One-way MANOVA was executed to examine main effects of level of guilt (low or high guilt appeal) on Aad and Ab. Statistically signicant effects were found (Wilks Lambda, F = 3.12, p 0.05) (see Table 3). This meant that Aad and Ab were signicantly inuenced by level of guilt in the test green advertisements. Because the MANOVA analysis reported the model had signicant effects, a follow-up univariate ANOVA procedure was conducted. It is important to note that univariate ANOVA is a very powerful analysis because it assesses the effects of the independent variable(s) and the effect of the interaction (Cronk 2004). The ANOVA results indicated that the Aad and Ab were signicantly inuenced by level of guilt in the ad (see Table 4). Participants attitude towards the green advertisement (Aad) (F = 4.44, p < 0.05) were affected by level of guilt appeal in the ad. The same signicant main effects were for participants attitude towards the brand (Ab) (F = 5.87, p < 0.05). Overall, level of guilt (experimental condition) inuenced consumers Aad and the Ab. Both Hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported by the empirical data. Table 5 suggests that respondents had more positive Aad with a low guilt appeal (M = 3.42, SD = 0.80) than those with a high guilt appeal (M = 3.10, SD = 0.87). In terms of Ab, the
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Table 3 Manova Test for Level of Guilt Effect Pillais Trace Wilks Lambda Hotellings Trace Roys Largest Root Experiment Pillais Trace Wilkis Lambda Hotellings Trace Roys Lartest Root Intercept Value 0.96 0.04 24.99 24.99 0.05 0.95 0.05 0.05 F 1474.92 1474.92 1474.92 1474.92 3.12 3.12 3.12 3.12 Hypothesis df 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 p-value 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 Partial Eta Squared 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 Observed Power 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.59 0.59 0.59 0.59

Note: p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001. Table 4 Univariate Anova for Level of Guilt and Aad and Ab Dependent Variable Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Type III Sum of Squares 3.09 3.48 1286.40 1709.17 3.09 3.48 82.76 70.49 1379.67 1792.44 Mean Square Partial Eta Squared 0.04 0.05 0.94 0.96 0.04 0.05 Observed Power 0.55 0.67 1.00 1.00 0.55 0.67

Source Corrected Model Intercept Experiment Error Total

Df 1 1 1 1 1 1 119 119 121 121

p-value 0.04 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.02

3.09 4.44 3.48 5.87 1286.40 1849.73 1709.17 2885.42 3.09 4.44 3.48 5.87 0.70

Note: p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001.

tendency seemed to be the same. Respondents had more positive Ab that employed a low guilt appeal (M = 3.93, SD = 0.72) than for the one utilizing a high guilt appeal (M = 3.59, SD = 0.82) (see Table 5). The Mediating Effects of Guilt-Induced Feelings on Green Advertising Effectiveness Guilt-induced feelings were used as covariates because the model selected for this study attempted to examine whether guilt-induced feelings had any mediating effects on the interactions between level of guilt (experimental condition), Aad and Ab. Using guilt-induced
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Table 5 Descriptive Statistics for Level of Guilt on Aad and Ab Experiment Condition Respondents attitude towards the tested advertisements Low Guilt Appeal High Guilt Appeal Total Low Guilt Appeal High Guilt Appeal Total Mean 3.42 3.10 3.27 3.93 3.59 3.77 Std. Deviation 0.80 0.87 0.85 0.72 0.82 0.76 N 63 58 121 63 58 121

Respondents attitude towards the tested brand

feelings as covariates helped determine the signicance of the effects that existed among these interactions. To test the meditating effects of guilt-induced feelings, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was performed. According to Frey et al. (2000), the MANCOVA is an extension of analysis of covariance that examines differences among groups on multiple and related dependent variables. This multivariate difference analysis statistically controls for the effects of potentially confounding covariates (Mertler and Vannatta 2002). In this study, the covariate factors were three guilt-induced feelings: AngryIrritated Emotions, AshamedBad Emotions and Self-Conscious Emotions. HappyAmused Emotions was not considered in the analysis because this factor was composed of positive feelings as opposed to the rest of the other three factors which were composed of negative feelings. Therefore, HappyAmused Emotions factor was removed from the analysis. Table 6 shows that the AngryIrritated Emotions factor had signicant main effects (Wilks Lambda, F = 8.15, p < 0.001) as well as the Self-Conscious Emotions factor, which displayed statistically signicant main effects (Wilks Lambda, F = 11.41, p < 0.001) on respondents Aad and Ab. On the other hand, the AshamedBad Emotions factor indicated to have no signicant effects (Wilks Lambda, F = 0.07, p > 0.05). In addition, guilt appeal level in the green ads continued to display main effects (Wilks Lambda, F = 3.20, p < 0.001) (see Table 6). Since the MANCOVA procedure reported the model had signicant main effects, univariate ANOVA was conducted to assess the inuence of the guilt level. Table 7 indicates that signicant effects existed between AngryIrritated Emotions and Aad (F = 15.98, p < 0.001) and Ab (F = 8.46, p < 0.01). The same instance occurred between the Self-Conscious Emotions and Aad (F = 20.74, p < 0.001) and Ab (F = 15.24, p < 0.001). The results also concurred that the level of guilt factor (experimental condition) had also main effects on Aad and Ab as previously found. Overall, guilt-induced feelings, particularly AngryIrritated Emotions factor and SelfConscious Emotions factor, inuenced respondents Aad and Ab (see Table 7).

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Table 6 MANCOVA Test for the Three Guilt-Induced Feelings Factors as Covariates Value F Hypothesis df p-value Partial Eta Squared Observed Power

Effect

Intercept

AngryIrritated Emotions Factor

AshamedBad Emotions Factor

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Self-Conscious Emotions Factor

Experiment

Pillais Trace Wilks Lambda Hotellings Trace Roys Largest Root Pillais Trace Wilks Lambda Hotellings Trace Roys Largest Root Pillais Trace Wilks Lambda Hotellings Trace Roys Largest Root Pillais Trace Wilks Lambda Hotellings Trace Roys Largest Root Pillais Trace Wilks Lambda Hotellings Trace Roys Largest Root

0.53 0.47 1.14 1.14 0.12 0.88 0.14 0.14 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.83 0.20 0.20 0.05 0.95 0.06 0.06

65.38 65.38 65.38 65.38 8.15 8.15 8.15 8.15 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 11.41 11.41 11.41 11.41 3.20 3.20 3.20 3.20

2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.94 0.94 0.94 0.94 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04

0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05

1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.60 0.60 0.60 0.60

Note: p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001.

Table 7 Univariate ANOVA for Three Guilt-Induced Feelings Factors and Aad and Ab Dependent Variable df F p-value Type III Sum of Squares Mean Square Partial Eta Squared Observed Power

Source

Corrected Model

Intercept

AngryIrritated Emotions Factor

AshamedBad Emotions Factor

Self-Conscious Emotions Factor

Experiment

10.55 7.68 79.28 123.45 15.98 8.46 0.12 0.01 20.74 15.24 4.16 5.88

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.73 0.92 0.00 0.00 0.04* 0.02*

0.27 0.21 79.28 0.52 0.12 0.07 0.00 0.00 0.15 0.12 0.04 0.04

1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.98 0.82 0.06 0.05 1.00 0.97 0.53 0.53

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Error

5.72 3.87 43.03 62.23 8.67 4.27 0.07 0.01 11.25 7.68 2.26 2.97 0.54 0.50

Total

Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab Aad Ab

22.90 15.49 43.03 62.23 8.67 4.27 0.07 0.01 11.25 7.68 2.26 2.97 62.95 58.48 1379.67 1792.44

4 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 116 116 121

Note: p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001.

Journal of Creative Communications 3:3 (2008): 231254

DISCUSSIONS
The Influence of Guilt Appeals on Green Advertising Effectiveness The importance of guilt appeals in inuencing consumers responses to the green advertisements have been supported by past advertising studies (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Coulter & Pinto 1995; Pinto & Priest 1991). Coulter and Pinto (1995) contended that the level of the guilt appeal might inuence attitudes and behavioural intentions. Their results provided evidence to support that consumers attitudes were more favourable when exposed to low and moderate guilt appeals. These results were similar to the ones found in this study because the ndings supported that the effect of the guilt appeals signicantly affected Aad and Ab. An inverse relationship between the guilt level and the consumers attitudes (towards the advertisement and the brand) has been found in this study. Coulter and Pinto (1995) also suggested that the higher the level of the guilt appeal, the higher the possibility of a negative reaction indicating the inuence of guilt appeals on consumers attitudes. The empirical data supported that the level of guilt appeals signicantly and inversely affected consumers Aad. In fact, the higher the guilt appeal, the lower the consumers Aad. This was supported by participants favourable evaluation of the advertisements containing low guilt appeals and unfavourable evaluation of the advertisements displaying a high guilt appeal. Similarly, Pinto and Priest (1991) found an inverse relationship between the participants Aad and the level of guilt appeal. Their ndings suggested that Aad was more favourable as the intensity of the guilt appeal decreased. As previously discussed, high guilt appeals in advertisements were often negatively evaluated because they might be perceived as an attack of ones self or own behaviour (Coulter & Pinto 1995). They argued that as consumers believed that the message in a regular advertisement was trying to force a response, they tended to respond unfavourably due to their perceived deprivation of freedom. Empirical data from the experiment supported such an inverse relationship between guilt appeal level and Aad. Past studies have found Aad predicted Ab (Batra & Ray 1986; MacKenzie & Lutz 1989). A linear regression analysis found that Aad signicantly predicted Ab ( = 0.63, t = 10.21, p < 0.001). Therefore, it is not surprising that the results obtained for Aad are similar to those of Ab. In particular, the higher the guilt appeal, the less favourable the evaluation of the brand advertised, just as was the case of Aad. As demonstrated by this studys results, guilt appeals inuence Aad and Ab in the same manner. Results from this research suggest that the type of guilt appeal signicantly inuenced Ab. The exploratory study seemed to suggest that attitudes towards the brand were more favourable as the level of the guilt appeal decreased, as noted by participants preference for
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the brand that employed a low guilt appeal as opposed to the high guilt appeal. As mentioned earlier, other scholars found (for example, Coulter & Pinto 1995; Englis 1990; Pinto & Priest 1991) similar results in terms of the inverse relationship between guilt appeal and Ab; that is, the higher the guilt appeal, the lower the respondents attitude towards the advertised brand. The literature and this studys ndings suggested that in the context of green advertising, the use of low guilt appeals seemed to be more effective for green brands than those appeals that aggressively attack the respondents for not being environmentally conscious. These ndings provided evidence to support that the guilt appeal levels in the advertisement inuenced consumers Aad and Ab. The empirical ndings demonstrated that the high guilt appeals were less preferred than those appeals that portrayed less guilt arguments. These results implied that guilt appeals can be designed to create favourable attitudinal evaluations (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Coulter & Pinto 1995). The rationale follows the fact that guilt appeals that caused lower levels of guilt feelings and more anger feelings turned out to be less effective in communicating with their audiences as opposed to the guilt appeals designed to make consumers environmentally conscious by arousing higher levels of guilt and less angryirritating emotions. However, careful analysis requires that guilt be distinguished from other negative emotions that might not have the same effects on attitudes (Huhmann & Brotherton 1997). That is, guilt appeals demonstrated to be independent of other negative emotional appeals such as fear appeals, which when designed in a similar way as the guilt appeals, might actually generate favourable evaluations among consumers. Therefore, the applicability of these ndings only corresponds to guilt appeals and not other similar negative emotional appeals. The Mediating Effects of Guilt-Induced Feelings on Green Advertising Effectiveness The empirical ndings only found that angryirritated emotions and self-conscious emotions affected signicantly participants Aad, while ashamedbad emotions did not. In this study, Aad was more favourable when feelings elicited by the advertisement evoked more selfconscious emotions than angryirritating emotions and vice versa. Empirical ndings from the experiment showed that guilt-induced feelings mediated the effects of the guilt appeals and respondents Aad. Respondents Aad seemed to favour the advertisements containing less guilt statements that induced less angryirritating emotions and more self-conscious emotions. Conversely, those advertisements portraying more guilt statements that induced more angryirritating emotions and less self-conscious emotions were less accepted. In other words, results demonstrated that respondents Aad was more favourable when exposed to a

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green advertisement with a low guilt appeal because it induced lower negative emotions (for example, angerirritating emotions) and higher positive emotions (for example, self-conscious emotions). It is important to differentiate between guilt appeals and guilt-induced feelings, but rst, it is relevant to review some ndings. Guilt appeals in the advertisement manifested themselves as having an inverse relationship with Aad. The higher the level of guilt in the test advertisement is, the lower the Aad is. On the other hand, guilt-induced feelings manifested themselves in a similar manner: the low guilt appeal aroused more self-conscious emotions and less angryirritating emotions, which inuenced more positively the Aad. The high guilt appeal aroused the opposite feelings, for example, more angerirritating emotions and less self-conscious emotions, which in fact had a negative inuence on Aad. Therefore, both guilt appeals and guilt-induced feelings are good predictors of consumers attitude towards the advertisement because they displayed the same results in affecting Aad (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Coulter & Pinto 1995; Pinto & Priest 1991). However, it is important to note that guilt-induced feelings provided more insightful evidence to make the claims of which advertising appeal was evaluated better and also, the rationale for it. For instance, the high guilt appeal evoked more negative emotions and less positive ones, thus, the Aad was less favourable. On the other hand, the high guilt appeal only provided evidence to establish an inverse relationship between the level of guilt and Aad, but did not offer an emotional justication of the reason of that occurrence. Not only did the guiltinduced feelings mediate the relationship between the guilt appeal and participants attitudes, but they also elicited emotional reactions to the advertisement that gave the justication for the positive or negative evaluation. Therefore, it could be argued that guilt-induced feelings evoked by the advertisement might explain more thoroughly the inuence on Aad. Empirical ndings from the experiment showed that guilt-induced feelings such as angry irritating emotions and self-conscious emotions also inuenced Ab. Coulter and Pinto (1995) and Edell and Burke (1987) provided similar ndings suggesting that guilt-induced feelings inuenced consumers Ab. That is, the more negative emotions consumers felt after exposure to the test advertisement, the more negative their evaluation of the brand. Past studies have also provided support to the mediating role of induced feeling between the appeal and respondents Aad and Ab (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983; Coulter & Pinto 1995; Edell & Burke 1987; Ghingold 1981). For instance, Coulter and Pinto (1995) found that anger mediated the relationship between guilt appeal and consumers Aad and Ab. Bozinoff and Ghingold (1983) also found that blame and regret mediated the effects between guilt appeals and Aad. In this study, the guilt appeal aroused certain feelings, which caused participants

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to feel angryirritated and self-conscious to some degree, which allowed them to form their Aad and Ab. These ndings once again concurred with the fact that guilt appeals can be designed to induce different emotions (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983). The low guilt appeal induced more self-conscious than angryirritating emotions. The high guilt appeal aroused more angryirritating emotions and less conscious emotions. This was not surprising because guilt was dened as a negative emotion that has been found to trigger both positive and negative emotions (Bozinoff & Ghingold 1983). The differences between self-conscious emotions and angerirritating emotions provide the rationale to elaborate why participants had more favourable advertisement attitudes and the brand attitudes towards the appeal that induced less angerirritating emotions and more guilt-induced self-conscious emotions than its counterpart. The differences between the two emotions start with their own denitions. Self-conscious emotions are more complex cognitive emotions and angryirritating emotions are more basic emotions (Tracy & Robins 2004). In addition, the elicitation of the self-conscious emotions requires the ability to evaluate oneself, the reection of oneself and ones own representation in the world in order to determine any discrepancies among these (Tracy & Robins 2004). On the contrary, angryirritating emotions are an impulsive reaction, an automatic and immediate aroused emotion that does not engage in self-evaluations (Tracy & Robins 2004), that is, only self-conscious emotions lead to self-evaluations and might generate basic emotions. In this manner, it could be argued that angryirritating emotions are irrational (more impulsive) and self-conscious emotions are more rational in their processes.

CONCLUSION
Theoretical Contributions This study contributed to our understanding of guilt appeals in affecting consumers attitudes towards the green advertisement and advertised brand. The results suggested that guilt appeals did inuence Aad and Ab. Respondents preferred the low guilt appeal over the high guilt appeal in the green advertisement. These ndings provide some preliminary understandingthe understanding mechanism in employing guilt appeal in green advertising to inuence attitudes such as Aad and Ab. Another important nding demonstrated the power of guilt-induced feelings in understanding its mediating effect on green advertising effectiveness. In particular, the results advanced our knowledge about the role of guilt-induced emotions by showing the relevance of
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negative appeals in determining advertising effectiveness. Guilt-induced feelings, particularly self-conscious emotions and angerirritating emotions, also provided support to determine their mediating effects on Aad and Ab. An important marketing implication is that guiltinduced feelings by a guilt appeal may raise consumers environmental consciousness to some extent. This raises the question of which other negative appeals may be effective in arousing consumers environmental consciousness, which, in the end, can help develop more successful and effective green advertising campaigns. The theoretical implications of guilt appeals and guilt-induced feelings are that both contribute signicantly to inuence Aad and Ab. However, guilt-induced feelings of angry irritating and self-conscious emotions provided an insightful justication for participants preferring the advertisements that contained low guilt appeals than the high guilt appeals. Therefore, guilt appeals may be designed to be a successful inducer of positive evaluations as well as more positive than negative guilt-induced feelings if appropriately managed. Limitations of the Study One limitation was that the test advertisements used in this study to elicit consumers guilt and guilt-induced feelings relied on textual information (such as slogans and product description). Coulter and Pinto (1995) and Huhmann and Brotherton (1997) argued that both components of an advertisement may create guilt in the viewer. Future study can explore the inuence of textual and graphic messages in the elicitation of guilt and guilt-induced feelings among respondents to better assess their relative effectiveness in green advertising. Similarly, guilt appeals were operationalized as either high or low guilt level in this study. Future study can include moderate guilt level to assess its inuence on Aad and Ab as well as guilt-induced feelings (Coulter & Pinto 1995). The use of college students as participants in this experimental study took into consideration not only convenience and time factors, but also the fact that the student population is an important market segment for green marketers because of their tendency to accept environmental causes. Although college student sample is not representative of the overall population, understanding students responses to green advertisements is important because of their role in affecting other people around them to become more environment conscious. Nevertheless, generalization from this study should be limited to student population only. Future study that explores other segments in the US should help marketers to better understand whether and how different populations respond to guilt appeals in green advertising. Finally, because the decision to purchase green products involves other marketing communication variables, variables such as consumer involvement, prior green purchase behaviour
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and environmental attitudes should be examined to study whether these factors can affect the effectiveness of green advertising.
Marissa Jimnez, Care Health Plan, Public Relations Specialist, Los Angeles, California. E-mail: marissajm@gmail.com Dr Kenneth C.C. Yang (corresponding author) is Associate Professor of Advertising, Department of Communication, The University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University Avenue, El Paso, TX 79968-0566. E-mail: cyang@utep.edu

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