Johan Ong Riding the Second Green Adver4sing Wave A descrip*ve study of the contemporary green adver*sing anatomy and postdocumentary developments of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in the automo*ve industry in the Netherlands Author : Johan Ong (0572845) Supervisor : Prof. MSc. Meg Lee Second Reader : Prof. Dr. Willemijn van Dolen Ins*tu*on : Universiteit van Amsterdam Faculty : Faculty of Economics and Business Programme : Master of Science in Business Studies Project : Master Thesis Date : 2009, November 11
A descriptive study of the contemporary green advertising anatomy and post-documentary developments of \'An Inconvenient Truth\' in the automotive industry in the Netherlands.
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Johan Ong
Riding the Second Green Adver4sing Wave
A descrip*ve study of the contemporary green adver*sing anatomy and post-‐documentary developments of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
in the automo*ve industry in the Netherlands
Author : Johan Ong (0572845) Supervisor : Prof. MSc. Meg Lee Second Reader : Prof. Dr. Willemijn van Dolen Ins*tu*on : Universiteit van Amsterdam Faculty : Faculty of Economics and Business Programme : Master of Science in Business Studies Project : Master Thesis Date : 2009, November 11
III
Acknowledgements
This dissertation would not have been possible without the contributions of the
following people:
First of all I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. MSc. Meg
Lee, for her assistance, support and guidance during my research at the Universiteit
van Amsterdam. Her energy and enthusiasm in research had motivated me from day
one. From the university I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Willemijn van Dolen for
inspiring me to start a career in advertising, and Prof. Dr. Jonatan Pinkse as the
programme coordinator of corporate social responsibility for motivating me into
green research.
My gratitude also goes to my former colleagues of The Nielsen Company,
starting with Berry Punt, the marketing manager of the Media Group in the
Netherlands, for supplying the advertising data, creatives and his industry specific
knowledge. From the international division, Nielsen Global AdView, I express my
gratitude to the communication manager, Sarah Newell, for her support and revision
of this dissertation, and to my former marketing manager, Alessandra Rossi, for
training me in comprehensive data analysis and market research. Without the
knowledge and assistance of these members of The Nielsen Company this study
would not have been successful.
Last but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my girlfriend, Jikky Lam, my
family, and my friends in the Netherlands and abroad for their love and support
throughout the complete process of this dissertation.
IV
Abstract
The documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ presented by former United States Vice
President Al Gore and directed by Davis Guggenheim that was released in October
2006, can be seen as a tipping point of global awareness concerning climate change.
Finally global warming got moved up in the international priority schedule, which
subsequently moved advertising into a greener direction. Together with the Kyoto
Protocol a number of important events took place after the Federal Trade Commission
had lastly updated the Green Guides in 1998.
As advertising has an important role in shaping public opinion (Zinkhan and
Carlson, 1995), and content analysis has not been a popular research approach in the
last decade (Chamorro et al., 2009), this study attempts to describe the contemporary
anatomy of green advertising and its post-documentary developments by employing a
content analysis of +4,000 ad campaigns spread over 40 months starting in 2006.
The results show that the documentary propelled green advertising forward
causing another green advertising bubble. Green advertising underwent a major
metamorphosis in comparison to the first bubble in the 90s. The advertising
orientation changed, the information exposure improved, environmental issues
became more sophisticated, eco-labels added clarity to the message, and the
involvement of non-governmental organisations and other alliances built trust. In
terms of process orientation and corporate transparency, green advertising still has
opportunities to develop. However, it can be concluded that considering the current
economic climate the majority of the consumers should be relatively satisfied with the
green advertisements today. Together with the United Nations Climate Change
conferences held by the G20, green advertising is key in shaping a greener world.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction_______________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Chapter Overview ____________________________________________________ 1 1.2 Research Context_____________________________________________________ 1 1.3 Statement of the Problem ______________________________________________ 2 1.4 Research Objective ___________________________________________________ 4 1.5 Research Question ____________________________________________________ 4 1.6 Delineation of the Research ____________________________________________ 6
2. Literature Review __________________________________________________ 7 2.1 Chapter Overview ____________________________________________________ 7 2.2 Introduction to Green Advertising ______________________________________ 7 2.3 Pulling Force from the Market ________________________________________ 11 2.4 Pushing Force from the Industry_______________________________________ 15 2.5 Finding the Market Balance ___________________________________________ 18 2.6 Understanding the Sample ____________________________________________ 24
4.7 Contemporary Elements ______________________________________________ 72 4.7.1 Recycling Symbols_______________________________________________________ 72 4.7.2 Strategic Alliances _______________________________________________________ 72 4.7.3 Green Innovation Performance _____________________________________________ 73
5 Conclusions and Recommendations ___________________________________ 75 5.1 Chapter Overview ___________________________________________________ 75 5.2 Discussion and Conclusions ___________________________________________ 75
5.2.1 Overview ______________________________________________________________ 75 5.2.2 Anatomy of Green Advertising _____________________________________________ 77 5.2.3 Post-Documentary Development ____________________________________________ 83 5.2.4 Conclusions ____________________________________________________________ 86
5.3 Contributions of the Study ____________________________________________ 87 5.4 Limitations _________________________________________________________ 89
References _________________________________________________________ 91 Appendix A: The Nielsen Company – Media List __________________________ 95 Appendix B: Ad examples by Ad Orientation______________________________ 98 Appendix C1: Ad examples by Ad Appeal _______________________________ 103 Appendix C2: Ad examples by Ad Appeal Elements _______________________ 110 Appendix D: Ad examples by Ad Issues _________________________________ 121 Appendix E: Ad examples by Third Party Labelling _______________________ 124 Appendix F: Ad examples by Private Labelling___________________________ 127 Appendix G: Ad examples by Recycling Symbols _________________________ 132 Appendix H: Ad examples by Green Innovation __________________________ 134
VII
List of Figures
Fig 2.1 Primary marketing-mix tools in green strategy 19 Fig 2.2 The marketing strategy from two perspectives 22 Fig 2.3 Development of electricity driven cars 25 Fig 3.1 Framework: Content Analysis 34 Fig 4.1 Advertising expenditure in the automotive sector in the Netherlands 44 Fig 4.2 Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure 45 Fig 4.3 Percentage of total spend allocated to green advertising by brand 47 Fig 4.4 Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by media type 49 Fig 4.5 Percentage change of green advertising by media type 49 Fig 4.6 Green advertising percentage of total automotive spend by magazine title 51 Fig 4.7 Green advertising percentage of total automotive spend by newspaper title 52 Fig 4.8 Green advertising percentage of total automotive spend by television station 54 Fig 4.9 Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by ad orientation 55 Fig 4.10 Advertising orientation and argumentation use by % share 57 Fig 4.11 Ad orientation and argumentation use by % share by media type 58 Fig 4.12 Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by ad appeal 60 Fig 4.13 Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by ad issue 65 Fig 4.14 Percentage of green ad in total automotive ad expenditure by 3rd party eco labels 68 Fig 4.15 Percentage of private label use in total automotive ad expenditure 71 Fig 4.16 Percentage of strategic alliances in total automotive ad expenditure by brand/alliance 73 Fig 4.17 Percentage of green innovation in total automotive ad expenditure by innovation type 74
List of Tables
Table 3.1 Unit measurements 40 Table 3.2 Unweighted, frequency-weighted, and rate-weighted ad comparison 42 Table 3.3 Advertising expenditure method 42 Table 4.1 Top 10 green advertised products 48 Table 4.2 Advertising orientation share by media type 57
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1. Introduction
1.1 Chapter Overview
This chapter introduces the main area of this study and justifies the need for
investigation in the research context. The context in which the study takes place is
demonstrated, and an outline of this research objective, questions, and delineation of
the research is explained.
1.2 Research Context
In 2006 the Academy Award-winning documentary film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
about climate change was released. The documentary presented by former United
States Vice President Al Gore and directed by Davis Guggenheim had a major impact
worldwide, and finally global warming got moved up the priority schedule. After
reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, one could say that global warming
reached its tipping point in 2006. Before this point, large majorities believed that the
issue was real and considered it to be a serious problem; yet global warming remained
a low priority. According to Leiserowitz (2007), the reason why global warming
remained a low priority was the lack of sense of public urgency, strong leadership and
political will.
In 1990 the green theme started to lift off and the media attention caused a green
advertising bubble (Banerjee and Iyer, 1993). There is a big chance that the
awareness of global warming has propelled green advertising further after Al Gore’s
documentary as well. Nielsen Consumer (2008) has no doubt about it: ‘Green is the
new black’.
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Despite the international awareness of global warming, today’s newspapers read
different headlines. Since 2008, the global credit crunch has been the central point of
discussion across all media. Even today you still hear people in your environment
talking about it. Headlines now read ‘Financials Drag Europe Lower’, Dow Falls
6.2% in Punishing Week (Wall Street Journal, 2009).
It is not unusual that one news topic overshadows another, however from an
advertisers’ perspective this raises a lot of questions. Since the global financial crisis
is in the spotlight, what is happening to green advertising today? Has the
documentary propelled global warming? Even if the documentary has propelled
global warming, is it still a high priority issue? How is this all reflected in
advertising? How did the visibility of green advertising develop?
1.3 Statement of the Problem
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued the Green Guides in 1992, and updated
them in 1996 and 1998 (FTC, (n.d.)). As the FTC is aware of the growing popularity
of green marketing it decided to revisit its 1998 guidelines a full year ahead of
schedule (Urbach, 2008), thus in 2009 (FTC (n.d.)).
The Green Guides outline general principles that apply to all environmental
marketing claims and provide guidance on specific green claims (FTC (n.d.)). With
the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol and Al Gore’s documentary as some examples,
a number of important events took place after the 1998 guidelines had been published.
As the FTC recently decided to revisit its 1998 Green Guides, in terms of verification
of compliance it looks like nothing has changed for over ten years. According to
Goodwin Procter (2008), the current Green Guides do not address claims regarding
perhaps the biggest current environmental issue, climate change. Nor do they
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specifically govern claims regarding sustainability, green buildings, or environmental
fabrics (Goodwin Procter, 2008).
Numerous studies have shown that consumers attach value to the regulation
implementation and therefore are of extreme importance to help advertisers to
develop green advertising into a mature stage.
Chamorro et al. (2009) studied the characteristics of research on green marketing and
classifies the topic green communication into the following subtopics: the anatomy of
green ads, and consumers’ response to green ads. With the first objective, the authors
classified the claims and obtain their data by means of content analysis, to
subsequently carry out a series of descriptive analyses of the situation. Chamorro et
al. (2009) observed that this was an attractive research topic but disappeared from the
research agenda after 1998 (Chamorro et al., 2009). Especially Banerjee et al. (1993;
1995), Carlson et al. (1993; 1996), and Kangun et al. (1991) had been active in the
early to mid 90s. In the beginning of 2000, Kärnä et al. (2001) employed one of the
latest content analyses, and had done this based on the model used by Banerjee et al.
(1995). This means, that the anatomy has not been studied extensively after the first
two issues of the Green Guide.
Advertisers have the resources and the skills to shape public opinion (Zinkhan and
Carlson, 1995), and advertising has the power to effect social change (Fisk, 1974).
However, if advertisers misuse their power in promoting false ecological claims, then
its power to mitigate the imminent crisis will be diminished (Kilbourne, 1995).
Roberts (1996) believes that media coverage can change the public’s thought and
behaviour in as little as two weeks. According to the author the key factor is
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exposure. What the consumer is exposed to, in terms of green advertising, is exactly
what will be studied in this dissertation.
1.4 Research Objective
Within green communication, a research topic investigated by Chamorro et al. (2009),
the authors recommend the analysis of the value of environmental certification and
eco-labels as a possible line of future research. Third party labelling, such as
environmental certification and eco-labels, has been a point of discussion for several
years now (Bergeson, 2008; D’Souza, 2004; D’Souza, 2005; Davidson et al., 2008;
Rex and Baumann, 2006). Yet, third party labelling has seldom been addressed to
advertising. As this study employs a content analysis not only to evaluate third party
labelling, the research objective has been defined in a slightly broader view.
To aggregate all questions into a more concrete goal, the research objective is to
evaluate the anatomy of green advertisements through content analysis based on
models that were employed in the early to mid 90s, and construct a new conceptual
model taking into account the “new” global warming, e.g. climate change, and trends,
i.e. verification of compliance, third party certification, strategic alliances and green
innovation. To narrow down the area of research, this study will focus on the
automotive industry in the Netherlands.
1.5 Research Question
What is the anatomy of green advertising that consumers are being exposed to today;
and how did green advertising develop around and after the documentary ‘An
Inconvenient Truth’ was released in October 2006?
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Investigative Questions Green Advertising
• What are the key elements of green advertising?
• How has green advertising developed over time?
• How is global warming reflected in green advertising?
• Which other environmental issues are being addressed in green advertising?
• Do advertisers communicate absolute claims?
• Which persuasion elements are being used in green advertising?
Consumers Market
• Are consumers’ demands reflected in green advertising?
• Is green innovation communicated in green advertising?
• If yes, are these product of process orientated? If not, would this be an
opportunity?
Advertising Industry
• Which forces are at work in the advertising industry?
• Do these forces encourage implicit advertising?
• What is done to control this in general and in the Netherlands?
• Is the industry levelling itself towards the green consumer?
Market Balance
• What measures are in place to find the right market balance?
• Do advertisers communicate eco-labels in green advertising?
• If yes, which eco-labels and how many? If not, would this be an opportunity?
• Are other forms of environmental labelling currently being communicated?
• Do advertisers communicate strategic alliances in green advertising?
• If yes, which forms of alliances? If not, would this be an opportunity?
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Automotive Sample
• How has the automotive industry developed in the past years?
• Is the market shifting from conventional to alternative fuel chains?
• How is the government stimulating new and energy-efficient markets?
1.6 Delineation of the Research
First of all, a literature study will be employed to analyse and aggregate existing
theories and trends into a comprehensive literature review, taking into account the
“new” global warming, e.g. climate change, and trends, i.e. verification of
compliance, third party certification, strategic alliances and green innovation. The
main sources for this are the rich academic libraries, online journals, and
governmental institutions with academic articles and books about green advertising,
consumer perception, and regulation implementation.
The second part of this dissertation is the content analysis. The anatomy of
green advertising will be examined by employing a content analysis on a dataset of
three years advertising data. The dataset contains magazines, newspapers and
television data for the automotive industry in the Netherlands. The advertising
information as well as the creatives have been obtained from the Media Group of The
Nielsen Company in the Netherlands.
The final part of the study is the discussion and conclusion in which the
research question and investigative questions will be answered. Besides this, the
limitation of this study will be mentioned and possible line of future research
discussed.
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2. Literature Review
2.1 Chapter Overview
The objective of the literature review is to understand the process from the emergence
of green advertising in the early 90s to green advertising today. This chapter provides
concepts about the anatomy of green advertising in the last two decades, the
developments on the market and supportive information on the research sample. The
first section elaborates upon the discussion of green advertising theories and offers a
comparison of different anatomies and developments. The second section
investigates the pulling force from the market. The third section discusses the
pushing force from the industry. The fourth section elaborates on both forces and
discusses the market balance. Finally, the fifth section, investigates the automotive
industry on which the research sample is based.
2.2 Introduction to Green Advertising
The emergence of “Green” awareness
According to Banerjee and Iyer (1993) the term “green” implies an underlying
concern for preservation of the environment and non-invasive lifestyle, and generally
targets for concerns are the preservation of the planet earth, personal health, and
animal life. The goal of preservation is generally accompanied by a belief that non-
invasive methods have to be employed in achieving those goals. Thus, activities
causing as little damage as possible to planet earth, its environment, and human and
animal life are preferred. Around 1960, the green consumer emerged from this
growing concern about the future of the earth and its inhabitants (Zinkhan and
Carlson, 1995).
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Research in Green Advertising
In the 1990s, the media picked up on the green theme and was reporting very
extensively on the subject. During this green advertising boom, many authors,
Kangun et al. (1991), Carlson et al. (1993), and Banerjee et al. (1995), felt the urge to
study and analyse green advertising in greater detail. Some authors believed that
much had been written about problems associated with environmental advertising, but
had actually seldom been addressed systematically (Kangun et al., 1991), others were
of the opinion that most environmental studies primarily focussed on the green
consumer, and very little research was done on green advertising (Banerjee and Iyer,
1993). Nonetheless, all these authors agreed that further investigation was needed in
the field of green advertising.
In 1991, Kangun et al. decided to examine environmental advertising and conducted a
study from environmental print advertisements that had appeared in 1989 and 1990.
In this study, a significant number of environmental claims from the ads in their
sample were judged to be vague or contain omissions. According to their judges,
more than half of the environmental ads examined (58 percent) contained at least one
misleading or deceptive claim. Not long after this study, Carlson et al. (1993)
employed a content analysis to examine the nature of environmental advertisements.
The authors derived a sample of environmental ads in the same time span as Kangun
et al. (1991) used for their analysis, this because these authors believed that 1989 and
1990 coincides with the period in which environmental advertising became more
prevalent in the popular press and concomitantly emerged as an important issue
within the marketing discipline. Carlson et al. (1993) found that more claims were
classified as image enhancing and fewer were classified as process-oriented; and
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again more claims were considered to contain aspects designated as
misleading/deceptive than elements that were deemed acceptable. As in the early to
mid 90s the Internet was used by few, most consumers received information on
environmental issues through mass media only. Banerjee and Iyer (1993) discovered,
despite the fact that consumers were depending on mass media, the majority of the
consumers did not find that information believable or reliable.
In 1995, Banerjee et al. brought the content analysis of green advertisements to
another level and employed a multidimensional analysis to examine the greenness of
advertisements. They had done this comprehensive analysis with a convenient
sample of print and TV advertisements on a larger time span. Print ads were collected
between 1987 and 1991 and TV ads recorded between 1991 and 1992. Their
analytical framework consisted of five major categories: ad characteristics, ad
greenness, ad objective, and ad issues. By including these parameters, the authors
believed this framework provided a more extensive classification scheme than the
typology proposed by Carlson et al. (1993). Banerjee et al. (1995) found that green
advertisements seemed to be more an acknowledgement of public concern about the
environment rather than an element of a substantive marketing strategy. Again, also
in their results the advertisements speak in general terms, e.g. visuals depicting the
beauty of nature. The use of these metaphorical claims (indirect persuasion) in
advertisements makes consumers receptive to multiple, distinct, and positive
inferences about the advertising brand while still conveying the main message of the
advert.
10
Calkins (1928) once said: “a picture can say things that no advertiser could say in
words and retain his self-respect” (McQuarrie and Phillips, 2005). On one hand,
organisations that develop and place advertisements that rely on certain kinds of
claims, may be increasing the risk that consumers will be confused by the
advertisements or find the ads misleading. On the other hand, when providing too
much information in environmental advertisements, which becomes too technical,
may cause the receiver to simply cease his or her effort to comprehend the message
(Carlson et al., 1993).
Altogether, these arguments stress the importance of understanding the green
consumer perception and the market- and industry forces at work.
Terminology
The following definitions that are key to this study have been taken from Banerjee et
al. (1995) and Carlson et al. (1993):
In the multidimensional analysis to measure the greenness of advertisements,
Banerjee et al. (1995) define the term green advertising as any ad that meets one or
more of the following criteria:
1. Explicitly or implicitly addresses the relationship between a product/service
and the biophysical environment;
2. Promotes a green lifestyle with or without highlighting a product/service; or
3. Presents a corporate image of environmental responsibility (Banerjee et al.,
1995).
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In a content analysis, to examine the nature of environmental advertisements, Carlson
et al. (1993) identified five types of green advertisements:
1. Product Orientation: the claim focuses on the environmentally friendly
attributes that a product processes;
2. Process Orientation: the claim deals with an organisation’s internal
technology, production technique and/or disposal method that yields
environmental benefits;
3. Image Orientation: the claim associates an organisation with an
environmental cause or activity for which there is broad-based public
support;
4. Environmental Fact: the claim involves an independent statement that is
ostensibly factual in nature from an organisation about the environment at
large, or its condition; and
5. Combination: the claim appears to have multiple facets.
2.3 Pulling Force from the Market
The pulling force from the market demonstrates the forces at work powered by the
green consumer. In the search for understanding the green consumer, it was
discovered that this type of consumer actually lacks brand loyalty. This behaviour
among the green consumer also forces the industry to pioneer into green products and
process innovation.
Pulling Force from the Green Consumer
In the 1960s, the green consumer emerged from the growing concern about the future
of the earth and its inhabitants. This segment is not only worried about the purchase
and the consumption processes, they are also concerned about the production process,
12
in terms of scarce resources consumed, and with product disposal issues (Zinkhan and
Carlson, 1995).
In the study of the buyer’s characteristics of green consumers, Shrum et al. (1995)
created the following profile of the green consumer: the green consumer has an
interest in new products, is an information seeker, and talks with others about
products. Additionally, green consumers consider themselves opinion leaders, and
hence may provide word-of-mouth information that other consumers respect. The
green consumer is also not prone to impulse buying, and pays attention to price.
Consumers demand clean and energy saving production processes from their
suppliers, and finished products should be subsequently labelled as such
(Vandermerwe and Oliff, 1990). They demand recycled products (Roberts, 1996),
and expect them to be free of harmful ingredients and materials that cause
environmental pollution or that endanger the wellbeing of users (Vandermerwe and
Oliff, 1990). According to these authors, “Green-friendly” as a product concept has
become a clear priority.
Larger numbers of consumers show their preference for pro-green firms
(Vandermerwe and Oliff, 1990), and use their purchasing power as an environmental
protection tool (Carlson et al., 1996). The range of demand for green products has
widened from unbleached coffee filters to environmentally friendly diapers and
biodegradable paint (Roberts, 1996; Vandermerwe and Oliff, 1990). According to
Hume and Strand cited in the article from Roberts (1990), this concern appears to be
across all demographic categories.
13
According to Boston Consulting Group, even today, despite the economic
downturn, the consumers demand for green products is still rising (Manget et al.,
2009).
Lack of brand loyalty
One of the major characteristics of the green consumer is the lack of brand loyalty
(Shrum et al., 1995; Zinkhan and Carlson, 1995). Together with their urge to actively
seek information, it implies that the green consumer will always be looking for new
products. However, if lack of brand loyalty on the part of green consumers is the
result of marketers’ inability to provide good environmental products and good
environmental messages, providing those benefits may in fact promote brand loyalty.
That is, green consumers may give preference to products that are the first to meet
their environmental needs (Shrum et al., 1995). From an innovators perspective this
is definitely a strong motivation to maintain its position to be and stay the first in their
market.
Importance of innovation
Companies that are pioneers in green innovation will enjoy the first mover advantage.
Taking this position will improve their corporate image, develop new markets, and
gain competitive advantages (Chen, 2007). As Shrum (1995), and Zinkhan and
Carlson (1995) believe that the green consumer has a lack of brand loyalty and Shrum
et al. (1995) also believes the green consumer may give preference to products that
are the first to meet their environmental needs, it looks like green innovation
performance takes an important place in marketing.
14
The definition of green innovation proposed by Chen et al. (2006) is as follows:
“Hardware or software innovation that is related to green products or processes,
including the innovation in technologies that are involved in energy-saving, pollution-
prevention, waste recycling, green product designs, or corporate environmental
management”.
In the same article Chen et al. (2006) explains that green innovation
performance can be divided into the following:
• Green product innovation performance: the performance in product
innovation that is related to environmental innovation, including the
innovation in products that are involved in energy-saving, pollution-
prevention, waste recycling, no toxicity or green product designs; and
• Green process innovation performance: the performance in process
innovation that is related to energy-saving, pollution-prevention, waste
recycling or no toxicity.
While the weakening economy shows signs of slowing the growth of green, Nielsen
BASES (2009) believes the longer-term green shift will persist. Innovation in green
will continue to be an area that manufacturers can leverage to differentiate themselves
from the competition. According to The Nielsen Company (2009) winning at green
starts with relevant product ideas, but breaking through to a broad audience requires a
more sophisticated targeting and communication strategy. Brand managers are of the
opinion that the growing trend of innovation, in which resources will be saved, is an
attractive cost saving option in the current economic climate (Neff, 2008).
15
2.4 Pushing Force from the Industry
The pushing force from the industry demonstrates the corporate shift from green
niches to mass markets, and a consequence of this is green washing. This
phenomenon ultimately put the government into action to formulate standards for
green advertisements known as the Green Guides, and in the Netherlands known as
the Milieu Reclame Code.
Pushing Force from the Advertisers
In the beginning of the 90s, corporations were paying greater attention to the
environmental impact of their business activity (Banerjee, 2001) that emerged into a
dramatic growth subsided in new green product introductions (Crane, 2000; Iyer,
1995; Ottman, 1994). Green products rapidly diffused from small niches to mass
markets (Vandermerwe and Oliff, 1990). Together with these products, the incidence
and prominence of green advertising has progressively increased since this period
(Crane, 2000). Besides the consumers, also shareholders and policy makers are
increasingly demanding improved environmental performance from businesses all
over the world (Banerjee, 2001). Some theories of the firm argue that corporations
exist to maximise shareholder wealth (Zinkhan and Carlson, 1996). It is apparent that
green has become mainstream and turned into big business (Urbach, 2008).
Green Washing
Already in the early 90s Kangun et al. (1991) discovered that the potential for abuse
in environmental advertising is great. The development in which advertisers pushed
underperforming green products on the market with over-zealous promotional claims,
and inexact science, has turned into a backlash of green advertising in which
16
consumers were left confused and reluctant to engage green purchasing behaviour
(Crane, 2000). Critics of environmental advertising coined the term “green washing”
or “window dressing” to describe advertising in which the environmental claims are
trivial, misleading, or deceptive (Kangun et al., 1991). In an Advertising Age poll,
more than half of the respondents indicated they paid less attention to such messages
because of this overkill (Shrum, 1995).
Advertisers have the resources and the skills to shape public opinion (Zinkhan and
Carlson; 1995), and advertising has the power to effect social change (Fisk, 1974).
Ginsberg and Bloom (2004) believe green marketing has not fulfilled its initial
promise, but companies can take a more effective approach if they realize that a one-
size-fits-all strategy does not exist.
General Verification of Compliance
To control the pushing force from the industry to a certain degree, the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) started to formulate standards for both general and specific
conditions for the use of environmental claims by advertisers, also known as the
Green Guides (Carlson et al., 1993). The guides outline general principles that apply
to all environmental marketing claims and then provide guidance on specific green
claims, such as biodegradable, compostable, recyclable, recycled content, and ozone
safe. The FTC issued the Green Guides in 1992, and updated them in 1996 and 1998.
Since then, general principles provide guidance to all environmental marketing claims
in the advertising industry (FTC (n.d.)). As many years have passed, Goodwin
Procter (2008) published that the FTC is considering revising the Green Guides as the
limited list of environmental advertising claims specifically defined by the Green
17
Guides falls well short of environmental benefits now being promoted, for instance,
the current Green Guides do not address claims regarding perhaps the biggest current
environmental issue, climate change. As the FTC is aware of the trends towards
increased green marketing, it decided to revisit its 1998 guidelines a full year ahead of
schedule (Urbach, 2008), initially scheduled for 2010 (FTC (n.d.)).
Dutch Verification of Compliance
In the Netherlands the Advertising Code Authority, in Dutch ‘De Nederlandse
Reclame Code Commissie’, has been the body dealing with the self-regulating system
of advertising. Self-regulation means that the advertising industry takes sole
responsibility for the content and distribution of advertising messages. The three
parties that constitute the advertising industry, advertisers, advertising agencies and
the media, have formed an agreement regarding the rules with which advertising
messages should comply (Stichting Reclame Code, 2008).
Similar to FTC’s Green Guides, the Dutch Advertising Code Authority has
their code for environmental advertising, in Dutch ‘Milieu Reclame Code’ (Stichting
Reclame Code, 2008). Most articles are described in a broad perspective. However,
three articles are definitely worth mentioning and are interesting to be implemented in
the conceptual model:
• Article 3 Demonstrability: All environmental claims shall be demonstrably
correct. The burden of proof rests with the advertiser. The more absolute the
formulation of the claim is the more stringent are the requirements with
respect to evidential material.
18
• Article 7 Designations and symbols: Environmental designations and symbols
shall not be used unless the origin of the designation or symbol is clear and no
confusion can arise on the meaning of the designation or symbol.
• Article 9 Testimonials: Testimonials used in environmental claims shall be
based on the expertise of the person or body giving them (Stichting Reclame
Code, 2008).
2.5 Finding the Market Balance
On one hand there is an obvious pulling force from the market. Consumers demand
clean processes and recycled products, and expect them not to pollute the
environment (Vandermerwe and Oliff, 1990). Due to the fact that green consumers
have a lack of brand loyalty (Shrum et al., 1995; Zinkhan and Carlson, 1995) they are
creating a market in which green innovation takes an important position (Chen, 2007).
On the other hand there is also a strong pushing force from the industry. Driven by
corporations to maximise shareholder wealth (Banerjee, 2001; Zinkhan and Carlson,
1996), green advertising was initially overshadowed by the green washing
phenomenon (Kangun et al., 1991), but at a later stage got neutralised by the
verification of compliance (Carlson et al., 1993).
Finding the market balance demonstrates the importance of green advertising in the
quest to reach the green consumer. Even though high environmental concern was
found, purchasing behaviour is still lacking. Therefore, obstacles are demonstrated
that stress the importance of transparency in which third party labelling and strategic
alliances may have a major contribution. Finally, this chapter will look towards the
research setup and discuss the investigated industry.
19
Power of Advertising
In the quest to better accord the corporate actions on with consumers’ wishes,
Ginsberg and Bloom (2004) developed a matrix consisting of four different types of
green strategies to approach the green market. The matrix has ‘defensive green’ and
‘extreme green’ strategies on the high end of sustainability of green market segments,
‘extreme green’ and ‘shaded green’ on the high end of differentiability on greenness,
and ‘lean green’ finds itself on both low ends of the axis. Using the primary
marketing-mix tools in the green strategy, promotion takes an important position in
three out of four strategies.
Fig 2.1 Primary Marketing-Mix Tools in Green Strategy (Ginsberg and Bloom, 2004)
Generally speaking, marketers and advertisers are relatively quick in identifying
trends, and move quickly to capitalise on them, which is contradictory as there is an
“anti-capitalist” streak attached to green consumers (Zinkhan and Carlson, 1995).
According to Zinkhan and Carlson (1995), consumers that are more likely to buy
green products are more sceptical towards advertising in general. Although
consumers are sceptical about advertising claims, they do rely on product
advertisements (Davidson, 2008).
Purchasing Behaviour
The industry is levelling itself more towards the green consumer, and numerous
surveys have shown that many consumers are likely to choose one product over
20
another if they believe that they are helping the environment (Kangun, 1991).
However, in a study compiled by Simmons Market Research in 1991 among British
supermarkets, high concern regarding the environment was found, but behaviours
consistent with such concern were lacking (Roberts, 1996). Also Nielsen BASES
(2009) confirms that half of American adults say they want to buy green products, but
end up choosing conventional ones instead. A Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
survey proved that some consumers worry if they make a habit of purchasing green
product, they will be boxed into limited options (Manget et al., 2009). Generally it
can also be said that consumers might not be buying green if the costs of a green
products are too great (Kangun, 1991). However, according to BCG, price is not a
significant obstacle for most buyers. This behaviour could be explained through the
following views:
1. BCG believes that lack of awareness of green alternatives or a perceived lack
of choice actually is the bigger issue (Manget et al., 2009)
2. According to Peattie and Crane (2005), many companies are working from a
production orientation, and therefore believe that all their efforts are focused
on producing the most environmentally benign products, rather than the
products that consumers actually wanted. Not matching the consumers’
wishes turns into products that are perceived as under-performing, over-
priced, or just too worthy or “unsexy” (Peattie and Crane, 2005).
3. The main issue in marketing is related to the product itself and not to the
process (Peattie and Crane, 2005; Vandermerwe and Oliff, 1990). The
industry forgets that green consumers are also concerned about the production
process, in terms of scarce resources consumed, and with product disposal
issues (Zinkhan and Carlson, 1995).
21
4. Zinkhan (1995) claims that self-report measures about behaviour are not
particularly well suited for green research. According to Nyborg et al. (2006)
internalised moral motives appear to play an important role. In a survey
conducted in Norway, Bruvoll et al. (2002), some 41% of those who engaged
in recycling agreed with the statement “I recycle partly because I want others
to think of me as a responsible person” (Nyborg et al., 2006).
Third Party Labelling
According to Davidson (2008), besides a basic transparency of the company,
corporations are well advised to get certifications that already exist and accumulate
them by clearly labelling them on the product and advertisements for exposure. In a
survey held by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), consumers often consult labels even
though they do not always believe them. Lack of good information and lack of
awareness of green product offerings seem to be the biggest reasons why consumers
do not purchase green products (Manget et al., 2009).
Kärnä et al. (2001) discovered that the use of eco-labels is clearly connected to the
company’s environmental activity. To understand the current development of eco-
labels, Rex and Baumann (2006) made a comparison of green marketing versus
conventional marketing (Fig 2.2) based on Kotler’s model (Kotler et al., 2001).
When looking into the ‘positioning’ stage of the marketing strategy based on
Kotler’s model, Rex and Baumann (2006) discovered that green marketing focuses on
‘product’ only and on the use of eco-labels to inform about green credentials, while
conventional marketing literature emphasises the whole range of the marketing mix.
22
The Marketing
Strategy:
Focus on green
marketing:
Market size The green consumers Eco-‐label
(product)
Doubtful
Other means in
conventional
marketing:
Market needs
and wants
All consumers Place, price,
promotion
Possible
Fig 2.2 The marketing strategy from two perspectives: current and past focal areas in green marketing and examples of additional marketing means suggested in the conventional marketing literature (Rex and Baumann, 2007)
Regarding the cognitive perspective of the green consumers, in a two-dimensional
model developed by D’Souza (2004): the environmentally green consumer will check
labels; price sensitive green consumers may check labels; for emerging green
consumers labels are not meaningful; and conventional consumers ignore benefits of
green products (D’Souza, 2004). Therefore, Rex and Baumann (2006) believe adding
the other marketing means (place, price and promotion) to green marketing could give
rise to new possibilities.
D’Souza (2004) is of the opinion that eco-labels are a seal of approval to
consumers. However, this implies more than just attaching an eco-label to a product.
It is important that consumers understand the relevant information behind an eco-
label. Consumers with no environmental concern are indifferent to both positive and
negative environmental information (Rex and Baumann, 2006). Given these findings,
it may be possible to attune to more consumers by introducing negative
environmental labelling schemes as well. According to Rex and Baumann (2006),
this may to some extent explain the success of the mandatory energy labels that are
being used in European countries, which classifies all products on a scale from A to
G. This type of energy label was initially introduced for consumer durables, e.g.
Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by ad appeal
61
With a more detailed scope period wise, in 2006, besides ‘humour’ the industry also
had a focus on the comfort of cars. A shift can be seen in 2007 from ‘humour’ and
‘comfort’ towards a more responsible way of driving. Advertisers also addressed the
notion that exciting cars can be environmental friendly as well. In 2008, the majority
of advertisements focussed on responsibility and humour. The first four months of
2009 show a surprising shift from humour towards a touching approach by persuading
consumers with ‘warmth’. However, this is a trend measured in the first four months
and therefore is not representative for the complete year of 2009.
4.4.3 Financial Appeal
The second most popular approach is by financial appeal (29.1%). With a 43.3
percentage share, the use of cause subsidy is most frequently used of all financial
appeals. Cause subsidy gained importance as the number of energy efficient cars with
energy labels A and B grew and advertisers shift the message towards rewards or
discounts. Less energy efficient cars get penalties; this punishment is also known as
“slurptax”. Hyundai is the only car brand that anticipated on the latter, hence in a
humoristic way.
The financial appeal is still ranking second but surprisingly decreased
in terms of overall share. It is not surprising that cause subsidy is most commonly
used in television ads, but they have proven to be extremely popular in newspaper ads
as well. Special offer is a more common approach in newspapers. Magazines
however, do not seem to be a popular place for financial incentives.
In 2006, the majority of the industry promoted their environmental cars by stressing
the fact that consumers who buy an energy efficient car, which will be subsidised by
the government. At that time, this was the only incentive to buy an environmental
friendly car. In the second half of 2007 more financial incentives became available.
62
Consumers were offered to split the payment and as consumer prices became more
flexible, the automotive industry started to promote their cars by offering more and
more discounts or special offers. In 2008 in terms of share of spend, discounts were
the leading financial appeal. Also other financial options became available: from new
money saving deals to a low interest loan.
So far 2009 shows a further growth in discounts, the majority of other money
saving options are slowly disappearing and new financial incentives arise.
Consumers now get an amount of cash back when purchasing a car. It looks like the
automotive industry is struggling with the financial crisis and is attempting in every
way possible to help the consumers with a new car.
4.4.4 Remaining Appeals
The remaining appeals, accounting for 11.7 percent, consist of ‘corporate appeal’,
‘informative appeal’, and ‘rational appeal’, respectively 10.5 percent, 0.8 percent, and
0.03 percent.
With 10.5 percent, ‘corporate appeal’ is the largest of the remaining share. By using
this kind of appeal the advertiser stresses the corporate social responsibility. Only in
a few occasions does the advertiser also mention the specific actions taken.
Generally speaking, if the main ad appeal is to supply information, most advertisers
have done this in an advertorial. In 2006 the general subject was the reliability of
their products. In 2007 also the cleanness of a car was an information subject. In the
same year, advertisers started to mention their ecological programs. This
development peaked in 2008. Advertorials became more product-related in 2009,
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whilst some of the advertisers still mention their ecological programs and the
cleanness of their cars.
In terms of media representation, the informative appeal is especially popular
in magazines as print by its structure can convey concrete information. The lack of
interest of informative appeal in newspapers can be explained by the popularity of
advertorials among magazines, whilst newspapers’ main purpose is to convey current
affairs.
Whenever an advertisement showed a car without addressing the emotional or any
other appeals, therefore not falling into one of the categories, it was coded as rational.
In short, these ads displayed the cars with the brand only. These advertisements
represent 0.03 percent of the green ads, which is 0.004 percent of the complete
population, and therefore is insignificant in this study.
4.4.5 Implicit Appeal
The remaining advertising campaigns, 4.3 percent of the sample, were coded as
implicit. These advertisements had been found implicit as half of the ads used one or
more green-coloured cars in their advertisement. Also the use of a 100 percent
natural environment is popular, especially among SUVs. Referring to 100 percent
natural environments means no roads or any other artificial elements other than the
vehicle itself. Other advertisers pun with words and symbols, and created a bias
around words like ‘cleaner’, or symbols around ‘climate’.
In the beginning of 2006, implicit advertising was identified as advertisers used
green-coloured cars or background, which implicitly adds a green theme to the
advertisement. Also the use of a 100 percent biophysical environment and the misuse
64
of the theme ‘climate’ added to implicit advertising. While in 2006 and mainly 2007
the shares were more or less evenly divided, on the transition of 2007 into 2008 the
majority of implicit ads, were labelled as such, due to the exposure of green coloured
cars. Also the share of the usage of a 100 percent natural environment exploded. At
the beginning of 2008 the use of the natural environment took the lead. After the
summer of 2008, the implicit advertising slowly faded away, and has, with a few
exceptions hardly been observed ever since.
4.4.6 Testimonial Information
To stress the focus of the ad message, only one appeal could be selected to classify
the ad message. Testimonial information was the only exception to the rule and has
no more than a supporting function to the classified ads.
In the automotive industry quite some advertisers have been using familiar and
unfamiliar faces to endorse their cars. Almost two thirds of the advertisements using
the testimonial strategy have done this through celebrity endorsement; one third used
an expert; and only one advertiser, Daihatsu, chose to use unfamiliar faces to endorse
their products.
Regarding the media choice, both celebrity and expert endorsement were very
popular on television. Daihatsu, the only brand using unfamiliar faces, choose to do
this in magazines only.
65
4.5 Advertising Issues
4.5.1 Overview
From the total advertising expenditure of advertisements that have been considered to
be green, 28.5 percent addresses green issues. These green issues vary from animal
welfare to carbon dioxide emission indications.
When advertisers chose to address one of the issues, almost half of them addressed
the issue around carbon dioxide emissions. This issue is no doubt the most important
topic and is definitely gaining more awareness with the introduction of the ‘Energy
Label’.
Fig 4.13 Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by advertising issue
When looking into a more detailed analysis of the complete period of the sample (Fig.
4.13), it is interesting to see is that percentage of expenditure in addressing carbon
dioxide emissions has been relatively low in 2008, and extremely high in the first four
months of 2009. Another interesting point is that most advertisers focussed on a
single issue of their choosing in 2007. Besides the carbon dioxide emissions, ‘Planet
Preservation’ appears to be an important point of discussion as well. Planet
preservation was the most important topic in 2007. Very interesting outliers are the
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16%
2006 2007 2008 2009
Sustainability
Resource Depletion
Planet Preservation
Nitrogen Oxide
Global Warming
Climate Change
Carbon Dioxide
Animal Welfare
Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by advertising issue
66
animal welfare issues. These are particularly interesting, as they have been spotted
during the summer of 2006 and the summer of 2008 only. The oscillations of
automotive advertising have shown that these particular periods are quiet months.
Therefore the investments made by Suzuki in addressing the animal welfare issues
may draw a slightly biased trend in Fig 4.16.
The issues that show a negative trend are ‘Global Warming’ and ‘Climate Change’.
Global warming had been an interesting topic four months before the publication of
“An Inconvenient Truth”. Daihatsu and Toyota were the only brands that piggy
backed on this specific global warming trend, and lasted until the first quarter of
2007.
In 2008 new issues like ‘Nitrogen Oxide’, ‘Resource Depletion’ and
‘Sustainability’ became a point of discussion, but never obtained a large percentage
share.
For more information on the ad issues, please see examples in Appendix D: Ad
examples by Ad Issues.
4.6 Eco Labelling
4.6.1 Eco Labelling: Third Party
Of all green advertisements found, 18.2 percent of the ads use the ‘Energy Label’ to
indicate their level of energy efficiency; 7.8 percent were shown to use a different
third party label; and 74.0 percent do not use any sort of third party labelling.
67
By putting all third party labels into one chart, three developments can be identified
over time (Fig 4.14).
The first is animal welfare and nature. From mid to the end of 2006 Suzuki
promoted heavily on its Vitara and their support for the Rhino Mkomazi National
Park. With an overlap with the Rhino Mkomazi in the end of 2006 Toyota started
advertising with a third party label, this time with the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF) on the models Aygo, Prius and Yaris. Also Daihatsu used the same third
party label on its Sirion, Cuore and other models. Both brands, which fall under the
same holding, continued using the WWF label until the end of the first quarter of
2007.
The second development is the focus on climate change. Right when the
WWF label was slowly taken off the screen, Daihatsu started to attach another third
party label to their brand, ‘Hier Nederland Klimaatneutraal’. This ad campaign
peaked in the summer of 2007 and slowly faded away towards the end of that same
year. In 2008 Daihatsu brought this third party label back to life, only this time with a
better spread across the complete year.
The last and most interesting development is the use of the energy indicators.
The energy label has been seen for the first time in advertisements in September 2007
and only grew from that month onward.
68
* Combination: Hier / WWF Fig 4.14 Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by third party eco labels
When looking into the development of the ‘Energy Label’, from the media shares it
can be concluded that the explosion of the energy label use is actually caused by the
media type television only. However, because of the relatively heavy weight of this
media types, the conclusion may be slightly biased.
By analysing the percentage of energy label use in total automotive
advertising expenditure calculated by media type, print media has the largest
percentage share in terms of energy label use. For the period September 2007 to
April 2009 of all advertisements, 8.1 percent of green newspapers ads and 7.0 percent
of magazines ads use the energy label to indicate their level of energy efficiency.
Despite of the explosion in September 2008 and the first four months of 2009 that was
caused by television, the average for green television ads was 4.4 percent. While
print ads are showing heavy fluctuations, television is displaying the steadiest positive
trend, especially from November 2008 onward.
For more information on third party labelling found in the sample, please see
examples in Appendix E: Ad examples by Third Party Labelling.
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
2006 2007 2008 2009 Energy Label Hier ISO 14001 Rhino Mkomazi WWF Combination*
Percentage of green advertising in total automotive ad expenditure by third party eco labels
69
4.6.2 Eco Labelling: Private
Another popular eco-labelling approach it through private labels. Half of all green
advertisements found use private labels to identify their green products from their
product range (49.9%). Private labels were identified across 17 brands and differ
from just a simple green butterfly on the brand logo to a complete green product
programme.
As Daihatsu has integrated the green butterfly into their logo, the expenditure of this
private label is extremely high, and therefore may be slightly biased in comparison to
the other brands.
The brands Daihatsu, Honda and Toyota appear to be the first brands using private
eco labels, at least in the period comparison from 2006 to 2009. As Daihatsu is using
a green integrated marketing strategy it is not surprising to see that their expenditure
is pretty much stable across all years studied. Toyota’s ‘Hybrid Synergy Drive’,
promoted in their world-famous Prius, is showing a positive trend across all complete
years. While Toyota is showing a positive trend, Honda with its Civic ‘Hybrid’ is
showing a negative development.
The year 2007 shows a peak in private eco label use. Big European brands
recognised the need for greener options. BMW introduced ‘EfficientDynamics’,
Citroen ‘Airdream’, Opel ‘Ecoflex’, Renault ‘Eco2’, Saab ‘BioPower’, and
Volkswagen launched ‘BlueMotion’. Ford introduced ‘FlexiFuel’, which is the only
American brand in 2007.
Most of these private labels slowly disappeared in 2008, except for BMW,
Renault and Volkswagen which gave their campaigns an extra financial injection.
70
That same year more German brands started to show their interest in the green
automotive market. In 2008 Mercedes launched their green product program
‘TrueBlueSolutions’, showing their interest in improving their gasoline and diesel
fuelled engines; for Smart, Daimler introduced the ‘Micro Hybrid Drive’; besides the
extra injection of BMW, the corporation expanded their ‘EfficientDynamics’
technology to their sister brand Mini; Volvo launched ‘Drive’.
The first four months of 2009 already shows a handful of new private labels.
This time with the majority of Asian brands: Mitsubishi introduced ‘ClearTec’,
Toyota ‘Optimal Drive’, Kia ‘ISG’. The Italian brand Fiat launched ‘EcoPlus’ in
2009.
By removing the scope of Daihatsu and by sorting on percentage of private eco label
use of the total automotive ad expenditure, with 1.17 percent Toyota outnumbers the
competition with their ‘Hybrid Synergy Drive’.
Other private eco labels with +0.3 percent share, Opel’s ‘EcoFlex’, BMW’s
‘EfficientDynamics’, and Volkswagen’s ‘BlueMotion’, respectively 0.47% and 0.44%
and 0.39%, follow Toyota. It is surprising that Opel is in second position even though
they concentrated their private label campaign in 2007 only.
71
* First four months of 2009 Fig 4.15 Percentage of private label use in total automotive ad expenditure
The Toyota Group, from which Daihatsu and Lexus take part, is the most active
holding in the automotive industry. Lexus, a brand that is using the same hybrid
technology as Toyota, does not appear on this list. The reason for this is, while
Toyota is using a real logo for their ‘Hybrid Synergy Drive’ technology, Lexus is not
using any logo or recognisable wording to specifically identify their green product
range. They do have green advertising, though as they employ a relatively modest
strategy they do not appear on this specific list.
For more information on all mentioned private labels, please see examples in
Appendix F: Ad examples by Private Labelling.
0.0% 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 1.0% 1.2% 1.4% 1.6% 1.8%
KIA -‐ ISG SMART -‐ Micro Hybrid Drive
MINI -‐ EfficientDynamics VOLVO -‐ Drive
SAAB -‐ BioPower FIAT -‐ Ecoplus
MERCEDES BENZ -‐ BlueTec FORD -‐ Flexifuel
MERCEDES BENZ -‐ TrueBlueSolutions CITROEN -‐ Airdream
HONDA -‐ Hybrid TOYOTA -‐ Toyota Optimal Drive
MITSUBISHI -‐ Cleartec MERCEDES BENZ -‐ BlueEfficiency
TOYOTA -‐ Clean Power Diesel RENAULT -‐ Eco2
VOLKSWAGEN -‐ BlueMotion BMW -‐ EfficientDynamics
OPEL -‐ EcoFlex TOYOTA -‐ Hybrid Synergy Drive
DAIHATSU -‐ Green Butterfly
2009*
2008
2007
2006
Percentage of private label use in total automotive ad expenditure
72
4.7 Contemporary Elements
4.7.1 Recycling Symbols
Only two brands, Opel and Renault, which makes up for 2.1 percent of all green
advertisements found, communicated recycling symbols in their ad campaigns.
According to the FTC, unless the product contains 100% recycled materials,
the label must indicate how much of the finished product is in fact of recycled
material (D’Souza, 2005). However, the identified ad campaigns use the recycling
symbol in a slightly different way than proposed by the FTC. The percentage next to
the recycling symbol states the percentage of the car that can be recycled, and not the
percentage of recycled materials from which the car is constructed.
Both Opel and Renault displayed the recycling symbol in 2007. However, it is
only Renault that chose to use to state the percentage of how much of the car can be
recycled. In 2007 the corporation communicated that 95 percent of the car can be
recycled. One year later, Renault communicated a revised recycling percentage,
namely 85 percent.
For more information on all the recycling symbols, please see examples in Appendix
G: Ad examples by Recycling Symbols.
4.7.2 Strategic Alliances
6.8 percent of all green advertisements found use a form of strategic alliance. The
brands behind this percentage are Daihatsu, Suzuki, and Toyota. A side note is that
not all ad campaigns are reflecting true strategic alliances. A good example is
Daihatsu piggy backing on Toyota’s green and reliable image, or lifting images from
73
the popular documentary of Al Gore. The ones that are seen to be piggybacking have
been greyed out in Fig 4.16. The remaining relationships are considered to be true.
Fig 4.16 Percentage of strategic alliances in total automotive ad expenditure by brand/alliance
Besides piggybacking, true relationships exist among all three brands, with
Daihatsu having the most alliances. Daihatsu refers to the ‘Consumentenbond’ (an
organ that protects the consumers), ‘Hier Nederland Klimaatneutraal’, and the ‘World
Wide Fund for Nature’; Toyota only refers to the latter, the ‘World Wide Fund for
Nature’; and Suzuki is only active with the ‘Mkomazi National Park’.
Suzuki peaked in 2006 and shows a negative trend in 2007. Daihatsu on the
other hand shows a positive development from 2006 onwards. Generally speaking the
strategic alliances peaked in 2007 when the World Wide Fund for Nature was a
popular partner for both brands of the Toyota Group, Daihatsu and Toyota.
4.7.3 Green Innovation Performance
According to Chen et al. (2006), green innovation can be divided into two types:
green product innovation or green process innovation. 26.7 percent of green
advertisements found are involved in green innovation. With this result it can be
0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.7% 0.8%
2006 2007 2008
DAIHATSU An Inconvenience Truth
DAIHATSU Subsidiary of Toyota
DAIHATSU Toyota Group
DAIHATSU Toyota-‐Lexus-‐Daihatsu Group
DAIHATSU Consumentenbond
DAIHATSU Hier Nederland Klimaatneutraal
DAIHATSU World Wide Fund for Nature
SUZUKI Mkomazi National Park
TOYOTA World Wide Fund for Nature
Percentage of strategic alliances in total automotive ad expenditure by brand/alliance
74
concluded that green innovation plays an important role in green automotive
advertising.
None of the green advertisements found met Chen’s “exact” requirements regarding
process innovation. As there were no process innovations that met Chen’s
requirements, almost all green innovations spotted are product innovations. Two
brands that appear to be slightly process-innovation oriented are Honda and Renault.
Honda claims in an advertorial that they are continuously developing new technology
to make products and its production less damaging to the environment. Renault
mentioned that their factories meet the ISO 14001 and standard for environmental
management systems.
These two brands show activity in the years 2007 and 2008. Product
innovation on the other hand shows a steady positive trend across all years.
* First four months of 2009 ** Not meeting Chen’s requirements of process innovation Fig 4.17 Percentage of green innovation in total automotive ad expenditure by innovation type
For more information on green product innovation and the two process-oriented ads
of Honda and Renault, please see examples in Appendix H: Ad examples by Green
Innovation.
0.0% 1.0% 2.0% 3.0% 4.0% 5.0% 6.0%
2006 2007 2008 2009*
Process Innovation**
Product Innovation
Product/Process Innovation**
Percentage of green innovation in total automotive ad expenditure by innovation type
75
5 Conclusions and Recommendations
5.1 Chapter Overview
The research results and analysis in the previous chapter presented the outcomes of
the content analysis of three years of automotive advertising information. One of the
main purposes of the content analysis was to identify the anatomy of green
advertising from January 2006 to April 2009. The other major feature of the study
was to understand how green advertising developed around and after the launch of the
documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in October 2006. The findings provide insights
into all elements that are communicated in green automotive advertising.
The first section elaborates on the discussion of the research question, which
ultimately will lead to the conclusions. The second section discusses the contribution
of the study. Finally the third section discusses the limitations of this dissertation.
5.2 Discussion and Conclusions
5.2.1 Overview
This dissertation lifted off with the October 2006 launch of Al Gore’s documentary
‘An Inconvenient Truth’. The documentary had a major impact worldwide, and
finally global warming moved up in the priority schedule. This tipping point of
global awareness of environmental issues may have had a major impact on the
advertising industry from 2006 onward. With the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol
and Al Gore’s documentary, a number of important events took place after the FTC
had published the 1998 Green Guides, and therefore there was a lack of guidelines
around perhaps the biggest current environmental issue, climate change (Goodwin
Procter, 2008). As advertising has an important role in shaping public opinion
76
(Zinkhan and Carlson, 1995), and content analysis has not been a popular research
approach in the last decade (Chamorro et al., 2009), it is pertinent to study what the
consumers are exposed to in terms of green advertising. For this reason the following
research question was developed:
What is the anatomy of green advertising that consumers are being exposed to
today; and how did green advertising develop around and after the documentary ‘An
Inconvenient Truth’ was released in October 2006?
A number of investigative questions have been answered in the literature review.
However, the majority of questions needed further investigation and therefore can
only be answered after the content analysis. As the research question is twofold, the
answers to these questions can be found in: a) anatomy of green advertising, b) post-
documentary development, and c) the final conclusion.
The first section, anatomy of green advertising, discusses a quick comparison
of green advertising elements of the first green advertising boom and advertisements
today. As the elements discussed are orientation, argumentation, advertising appeals,
and advertising issues, from a green advertising perspective this part will answer
questions regarding the green advertising elements used, the reflection of global
warming and other environmental issues, and other persuasion elements. From
consumers’ perspective the anatomy of green advertising answers questions on
consumers’ demands for transparency, the role of innovation and its opportunities.
Also questions from the advertisers’ perspective and the market balance will be
clarified by answering questions around whether the industry is levelling itself more
towards the green consumer, the communication of eco-labels and strategic alliances
and their opportunities.
77
The second section, the post-documentary development, elaborates on the
period around and after the launch of the documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ on
October 2006 until April 2009. This subchapter discusses the impact of the
documentary on the green advertising industry and different advertising elements,
such as the environmental issues and the involvement of non-governmental
organisations. Also the future of the prominent energy label use is a point of
discussion.
Finally, the conclusion, discusses whether one could speak of another green
advertising bubble and the perspective in current economic climate.
5.2.2 Anatomy of Green Advertising
Advertising Orientation
The study found that today’s advertisements include relatively more information or
argumentation, while in the early days nearly half of the advertisements tended to be
vague, ambiguous or containing omission (Carlson et al., 1993). In a quick
comparison of research results of the content analysis with the results from Carlson et
al. (1993), green advertising underwent a major metamorphosis. A side note is that
this comparison is not legible as no peer-to-peer comparison of the coding can be
done at this stage. Besides, this dissertation solely focuses on the automotive
industry, while the sample of Carlson et al. (1993) includes multiple industries.
However, comparing the number of unique advertising campaigns, as this was the
method Carlson et al. (1993) applied, the analysis does give some insights regarding
the evolution of green advertising. While at that time, most advertisements have a
process orientation and the shares of environmental facts and product orientation were
more of less evenly divided (Carlson et al., 1993), the majority of today’s
advertisements are product orientated.
78
In terms of greenness of the media types, television is still the brownest, or less
greenest media type of the entire media landscape. Banerjee et al. (1995) used a
coding level of three shades, shallow, moderate and deep, while in this dissertation
was measured whether arguments were used or not. Even though these figures cannot
be compared like on an apple-to-apple basis, the quick analysis shows that nothing
much has changed in the balance between print and television. Print advertisements
however tend to be relatively more meaningful in comparison to the ones in the early
days of green advertising (Banerjee et al., 1995). This development cannot be
pinpointed from the research sample; as for example the inclusion of carbon dioxide
emission rates became mandatory at the beginning of 2000. However, according to
AdvertiseCO2, due to inattentive regulation implementation many advertisers did not
follow these guidelines. As of October 2007, the European Commission resolved that
at least 20 percent of advertising space has to be dedicated to Carbon Dioxide
emission and fuel consumption (AdvertiseCO2 (n.d.)).
Advertising Appeal
It is not surprising that the emotional appeal is the most popular advertising appeal
used. Especially in the automotive industry, where emotions play such a significant
role in the purchase of a car, it is very unlikely that this ad appeal will change in this
decade or the next. Also the role of the financial incentives is something that will not
disappear, unless the prices of cars drop dramatically.
Corporate appeal however, an appeal that had such an important role in the
early green advertising boom (Banerjee et al. 1995), lost popularity. Advertisers are
more focussing on the emotions and the purchasing power of consumers, rather than
communicating the specific green actions taken and green corporate strategy applied.
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Not a surprising development, as products are taking a more important role in today’s
society.
The use of testimonials is still present in today’s advertisements. Similar to the
analysis of Banerjee et al. (1995), the presence of testimonials is not too prominent
and has relatively little added value. Celebrities are still most frequently used to
endorse the products. This is very unlikely to change, as people do relate to these role
models. However, Daihatsu is the only brand that uses unfamiliar faces for their
campaigns, which was not the case in the analysis of Banerjee et al. (1995).
However, it may also be that this was a lacking variable in their content analysis.
Advertising Issues
The advertising issue is one of the constructs that underwent a major change. While
issues like ‘atmosphere’, ‘land’, ‘water’, ‘animal’, and ‘plant’, were important at the
time of Banerjee’s study (Banerjee et al., 1995), today’s advertisements refer to more
sophisticated issues like ‘animal welfare’, ‘carbon dioxide emission’, ‘climate
depletion’, and ‘sustainability’. This is a very important shift as consumers rely to a
certain extent on advertising (Davidson, 2008). The presence of these more
sophisticated advertising issues in advertisements may contribute to a higher
awareness of contemporary environmental issues among the advertising audience. In
the automotive industry, Daihatsu and Toyota played an important role in raising the
awareness of global warming and climate change, especially in and around the time of
the release of Al Gore’s documentary.
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Labels, Symbols, and Absolute Claims
May it be third party labelling, private labelling or the use of recycling symbols, all
phenomena are prominent in automotive advertising, however, one more than the
others. Consumers demand cleaner cars and they should subsequently be labelled as
such (Vandermerwe and Oliff, 1990). With the introduction of the eco label, the
consumer was finally able to compare cars by the letters A to G, which were linked to
the energy-efficiency and carbon dioxide emission in its category (Energielabel,
2009). This development is a milestone in automotive advertising that started to
appear from September 2007, and its presence has grown ever since. Nonetheless,
eco labelling in the form of the energy label remains a concept to categorise cars from
a product perspective, while consumers need more transparency across the complete
cradle to grave/cradle cycle. A disappointing number of just two brands, Honda and
Renault, advertised from a process perspective by focussing on the less damaging
production process or by including the environmental management standard ISO
14001 in their advertisements. As green consumers are not only concerned about the
damaging impact of a product, but are also concerned about the production process, in
terms of scarce resources consumed and with the product disposal issues, a more
transparent communication strategy of the automotive industry may give rise to new
opportunities. Would a green consumer buy an energy-efficient hybrid driven Toyota
Prius if the production process and the product disposal has a catastrophic impact on
mother earth? A clear rhetorical question, but could be confusing when transparency
is lacking. The latter, the product disposal issues, has been acknowledged by two
brands, Opel and Renault, who decided to communicate that their cars can be recycled
for a certain percentage. Which proves that there is some development happening in
terms of transparency of the advertising industry. Absolute claims were pretty much
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absent. None of the advertisements claimed that their vehicles are clean and good for
the environment. If this would have been the case, there is a big chance that the
advertisement would not be seen by the mass audience as Stichting Reclame Code
(2008) would have taken them off the air immediately.
Alliances and Innovation
Several different alliances exist in green automotive advertising. Generally speaking
these alliances were represented by the brands Daihatsu, Suzuki, and Toyota. On a
few occasions, the alliance took the form of piggybacking rather than exposing a true
alliance with a non-governmental organisation (NGO). Whenever strategic alliances
where present, the NGOs had more of a supportive or approval function. If car
manufacturers succeed in building true alliances and communicate as such, by joining
forces where both parties are expected to profit from each others experience
(Mendleson and Polonsky, 1995), there is no doubt that new opportunities will arise.
Joining forces would stimulate the development of green product design and
technology. In other words, knowledge sharing could cause a leap in green product
and process innovation performance. This in particular could turn into an attractive
cost saving option in the current economic climate (Neff, 2008). However, it is
understandable that brands in such a competitive environment are hesitant to share
their knowledge, especially when the first-mover advantage takes such a prominent
place in winning and maintaining the loyalty of green consumers. Therefore, an
observation of innovation in the automotive industry is the major increase of private
labels in the automotive industry. Almost half of the advertisements label their
products, ranging from a simple green eco-friendly butterfly to a complete green
product programme like Mercedes’ ‘TrueBlueSolutions’. Nevertheless, if one would
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ask consumers regarding an eco-friendly car, there would be no doubt that most
consumers would say the hybrid technology in the Toyota Prius, also known as
‘Hybrid Synergy Drive’. Again, this proves the importance of green innovation,
which improves the corporate image, develop new markets, and especially, gains
competitive advantage. The Toyota Prius is the first of their product range using the
technology that combines the conventional fuel chain with electricity. According to
CNET (2007), Toyota’s ambitious target is to build an all-hybrid fleet by 2020.
Toyota’s ambitious goal forces other competitors in the automotive industry to
innovate and replace their current product range with energy-efficient cars.
Corporations being resistant to innovation could cost them their business in the long
run.
Natural Themes
The introduction of the Sport Utility Vehicle did change the general anatomy of green
advertising and shifted automotive advertising into a more grey area towards the
phenomenon green washing. Due to SUV advertising, the invocation of natural
themes has become more prominent in the media landscape. The growing concern of
the rise of the SUV lay at the core of the public backlash against this type of vehicle
(Gunster, 2004). In the same year Al Gore’s documentary was released, the SUV
trend peaked and figures have dropped ever since. Perhaps people got sane and
realised that the SUV consumes excessive amounts of natural resources and emits
higher levels of pollutants than necessary; and advertisers realised that these
advertisements would only do more damage than good to the brand.
83
5.2.3 Post-Documentary Development
An Inconvenient Truth
The other major feature of the study was to understand how green advertising
developed around and after the October 2006 launch of the documentary ‘An
Inconvenient Truth’. Throughout the research results and analysis, the documentary
has been tagged with a green earth in every line chart that is displaying the period
2006 – 2009. This specific data period was chosen as it would include nine months
before, the month October, and thirty months after the publication, which sums to an
analysis of a total period of forty months of advertising data. A side note is that the
US launch of the documentary was in May 2006, which may explain some of the
shifts in green advertising spend and advertising issues that have been observed
before the Dutch launch, which was in October 2006.
Green Advertising Trend
Looking at green advertising expenditure, in the automotive sector in the Netherlands
(Fig 4.1), October 2006 shows a peak that is significantly higher than the surrounding
months in 2006 and the first half of 2007. However, because that same month the
total automotive advertising expenditure actually shows a peak, the green advertising
boom is relative. When observing the percentage of green advertising in the total
automotive advertising expenditure (Fig 4.2), green advertising peaked in the summer
of 2006, thus right between the US and the Dutch launch. Nevertheless, it is obvious
that green advertising became more prominent in the media landscape in the period of
the US and Dutch launch of the documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. The
preceding years show a positive trend with fewer fluctuations as has been identified in
2006, with green advertising accelerating in 2009. It looks like green advertising
84
gained ground in the automotive industry. As the automotive industry is one of the
most important markets where consumers find the green issue to be relevant, perhaps
it could be true to say that its prominence grew in consumer durable goods (home
appliances) and the energy market also over the past three years. The green
advertising acceleration in 2009 can be explained by the growing importance of
energy labels. As this phenomenon is relatively industry specific, a similar boom in
that same period is unlikely to be expected across different industries.
Issues and NGOs
Another interesting observation is the environmental issues around and after the
launch of the documentary. The environmental issue that has been observed in the
complete data period is the issue around carbon dioxide emissions. This is not
surprising, as the inclusion of carbon dioxide emission rates became a
recommendation around 2000 (AdvertiseCO2 (n.d.)). Nonetheless, the interesting
part of the observation, quite similar to the advertising analysis in the previous
paragraph, is the fact that the number of new issues started to rise in the summer of
2006, again between the US and the Dutch launch of the documentary. During this
period issues like global warming and planet preservation were introduced in
automotive advertising. It is especially this period in which the World Wide Fund for
Nature was prominent in advertising. While Daihatsu was creating awareness around
planet preservation, Toyota was doing this on both issues. In 2007, the WWF lost
popularity and Daihatsu together with Hier Klimaat Neutraal generated awareness
around the issue climate change. After the summer of 2007, the issues global
warming and climate change lost popularity, while planet preservation increased in
85
importance. Together with carbon dioxide emissions planet preservation are the most
important issues today.
Energy Label and Government
In 2008, the carbon dioxide emission issue became more prominent than ever before
and caused green advertising to boom. Especially for the broadcast media of
television, the introduction of the energy label that is creating the awareness around
carbon dioxide emissions is a milestone in automotive advertising. However, in
reality this label also has a weak spot. According to the Bond Beter Leefmilieu
(BBL), in the consumer durable goods or home appliances industry, a sector in which
the energy label was introduced first, due to the rising number of A-labelled products
a product that has this label no longer guarantees that it is the most energy efficient
one in the product range (Stichtingmilieunet, 2009). A similar development has been
observed in the automotive industry. Initially it was agreed that the cars would
undergo a yearly review per each category. However, due to rapid innovations in
technology, a yearly revision of the labels would cause a Smart to get a D-label.
Therefore the labels have not been reviewed for at least two years now (Autoweek,
2008). A solution that was found in the consumer durable goods, to distinguish
within an existing category, the energy label A was further diversified. Appliances
that were more energy efficient than the average A-label were labelled as A+ or A++
(Stichtingmilieunet, 2009). Today, as more and more cars are receiving the A-label, it
is not unlikely for the automotive industry to apply the similar amendment to the
current labels.
Another concern is the fact that the government is shifting the current tax
system, in which the energy label takes a significant role, into a new CO2 tax plan.
86
Together with the kilometre charge (Ubbels et al., 2002), the CO2 tax plan is a
promising system that definitely will reduce traffic and exhort people to leave the car
at home whenever possible. However, this will also mean that the energy labels are
likely to disappear by 2013, which may have a major impact on the transparency of
green automotive advertising.
5.2.4 Conclusions
The documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, presented by former United States Vice
President Al Gore and directed by Davis Guggenheim, can be seen as a tipping point
of global awareness concerning climate change. Finally the issue global warming got
moved up in the international priority schedule, which subsequently moved
advertising into a greener direction. The results show that it did propel green
advertising causing another green advertising bubble. There is no doubt that green
advertising underwent a major metamorphosis in comparison to the first green
advertising bubble in the 90s. The advertising orientation changed, the information
exposure improved, environmental issues became more sophisticated, eco-labels
added clarity to the message, and the involvement of non-governmental organisations
and other alliances built trust. Nonetheless, even though many elements may have
changed and improved green advertisements, the concept of advertising remains the
same. Whether the advertisement is labelled as green advertising, environmental
advertising, conventional advertising, or even green washing, the goal of
advertisements is to be successful in influencing consumer behaviour through a series
of reception stages, described as cognitive, affective, and conative. This essential and
hierarchical information-processing model prioritises the message, the operational
strategy, and the relevance to the consumer of the brand, product or services featured
in the advertisements (Aitken et al., 2008). It cannot be instantly assumed that the
87
message is clear and easily understood by the consumer, let alone by the green
consumer. Especially in green advertising that suffered major trust issues from which
authors believed that the damage had to skip a whole generation for green advertising
to recover, a one-size-fits-all strategy should be the last strategy a corporation should
think of (Ginsberg and Bloom, 2004). As eco labelling, such as the energy label, is a
concept that exposes the energy-efficiency from a product perspective, the process
and the disposal perspective still lacks transparency. Generally speaking, green
consumers are not only concerned about the impact that a product has while it is
consumed, but are also concerned about the production process and the disposal
issues (Zinkhan and Carlson, 1995). Considering the current economic climate and
the high fuel prices, the majority of the consumers just want an energy-efficient car
and therefore should be relatively satisfied with automotive advertisements today.
For a while now, the global credit crunch had been the central point of discussion
across all media worldwide. All the same, despite of the economic downturn, under
Barack Obama’s supervision as the President of the United States of America, climate
change remains a high priority. Together with the decision taken by the G20, green
advertising is key in shaping a greener world. Advertising has the power to effect
social change (Fisk, 1974), and despite the fact consumers do not believe in it, they do
rely on advertising (Davidson, 2008).
5.3 Contributions of the Study
This study has attempted to gain an exploratory understanding of the anatomy of
green advertising today and the development around and after the documentary ‘An
Inconvenient Truth’ was released in October 2006. There are some important
contributions made by this study.
88
First, the study supports the constructs for content analyses designed by previous
researchers. Despite the fact that some of the constructs had to be amended where
needed, the general concept stands. By combining elements from Banerjee and Iyer
(1995), Banerjee et al. (1993), and Carlson et al. (1993) a new content analysis model
arose with an additional application of contemporary elements. After almost a
decade, this new model may be useful in future content analysis of green advertising.
Bearing in mind that this model was applied to the automotive industry, it became
clear that industry relevant variables were required in order to adequately address the
focus industry.
Besides the support of the previous constructs for content analysis, this study supports
the rate-weighted method suggested by Prior (2001), which considers the prices of the
ad buy as an alternative weight, as the more intuitive measure. By considering key
variables, such as incidence, volume, and media channel rate, the rate-weighted
method gives a better reflection of the “real” market. The alternative analysis by
unique campaign, also known as the unweighted method, would give deviation in the
results and therefore may lead to significantly different conclusions. The analysis by
unique campaigns has been left out of the study. However, to emphasize the different
methods, chapter 3.3.3: the weighting factors, displays how the totals are compiled,
and differences are explained.
Furthermore, this study reiterates the importance of research in the field of green
advertising. This specific study in the automotive advertising created a foundation for
consumer research. A semiotic analysis would be highly suitable to study the
consumer’s perception of green advertising today. Especially with the shift from the
89
current tax system, to the new CO2 tax plan and the diminishment of the energy
labels.
5.4 Limitations
There are several limitations to this study, starting with the geographical limitation.
As this content analysis was conducted in the Netherlands, the results will reflect the
Dutch national market specifically. The fact that the main advertising language is
Dutch does not directly signify that only Dutch elements are used in advertising. For
instance, the energy label that is used to indicate the energy-efficiency of cars is a
European initiative. Besides, due to globalisation, the development of the Internet
such as web 2.0, and since advertising concepts are often globally used, to a certain
extent, this study may be internationally accepted as well.
According to Carlson et al. (1996) who conducted an international comparison
of environmental advertising across four English-speaking countries (US, Canada,
Great Britain, and Australia), the character of advertising differs among countries.
These authors found that the US ad claims are more associative and have fewer
substantive claims compared to the other countries in the sample. Since the majority
of the literature review is based on US publication and it may be that the US is not at
the forefront of environmental marketing, the described research method may lack
some depth in terms of advertisement elements. Besides, European businesses
traditionally have been perceived as more environmentally responsible than the US
(Carlson et al., 1996).
Another limitation regards the media landscape. According to the Media Group of
The Nielsen Company in the Netherlands, four traditional media types exist and all
play a significant role in the automotive industry. However, not to exceed the
90
manageable size for one full time equivalent and the specific time period, the
broadcast media radio had been excluded from the sample. Other available media
types, e.g. outdoor, cinema, direct mail and especially Internet, would be a great add-
on if the budget would allow a larger group of researchers.
And finally, the last limitation is the industry. Basically, three major industries exist
where green advertising has gained ground: consumer durable goods (home
appliances), energy market, and the automotive industry. As the sample needed to be
of manageable size, this study maintained a focus on the automotive industry only.
However, since the automotive industry is one of the biggest industries in the
Netherlands, in terms of (green) advertising, this study should shape a relatively
substantial picture of the green advertising market in the Netherlands.
91
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• Salt (2008). Salt Online: People Planet Passion Play. Viewed on 2009-10-29, on http://www.getsalt.com
• Sp!ts (2008). Sp!ts: Adverteren. Viewed on 2009-10-29, on http://www.spits.nl
• Stichtingmileunet (2009). Stichting Milieu Net: nieuw EU energielabel voor televisies, koelkasten, diepvriezen en wasmachines. Viewed on 2009-10-08, on http://www.stichtingmilieunet.nl
• Ster (n.d.). Ster: adverteren. Viewed on 2009-10-29, on http://www.ster.nl
• The Nielsen Company (2009). The Nielsen Company. Viewed on 2009-04-16, on http://www.nielsen.com
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Appendix A: The Nielsen Company – Media List
THE NIELSEN COMPANY THE NETHERLANDS TELEVISION STATION National NEDERLAND 1 NEDERLAND 2 NEDERLAND 3 RTL-4 RTL-5 SBS 6 RTL-7 RTL-8 V8/VERONICA NET 5 NICKELODEON COMEDY CENTRAL TMF THE MUSIC FACTORY MTV NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL TIENTV (OUD)
THE NIELSEN COMPANY THE NETHERLANDS NEWSPAPERS TITLE Daily Papers AD MAGAZINE ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD BRABANT COMBINATIE DAG (OUD) DAGBLAD VAN HET NOORDEN DE DORDTENAAR DE GELDERLANDER [INC BARN.KRT] DE GOOI- EN EEMLANDER DE PERS DE TELEGRAAF DE TELEGRAAF OP ZONDAG DE VOLKSKRANT FD PERSOONLIJK FRIESCH DAGBLAD HAARLEMS DAGBLAD KOMBINATIE HET FINANCIEELE DAGBLAD HET PAROOL LEEUWARDER COURANT LEIDSCH DAGBLAD LIMBURGSE DAGBLADEN COMBINATIE M MAGAZINE METRO NEDERLANDS DAGBLAD NEXT.GUIDE (OUD) NEXT.ONE (OUD) NOORDHOLLANDS DAGBLAD NRC HANDELSBLAD NRC.NEXT PAROOL MAGAZINE PROVINCIALE ZEEUWSE COURANT PS VAN DE WEEK REFORMATORISCH DAGBLAD RIJN EN GOUWE ROTTERDAMS DAGBLAD SIJTHOFF PERS DAGBLADCOMB. SP!TS STAATSCOURANT STIJL ONTMOET STIJL TELEGRAAF LUXE TROUW TUBANTIA OP ZONDAG TV WEEKEINDE UNAC COMBINATIE VOLKSKRANT MAGAZINE VROUW WEGENER DAGBL.GELDERL/OVERIJSSEL
THE NIELSEN COMPANY THE NETHERLANDS MAGAZINES TITLE Magazines 02 BIKERS 101WOONIDEEEN 4WD AUTOMAGAZINE AKTUEEL ALOHA AM MAGAZINE ANWB AUTO ANWB BOOT
ARIADNE AT HOME WONEN AUTO MOTOR EN SPORT (OUD) AUTO MOTOR KLASSIEK AUTO PODIUM AUTO REVIEW AUTOKAMPIOEN AUTOMOBIEL KLASSIEKER MAGAZINE AUTOPRESS AUTOVISIE AUTOWEEK AVANTGARDE AVANTGARDE MEN AVRO BODE BABY INFO BABY'S EERSTE JAAR BACIO (OUD) BACKPACKERS BEAU MONDE BEELD & GELUID OPINIE BELEGGERS BELANGEN BEST LIFE (OUD) BEURSPLEIN 5 (OUD) BG MAGAZINE BIGTWIN BIKERMAGAZINE BINGO! BIZZ BIZZ FAMILIEBEDRIJF BLOEMEN & PLANTEN BLVD (OUD) BLVD MAN BODY EN MIND BREAK OUT! BRIDGE BRIGHT BRISK (OUD) BRITISH BRUID & BRUIDEGOM MAGAZINE BUITEN BUITENLANDSE MARKTEN BUITENLEVEN BURDA BUSINESS WEEK C-SHARP (OUD) CANAL+ GIDS CAPTAIN CARP CARP (OUD) CARRIERE & UPDATE FINANCIEEL CARRIERE & UPDATE TECHNIEK CARROS CASH CATHERINE (OUD) CELEBRITY MAGAZINE COLUMBUS COMPUTER IDEE CONTRAST COSMOGIRL! COSMOPOLITAN DE ACCOUNTANT DE GROENE AMSTERDAMMER DE HARDLOPER (OUD) DE UITKIJK (OUD) DE ZAAK DER SPIEGEL DEZE WEEK DONALD DUCK EFFECT EIGEN HUIS & INTERIEUR ELAN ELEGANCE ELF ELLE ELLE ETEN ELLE WONEN ELLEGIRL ELSEVIER EN FRANCE EO VISIE ESQUIRE ESTA FAMILIETIJD (OUD) FANCY FC VOETBAL MAGAZINE
96
FELDERHOF FEM BUSINESS FIETS ACTIEF FLAIR FOCUS FOCUS (DTSL) FOR HIM MAGAZINE FORMULE 1 FORMULE 1.NL GALA (OUD) GAMEPRO GAMEQUEST (OUD) GARDENS & COUNTRY GEORGE GIRLZ! GLAMAZINE GLAMOUR GLOSSY GOLF JOURNAAL GOLF NIEUWS GOLFERS MAGAZINE GOODFOOD GRASDUINEN GRAZIA GREEN.2 GROEI & BLOEI GROTER GROEIEN GTO (OUD) HAPPINEZ HART VOOR DIEREN HET (HOME ENTERTAINMENT TODAY) HIDE & CHIC HITKRANT HOCKEY MAGAZINE (OUD) HOCKEY MAGAZINE SPECIAL (OUD) HOCKEY WEEKLY HOCKEY.NL HOLLANDS DIEP HOME AND GARDEN HP/DE TIJD HVT IN 1 GOLF EN LIFESTYLE (OUD) IN VERWACHTING INFINANCE INTERMEDIAIR INTIEM ITALIE MAGAZINE J/M MAANDBLAD VOOR OUDERS J/M PUBERS (OUD) JACKIE JAMES JAN JANTJE JEWELS FASHION & WATCHES JFK JOHAN JOIE DE VIVRE KAMPEER & CARAVAN KAMPIOEN KAMPIOEN KICXSTART KIDSWEEK KIJK KINDEREN KINDJE OP KOMST KNIP MODE KRO MAGAZINE LA VIE EN ROSE LANDLEVEN LEVEN IN FRANKRIJK LIBELLE LINDA. LINK LIVING LUISTER MAMA MAN MANAGEMENT SCOPE MANAGEMENT SUPPORT MAGAZINE MANAGEMENT TEAM MARGRIET MARIA MARIE CLAIRE MAXIM (OUD) MEDIA TOTAAL MEN'S HEALTH MERIDIAN MIDI (OUD) MIJN GEHEIM MIKRO GIDS MILJONAIR
MIND MAGAZINE MONEY MORE THAN CLASSIC MOTO 73 MOTOR MOTORBOOT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER NAUTIQUE NCRV GIDS NEGEN MAANDEN MAGAZINE NGAMER NIEUWE REVU NOBILES NOUVEAU NRC FOCUS NU DE TIJD VAN JE LEVEN (OUD) OBJEKT ODE OFFICIELE PRIJSCOURANT ONDERNEMEN ONE (OUD) OOK! OOR OP PAD OPZIJ OUDERS VAN NU OUTDOOR MAGAZINE PANORAMA PARTY PAUZE PC GAMEPLAY PC PLUS MAGAZINE PC ZONE BENELUX PENTHOUSE PINK RIBBON PITCH (OUD) PLAYBOY PLAYNATION (OUD) PLAYSTATION 2 MAGAZINE PLUS POWER UNLIMITED PREVIEW PRIMO PRIVE PROMOTOR PSYCHOLOGIE MAGAZINE QUEST QUOTE QUOTE FINANCE (OUD) READER'S DIGEST/HET BESTE RED REIZEN RESIDENCE REVU RTL GP MAGAZINE RUNNERS WORLD S1NGLE (OUD) SALT MAGAZINE SAMSONIC SANDRA SANTE SCHIPPER M/V (OUD) SEASONS SEASONS FRANKRIJK (OUD) SEN SIS (OUD) SKI-MAGAZINE SNOWBOARD MAGAZINE SPORT INTERNATIONAL (OUD) SPORTSWOMEN.NL SPORTWEEK SPROUT SQ SOCIETY QUARTERLY (OUD) SQUEEZE STARSTYLE (OUD) STORY STRICTLY STUDIO KRO MAGAZINE SUM SUM ORIENTATIE NIEUWS SUMMERTIME MAGAZINE SURF-MAGAZINE TABLEAU FINE ARTS MAGAZINE TALKIES TECHNISCHE&KWANTITATIEVE ANALYSE TELEVIZIER TENNIS THE BIG BLACK BOOK THE ECONOMIST
97
THUIS TIME TINA TIP CULINAIR TIPS & TRUCS TOERACTIEF TOP GEAR TOP SANTE TOTAAL TV TRIV’ (OUD) TROSKOMPAS TUINIEREN TV FILM TV KRANT U EN UW BABY UITKRANT VARA TV MAGAZINE VARAGIDS VERONICA VERONICA SATELLITE VIDEO UIT & THUIS VILLA D'ARTE VIVA VIVA BABY'S VIVA MAMA VIVENDA VOETBAL INTERNATIONAL
VOETBAL MAGAZINE VOX VPRO GIDS VRIENDIN VRIJ NEDERLAND VT WONEN WATERKAMPIOEN WEEKEND WELKE BADKAMERS WELKE HAARDEN EN KACHELS WELKE KEUKENS EN APPARATUUR WELKE VLOEREN EN WANDEN WETENSCHAP IN BEELD WIJ JONGE OUDERS WINING & DINING XBOX MAGAZINE YES Z@PP&ZO ZEILEN ZIN ZO ZIT DAT ZWANGER & ZO
The Nielsen Company (2009)
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Appendix B: Ad examples by Ad Orientation Ad Orientation – Environmental Facts
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht Brand : Daihatsu
Creative ID : 30176AF Media : Television
99
Ad Orientation – Image
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk Brand : Renault
Creative ID : 401577 Media : Magazines
100
Ad Orientation – Product
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Lexus Creative ID : 427017
Media : Magazines
101
Ad Orientation – Combination (Image/Product)
Advertiser : Auto Import Maatschappij AIM Vianen Utrecht Brand : Saab
Creative ID : 386582 Media : Magazines
102
Ad Orientation – Implicit
Advertiser : Daimler Chrysler Nederland Utrecht
Brand : Mercedes Benz Creative ID : 357797
Media : Magazines
103
Appendix C1: Ad examples by Ad Appeal Ad Appeal – Emotional
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : 417358
Media : Magazines
104
Ad Appeal – Financial
Advertiser : Citroen Nederland Amsterdam
Brand : Citroen Creative ID : 438577
Media : Newspapers
105
Ad Appeal – Informative
Advertiser : Daimler Chrysler Nederland Utrecht Brand : Mercedes Benz
Creative ID : 474286 Media : Magazines
106
Ad Appeal – Corporate
Advertiser : Daimler Chrysler Nederland Utrecht Brand : Mercedes Benz
Creative ID : 436258 Media : Magazines
107
Ad Appeal – Rational
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht Brand : Daihatsu
Creative ID : 338429 Media : Newspapers
108
Ad Appeal – Implicitly
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : 447577
Media : Newspapers
109
Ad Appeal – Testimonial
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Lexus Creative ID : 514568
Media : Newspapers
110
Appendix C2: Ad examples by Ad Appeal Elements Ad Appeal – Emotional – Responsible
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer Brand : Toyota
Creative ID : 417358 Media : Magazines
Ad Appeal – Emotional – Humour
Advertiser : BMW Nederland Rijswijk Zuid-Holland
Brand : BMW Creative ID : 517274
Media : Magazines
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Ad Appeal – Emotional – Comfort
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk
Brand : Renault Creative ID : 488382
Media : Magazines
Ad Appeal – Emotional – Excitement
Advertiser : BMW Nederland Rijswijk Zuid-Holland Brand : BMW
Creative ID : 446395 Media : Magazines
112
Ad Appeal – Emotional – Warmth
Advertiser : General Motors Nederland Breda
Brand : Opel Creative ID : I635402
Media : Television
Ad Appeal – Emotional – Trust
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonkveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : 418231
Media : Newspapers
113
Ad Appeal – Financial – Cause Subsidy
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonkveer
Brand : Lexus Creative ID : 368078
Media : Newspapers
Ad Appeal – Financial – Money-off
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht Brand : Daihatsu
Creative ID : 466667 Media : Magazines
114
Ad Appeal – Financial – Special Offer
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht
Brand : Daihatsu Creative ID : 409394
Media : Magazines
Ad Appeal – Financial – Recycle Bonus
Advertiser : General Motors Nederland Breda Brand : Opel
Creative ID : 415589 Media : Newspapers
115
Ad Appeal – Financial – Split Payment
Advertiser : General Motors Nederland Breda
Brand : Opel Creative ID : I637077
Media : Television
Ad Appeal – Informative – Ecological Program
Advertiser : Daimler Chrysler Nederland Utrecht
Brand : Mercedes Benz Creative ID : 497738
Media : Magazines
116
Ad Appeal – Informative – Cleanness
Advertiser : Ford Nederland Amsterdam
Brand : Ford Creative ID : 419784
Media : Magazines
Ad Appeal – Corporate – Social Responsible
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk Brand : Renault
Creative ID : 401577 Media : Magazines
117
Ad Appeal – Corporate – Green Actions
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht
Brand : Daihatsu Creative ID : 30176AI
Media : Television
Ad Appeal – Rational – Plain
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht
Brand : Daihatsu Creative ID : 338167
Media : Magazines
118
Ad Appeal – Implicitly – Green Car
Advertiser : Chevrolet Nederland Breda
Brand : Chevrolet Creative ID : 30344AE
Media : Television
Ad Appeal – Implicitly – Natural Environment
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk
Brand : Renault Creative ID : 388161
Media : Magazines
119
Ad Appeal – Implicitly – Windmill
Advertiser : Ford Nederland Amsterdam
Brand : Ford Creative ID : 402158
Media : Magazines
Ad Appeal – Testimonial – Celebrity
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonkveer Brand : Toyota
Creative ID : 519729 Media : Newspapers
120
Ad Appeal – Testimonial – Citizen
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht
Brand : Daihatsu Creative ID : 484445
Media : Magazines
121
Appendix D: Ad examples by Ad Issues Ad Issues – Carbon Dioxide Emission
Advertiser : Fiat Auto Nederland Lijnden Brand : Fiat
Creative ID : 214129 Media : Television
Ad Issues – Planet Preservation
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : I632890
Media : Television
122
Ad Issues – Global Warming
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht
Brand : Daihatsu Creative ID : 30176A
Media : Television
Ad Issues – Animal Welfare – Project
Advertiser : Nimag Vianen Utrecht
Brand : Suzuki Creative ID : 29090A
Media : Television
123
Ad Issues – Animal Welfare – Subtle
Advertiser : Pon's Automobielhandel Leusden
Brand : Volkswagen Creative ID : I641966
Media : Television
124
Appendix E: Ad examples by Third Party Labelling Third Party Labelling – Energy Label
Advertiser : BMW Nederland Rijswijk Zuid-Holland Brand : Volkswagen
Creative ID : 440918 Media : Magazines
Third Party Labelling – Hier Nederland Klimaatneutraal
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht
Brand : Daihatsu Creative ID : 395795
Media : Magazines
125
Third Party Labelling – ISO 14001
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk
Brand : Renault Creative ID : 24896AA
Media : Television
Third Party Labelling – Rhino Mkomazi National Park
Advertiser : Nimag Vianen Utrecht Brand : Suzuki
Creative ID : 29090A Media : Television
126
Third Party Labelling – World Wide Fund for Nature
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : 377127
Media : Newspapers
Third Party Labelling – Combination
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht Brand : Daihatsu
Creative ID : 386505 Media : Newspapers
127
Appendix F: Ad examples by Private Labelling Private Labelling – 1. Daihatsu – Green Butterfly
Advertiser : Daihatsu Holland Vianen Utrecht Brand : Daihatsu
Creative ID : 409394 Media : Magazines
Private Labelling – 2. Toyota – Hybrid Synergy Drive
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : 339454
Media : Magazines
128
Private Labelling – 3. Opel – EcoFlex
Advertiser : General Motors Nederland Breda
Brand : Opel Creative ID : I635405
Media : Television
Private Labelling – 4. BMW – EfficientDynamics
Advertiser : BMW Nederland Rijswijk Zuid-Holland Brand : BMW
Creative ID : 504239 Media : Magazines
129
Private Labelling – 5. Volkswagen – BlueMotion
Advertiser : Pon's Automobielhandel Leusden
Brand : Volkswagen Creative ID : 472362
Media : Newspapers
Private Labelling – 6. Renault – Eco2
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk Brand : Renault
Creative ID : 421440 Media : Newspapers
130
Private Labelling – 7. Toyota – Clean Power Diesel
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : 313072
Media : Magazines
Private Labelling – 8. Mercedes Benz – BlueEfficiency
Advertiser : DaimlerChrysler Nederland Utrecht
Brand : Mercedes Benz Creative ID : I647360
Media : Television
131
Private Labelling – 9. Mitsubishi – Cleartec
Advertiser : Mitsubishi Motor Sales Schiphol-Rijk
Brand : Mitsubishi Creative ID : 31681AA
Media : Television
Private Labelling – 10. Toyota – Toyota Optimal Drive
Advertiser : Louwman & Parqui Raamsdonksveer
Brand : Toyota Creative ID : 522951
Media : Newspapers
132
Appendix G: Ad examples by Recycling Symbols Recycling Symbols – Opel
Advertiser : General Motors Nederland Breda Brand : Opel
Creative ID : 417768 Media : Television
Recycling Symbols – Renault – 95%
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk
Brand : Renault Creative ID : 401577
Media : Magazines
133
Recycling Symbols – Renault – 85%
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk
Brand : Renault Creative ID : 24896AA
Media : Television
134
Appendix H: Ad examples by Green Innovation Green Innovation – Product Innovation
Advertiser : DaimlerChrysler Nederland Utrecht Brand : Mercedes Benz
Creative ID : 460289 Media : Magazines
Green Innovation – Process Innovation
Advertiser : Renault Nissan Nederland Schiphol-Rijk