TY - JOUR
T1 - Engaging Consumers with Environmental Sustainability Initiatives
T2 - Consumer Global–Local Identity and Global Brand Messaging
AU - Salnikova, Ekaterina
AU - Strizhakova, Yuliya
AU - Coulter, Robin A.
N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors appreciate the financial support by Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, and Rutgers University School of Business–Camden for data collections. Publisher Copyright: © American Marketing Association 2022.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Environmental sustainability is a common practice of global brands, with 90% of the top 100 Interbrand global brands making statements about environmental efforts on their websites. In this research, the authors explore how a consumer’s global–local identity can affect consumer engagement with a global brand’s environmental sustainability initiative. Specifically, they examine consumer engagement in response to environmental messaging based on regulatory focus, spatial construal, and temporal construal. They theorize and find, across six experimental studies, that consumers with a strong global identity are more engaged with environmental sustainability initiatives when messaging includes frames congruent with their global identity, specifically promotion frames coupled with distant spatial frames and with proximal temporal frames. For consumers with a local identity, these regulatory and construal messaging frames do not impact consumer engagement with environmental sustainability initiatives. Consumer environmental mindset mediates the effect of global–local identity on consumer engagement with environmental sustainability initiatives when such congruent frames are used, and consumer eagerness to act provides additional process explanation for the asymmetric spatial (distant) and temporal (proximal) construal effects. The findings have significant implications for the design of global brand and environmental policy messaging, particularly for consumers with a strong global identity.
AB - Environmental sustainability is a common practice of global brands, with 90% of the top 100 Interbrand global brands making statements about environmental efforts on their websites. In this research, the authors explore how a consumer’s global–local identity can affect consumer engagement with a global brand’s environmental sustainability initiative. Specifically, they examine consumer engagement in response to environmental messaging based on regulatory focus, spatial construal, and temporal construal. They theorize and find, across six experimental studies, that consumers with a strong global identity are more engaged with environmental sustainability initiatives when messaging includes frames congruent with their global identity, specifically promotion frames coupled with distant spatial frames and with proximal temporal frames. For consumers with a local identity, these regulatory and construal messaging frames do not impact consumer engagement with environmental sustainability initiatives. Consumer environmental mindset mediates the effect of global–local identity on consumer engagement with environmental sustainability initiatives when such congruent frames are used, and consumer eagerness to act provides additional process explanation for the asymmetric spatial (distant) and temporal (proximal) construal effects. The findings have significant implications for the design of global brand and environmental policy messaging, particularly for consumers with a strong global identity.
KW - construal
KW - engagement
KW - environmental sustainability
KW - global brand
KW - global identity
KW - local identity
KW - regulatory focus
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U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437221078522
DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437221078522
M3 - Article
SN - 0022-2437
JO - Journal of Marketing Research
JF - Journal of Marketing Research
ER -