Desert or rain: Standardisation of green advertising versus adaptation to the target audience's natural environment

Abstract

Purpose

Given the observable increase in images of nature in advertising on a global scale, this study aims to ask whether such creative strategies should adapt imagery to the natural environment of the target audiences or could it be standardised globally.

Design/methodology/approach

Two samples of respondents living in different geographic locations with contrasted climates and natural environments were exposed to a set of experimental green advertisements visually featuring different categories of natural scenery and one urban landscape. Attitude towards each advertisement and emotional responses evoked by it were measured and compared across the range of stimuli and the two samples.

Findings

Results did not support either the hypothesis that individuals prefer advertisements showing the natural habitat in which they had grown up or the hypothesized universal preference for advertising imagery displaying savannah type landscapes. However, the observed preferences across both samples for advertisements featuring natural landscapes with abundant green vegetation and clear water are consistent with evolutionary psychology, which proposes that perception of beauty in a landscape is universal and hypothesizes preferences for landscapes with those characteristics.

Research limitations/implications

The study was experimental in nature and based on only two specific geographic locations, as well as on one product and experimental brand. Findings and conclusions must therefore be adopted with due caution. Future research should be conducted on a broader geographic scale, across a wider range of natural and cultural environments, and with a greater variety of products and brands.

Practical implications

Results discourage the adaptation of nature imagery to the geographic location of a target audience, and support a global strategy based on the standardised use of landscapes universally perceived to be beautiful, following the principles of environmental aesthetics.

Originality/value

This is the first study to apply evolutionary and environmental psychology to an investigation of the influence of a target audience's natural environment on its behavioural responses to natural imagery in advertising.

Citation

Hartmann, P. and Apaolaza‐Ibáñez, V. (2013), "Desert or rain: Standardisation of green advertising versus adaptation to the target audience's natural environment", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 47 No. 5/6, pp. 917-933. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090561311308091