(Illustration by Adam McCauley)
Ali Tezer was a doctoral student in marketing at Montreal’s Concordia University when he joined friends at a fall 2014 screening of the 3-D movie X-Men: Days of Future Past. Once the lights dimmed, an announcement flashed on the screen: The disposable 3-D glasses distributed to viewers were made from recycled materials.
The following day, Tezer found himself wondering whether wearing environmentally friendly 3-D glasses had affected his experience watching the film. He knew that most research on green products focuses on purchasing. But what about the experience of consuming a green product? His curiosity piqued, Tezer embarked on a new research project, together with his supervisor H. Onur Bodur, a professor of marketing at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business.
Tezer and Bodur designed five experiments to test the attitudes and experiences of consumers who had not made a deliberate choice to purchase an eco-friendly product but learned of its green attributes after the fact. “The literature shows that even though most consumers state a preference for green products, they avoid buying them,” says Tezer, now a marketing professor at HEC Montréal. “Despite what they say, many people have the lay belief that green products are inferior, not as strong or effective as conventional options.” When Tezer and Bodur investigated what consumers thought about green products after using them, they uncovered benefits previously underappreciated by researchers.
In a new paper, Tezer and Bodur identify what they call “the greenconsumption effect,” defined as “warm glow feelings” that accompany the use of environmentally friendly products. “Merely using a green product makes consumers perceive an increase in the extent to which they are valued as individuals by society,” the authors explain. Rebecca Walker Reczek, professor of marketing at The Ohio State University, says the study “suggests that the benefits to the self of using green products go beyond potential economic benefits and even beyond feelings of self-worth.” Companies and service providers may be better off by selling green products to consumers because they may enjoy using them more.
Their first experiment tested whether green headphones enhanced the experience of listening to music when compared with conventional headphones. It evaluated the differences between wearing green headphones (the consumption stage) and learning about their green attributes (the purchase stage). “Since we had a lab, we didn’t have to rely on scenario-based studies,” Tezer says. “We didn’t have to ask people to imagine doing something. We could actually have them do these tasks.” Tezer and Bodur found that participants—a group of 198 undergraduates who received partial course credit for joining the study—enjoyed listening to music more with green headphones. Using them elicited warm glow feelings that bolstered the likelihood that they would purchase the green version.
The second experiment targeted lay beliefs in the poor performance of green products. Eighty undergraduates were given dirty plates and utensils to clean. Some received a plant-based solution with biodegradable ingredients, and others used a conventional dinnerware sanitizer. Neither group knew which product had been assigned to them. After trying out the product and judging performance, students reported stronger purchase intentions and willingness to pay for the green option. With firsthand experiential information, study participants overcame anti-green bias. “One implication,” says John Peloza, professor of marketing at the University of Kentucky, “is that marketers might enhance experience by deliberately keeping information about green attributes away from consumers until post-purchase encounters.”
Subsequent experiments measured how feelings of low self-worth and social exclusion influenced the greenconsumption effect. For individuals who “experience low social worth,” the greenconsumption effect was even more pronounced. Tezer and Bodur’s final experiment manipulated green product attributes and found that the greenconsumption effect dissipated “when the perceived environmental impact of the product’s green attribute is low.” They asked 151 undergraduates to write a short essay with a pen after circulating a research report about the environmental impact of the outer body of the pen versus the ink. When the environmental impact was reported as negligible, students did not experience warm glow feelings.
The study has implications for many company managers. “We suggest that if you’re selling green products, it is probably a good idea to have consumers sample the product,” Tezer says. “If you let people try the green product, they can learn that it works just as well, so that the next time they shop, they make the purchase.”
Ali Tezer and H. Onur Bodur, “The Greenconsumption Effect: How Using Green Products Improves Consumption Experience,” Journal of Consumer Research, September 27, 2019.
Read more stories by Daniela Blei.