What Green Marketing Strategy to Use Prior To a Greenwashing Scandal?

Sammanfattning: Despite the increase in green advertising in the past decade, the way these green messages are communicated and their efficacy when it comes to mitigating damages in case of a greenwashing scandal, is still an area that has not been well-researched. Thus, this paper aims to contribute to closing this research gap by investigating the impact of two different green marketing communication styles on consumers' brand attitude and purchase intention in the context of a greenwashing scandal while also considering the moderating effects of environmental concern and customer skepticism towards green marketing. To conduct this thesis, a three-step study was carried out where the results showed that consumers' brand attitude before and after a greenwashing scandal is affected negatively to the same extent when presented with the bragging and the humble marketing communication styles. Furthermore, consumers' purchase intention is not affected more or less negatively by the two different communication styles, bragging and humble. The negative effects of the marketing efforts on the difference in brand attitude in the context of greenwashing scandal are stronger for the bragging green marketing in the case of higher consumer skepticism towards green marketing, but this does not apply to the difference in purchase intention. Furthermore, these negative effects on the difference in brand attitude and purchase intention will not be more or less enhanced depending on the consumers' level of environmental concern. This paper will therefore discuss the implications of these findings for marketers and while also considering the limitations and presenting areas for future research.