Environmental deterioration that has accompanied the promotion of productivity, including the increase in severe industrial pollution and ecological damage caused by agriculture, has become a topic of urgent importance to humanity. Rampant sandstorms and frequent haze in recent years in China serve as constant reminders to the Chinese government and residents that problems resulting from environmental deterioration have become a key issue that must be handled. For the 13th Five Year Plan from 2016 to 2020, the Chinese government included for the first time the policy of strengthening the construction of an ecological civilization, the final goal of environmental reform in China, and committed to providing major support to the environmental protection industry. It is estimated that an increasing number of enterprises will become involved in developing, manufacturing, and promoting proenvironmental products (Li, 2018). However, merely increasing the supply of proenvironmental products is not enough to ensure their consumption. It will be a long-term objective for consumers to adopt proenvironmental products and get used to consuming them daily (Juhl, Fenger, & Thøgersen, 2017). It is also difficult for the Chinese government and for firms to encourage consumers to engage in environmental protection by purchasing proenvironmental commodities (W. Wang, Krishna, & McFerran, 2017). Therefore, it is important for the government and firms to discover how to stimulate consumers’ purchase intention of proenvironmental products.

In existing research on this topic, scholars have concentrated on consumers’ characteristics and personality, such as gender (Brough, Wilkie, Ma, Isaac, & Gal, 2016), values (Barber, Kuo, Bishop, & Goodman, 2012), and self-identity (Johe & Bhullar, 2016). This is a good way to explain why consumers’ attitudes and reactions to green offerings can be highly varied (W. Wang et al., 2017), but this kind of research cannot provide a direct answer to the issue of how to influence consumers through external factors or actions. In China, there is quite limited research on proenvironmental behavior, and most researchers have tended to adopt the traditional approach of the theory of reasoned action (Chen & Tung, 2010). As a result, research on external factors needs to be developed further (Smith et al., 2012). In addition, for action-oriented research, green marketing information is almost equal to environmental knowledge sharing (Cervellon & Wernerfelt, 2012). It is time to give greater consideration to marketing information, to expand the attention of current researchers into purchase of proenvironmental products, to include more external factors, and to enrich the marketing tactics for both governments and firms.

Theoretical Background and Research Hypotheses

Marketing Information about Proenvironmental Products

Marketing information about proenvironmental products refers to the messages that enterprises convey to target audiences to advertise their proenvironmental products. White, MacDonnell, and Dahl (2011) found that loss- and gain-framed messages are very effective in influencing consumers’ environmental protection behaviors. Many researchers have determined that marketing information on a particular commodity could be transformed into consumers’ inner motivation, thereby affecting the purchase intention and behavior of those consumers (Pickett-Baker & Ozaki, 2008; Wei & Zhang, 2002). Further, Chan, Leung, and Wong (2006) indicated that, in China, environmental information in advertisements for proenvironmental products is beneficial in increasing consumers’ purchase intention. Kronrod, Grinstein, and Wathieu (2012) found that consumers respond better to assertive messages than they do to nonassertive messages if they believe the environmental issue to be important.

In a study by Polonsky, Carlson, Grove, and Kangun (1997), the findings indicated that information about a product demonstrating how it improves the environment or reduces environmental deterioration is important. Cialdini (2009) suggested that consumers can be more motivated to join environmental programs if they witness the effort the firm has made to improve the environment. Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius (2008) explored the environmental measures that hotels should take, and the messages they could use, to discourage customers from changing towels, and found that descriptive information on what others do is more effective in encouraging customers to engage in environmental protection than are conventional taglines, because it encourages more customers to stop changing towels.

To conclude, in the current study, marketing information on proenvironmental products is classified as three types: (a) environmental knowledge relating to the product (relevant environmental problems and the product’s contribution to the environment), (b) information about corporate social responsibility (environmental protection efforts made by the enterprise), and (3) descriptive norms (contribution and efforts from other consumers for the good of the environment). I discuss marketing information from the aspects of product, enterprise, and consumers, and I probed the effects of each of these on purchase intention for proenvironmental products in China.

Environmental Knowledge Relating to the Product

Fryxell and Lo (2003, p. 48) define environmental knowledge as “general knowledge of facts, concepts, and relationships concerning the natural environment and its major ecosystems.” In previous research, Chinese scholars (Chan, 2001; Ip, 2003) have agreed that environmental knowledge relating to a proenvironmental product impacts consumers’ eventual purchase intention and behavior for the product, and that this conclusion can be applied in the Chinese cultural context. In the current study I define environmental knowledge relating to the product as the information that indicates how the specific product makes a contribution to the environment, such as using environmental packaging or environmentally friendly production process, or mixing proenvironmental materials. These kinds of information are new to potential consumers, and thus require the manufacturing firms to communicate them in marketing. Therefore, I formulated the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Environmental knowledge relating to the product will have a significant positive effect on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products.

Information about Corporate Social Responsibility

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) was first proposed in 1953 by Bowen, who defined it as entrepreneurs’ social obligation to make policies and decisions, and perform actions according to the expectations and values of society. In Chinese research, CSR is limited to the domain of corporate performance and organizational employee behavior, as in the studies of Yu, Huang, and Cao, (2015) and Q. Zhang, He, and Shi (2015). However, in recent studies, researchers have found that information about CSR can also shape consumers’ beliefs about a firm’s values’ system (Newman, Gorlin, & Dhar, 2014), influence the way consumers evaluate a firm’s products (Chernev & Blair, 2015), and further, make a difference to consumers’ purchase intention and behavior (Torelli, Monga, & Kaikati, 2012).

Mohr and Webb (2005) classified CSR into two variables: environmental domain and philanthropic domain, and they found that if a consumer supports the environmental domain of CSR, then the effort the company makes on the environment has a stronger influence than their effort in the philanthropic domain on consumers’ purchase intention. In previous studies a linkage was found between general CSR and purchase intention of products (Pickett-Baker & Ozaki, 2008), but few researchers have centered their focus on the relationship between the specific environmental responsibilities the firm takes on and the consumers’ purchase intention for the proenvironmental products the firm offers. In this study, CSR refers to environmental responsibility, including what the corporation does for environmental protection, how this aim is achieved, and the benefits this brings to the community. Therefore, I formulated the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Information about corporate social responsibility will pose a significant positive effect on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products.

Descriptive Norms About Environmental Protection

Descriptive norms (DN) about environmental protection suggest what most consumers will do to protect the environment in particular scenarios (Goldstein et al., 2008). Many scholars have empirically confirmed that people are willing to recycle (Goldstein et al., 2008; Schultz, 1999), or to conserve energy (Göckeritz et al., 2010) more frequently when they know that others are doing the same. Furthermore, Nolan, Schultz, Cialdini, Goldstein, and Griskevicius (2008) found that descriptive, normative information, which is extremely persuasive, makes a marked difference to consumers’ purchase behavior by motivating them to protect the environment. There have been a few studies conducted in the Chinese context in which DN have been applied (Smith et al., 2012), and the results suggest that DN could significantly positively influence Chinese consumers’ intention to conserve energy, but none of the researchers found that DN could stimulate the purchase intention of proenvironmental products. Therefore, in the current study, I included DN as information in corporate marketing about how others contribute to environmental protection, and I examined the effect of DN on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products. As such, I proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Descriptive norms about environmental protection will pose a significant positive effect on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products.

Moderating Effect of Social Presence

When making purchase decisions about proenvironmental products, consumers may be accompanied by friends or family, and be with sales promoters, sales assistants, or other customers. The presence of these other people is likely to influence consumers’ purchase intention and purchase behavior. Zajonc (1965) initially found that social presence improved people’s working performance. Since then, this variable has been included in psychological studies. Fu, Lu, and Yu (2015) indicated that strangers’ donation behavior could significantly increase the participants’ donation amount. Argo, Dahl, and Manchanda (2005) found that in a condition of social presence, consumers tend to apply impression management, which means they try to impress others by purchasing particular products such as the most expensive or best quality batteries. Similarly, Griskevicius, Tybur, and Van den Bergh (2010) found that consumers’ motivation was strengthened when shopping in malls compared to shopping online because proenvironmental purchasing helps consumers create a favorable reputation and impression (Semmann, Krambeck, & Milinski, 2005). As such, social presence strengthens consumers’ motivation to purchase proenvironmental products. Thus, marketing information may have a greater effect on purchase intention for proenvironmental products with, rather than without, social presence. To explore the effects of marketing information with and without social presence, I introduced the variable of social presence, assuming that social presence would have significant moderating effects. Therefore, I proposed the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 4: With social presence, the effect of marketing information on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products could be strengthened.

Hypothesis 4a: With social presence, the effect of environmental knowledge relating to the product on the consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products will be strengthened.
Hypothesis 4b: With social presence, the effect of information about corporate social responsibility on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products will be strengthened.
Hypothesis 4c: With social presence, the effect of descriptive norms about environmental protection on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products will be strengthened.

Research Model

Based on the literature review and the theoretical analysis set out above, the theoretical framework of my study is illustrated in Figure 1.

Experiment 1

Method

Results

In the research, I conducted independent t tests to obtain scores for the four groups. The result for the purchase intention score of the group for environmental knowledge relating to the product (M = 3.70) was significantly higher than that of the control group (M = 3.00), t(87) = 4.659, p < .001, η² = .166. Further, the score of the group for information on CSR (M = 3.48) was significantly higher than that of the control group (M = 3.00), t(80) = 2.900, p < .01, η² = .118; and the score of the group for DN for environmental protection (M = 3.34) was significantly higher than that of the control group (M = 3.00), t(87) = 2.031, p < .05, η² = .124. According to the data, I concluded that environmental knowledge relating to the product, information on CSR, and DN for environmental protection all had significant positive effects on purchase intention, thus supporting Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3.

Discussion

The effect of environmental knowledge relating to the product can be well explained by the findings reported by previous researchers (Chan, 2001; Ip, 2003). When consumers’ environmental knowledge is increased, they will be more willing to pay more for proenvironmental products because they understand how important this is for the environment. The results in my study also show that Chinese consumers would pay attention to the information of CSR and they would be more willing to purchase environmental products if they knew that the company takes responsibility for being environmentally friendly. Therefore, once they know more about how the firm takes responsibility for being environmentally friendly, their purchase intention would increase accordingly. In addition, DN for environmental protection was important for the participants and it had an even bigger effect size than did CSR. These consumers were more willing to purchase environmentally friendly products when their peers were supportive of the behavior.

Experiment 2

Method

Given the results of Experiment 1, Experiment 2 was divided into three subexperiments, so that I could further probe the interaction between social presence and the three kinds of marketing information.

Participants. The participants were college students in China, but different from those in Experiment 1. There were 547 students aged from 20 to 25 years who participated in Experiment 2, among whom 178 took part in Subexperiment 1 (70 men, 108 women), 180 took part in Subexperiment 2 (74 men, 106 women), and 189 (86 men, 103 women) took part in Subexperiment 3.

Procedure. In the three subexperiments, I adopted a 2 (marketing information: yes vs. no) × 2 design (scenario: with social presence vs. without). Marketing information for the subexperimental groups was arranged as environmental knowledge relating to the product, information on CSR, and DN for environmental protection, respectively. In the operation of the procedure, a scenario with social presence was defined as the situation where others are present when the consumer makes a decision on whether or not to buy a proenvironmental product. The scenario without social presence was defined as the situation where no one else is present when the consumer makes a decision on whether or not to buy a proenvironmental product. I arranged two steps to simulate social presence, with the aim of guaranteeing the manipulation of purchasing a product when others can see the purchasing process. The first was situational arousing, namely, to create a situation through verbal description, imagination, or recall. This approach is frequently used in marketing studies globally, such as in research by Y. Wang and Griskevicius (2014) and Du and Xu (2014). In my experiment, the participants were asked to finish reading the article before imagining buying mineral water in a supermarket (condition with social presence), or buying it alone online at home (condition without social presence). Afterwards, they responded to items about purchase intention in the specific situations. The second approach to simulate the social-presence condition was telling participants that they had to share their scores with their desk mates by writing them on a shared answer sheet. Those in the condition without social presence recorded their answers on their own sheet. Both groups then had to rate their purchase intention using the same scale as in Experiment 1.

For the three subexperiments the same procedure was followed as for Experiment 1. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in the situation after reading the marketing information. Subsequently, they recorded their ratings on the same answer sheet as their desk mate or on their own answer sheet, depending on which condition they had been assigned to. In each subexperiment, 200 participants were randomly allocated to the 2 × 2 design. Those who did not fully complete the questionnaire were eliminated from the experiment.

Results

Following the suggestion of Wen, Hou, and Zhang (2005), I performed a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) on scores for purchase intention to analyze the moderating effect of social presence. The results of Experiment 2 indicate that environmental knowledge relating to the product had a significant positive effect on purchase intention for proenvironmental products, F(1, 174) = 19.954, p < .001, η² = .203. Furthermore, social presence had a significant positive effect on purchase intention, F(1, 174) = 3.987, p < .050, η² =.122; and the interaction between environmental knowledge and social presence was significant, F(1, 174) = 7.456, p < .010, η² = .147. Therefore, Hypothesis 4a was supported, although the regulating effect of social presence was negative. In other words, although social presence increased purchase intention for a proenvironmental product overall, it restricted the effect of environmental knowledge relating to the product on purchase intention.

Results in Subexperiment 2 indicate that information about CSR had a significant positive effect on their purchase intention for proenvironmental products, F(1, 176) = 6.492, p < .050, η² = .136); social presence had a significant effect on purchase intention, F(1, 176) = 6.818, p < .01, η² = .137; and the interaction between information about CSR and social presence was significant, F(1, 176) = 4.111, p < .050, η² = .123. Therefore, Hypothesis 4b was confirmed, although the regulating effect of social presence was negative. In other words, social presence restricted the effect of information about CSR on purchase intention.

In Subexperiment 3 the results indicate that descriptive norms for environmental protection had a significant effect on the participants’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products, F(1, 185) = 5.839, p < .017, χ² = .131, and social presence had a significant effect on purchase intention, F(1, 185) = 15.212, p < .001, χ² = .176). As shown in Figure 4, the interaction between social presence and descriptive norms was nonsignificant, F(1, 185) = 0.335, p > .563. Hypothesis 4c was therefore not supported. In other words, social presence enhanced the participants’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products overall, and did not restrict the effect of descriptive norms for environmental protection on purchase intention in the condition of social presence.

The results in Experiment 2 confirm the effect of social presence on consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products. This result can be explained from two aspects; one is group pressure which, according to Western theory, influences purchase intention (Duclos & Barasch, 2014), and the other derives from face consciousness (J. Liu, 2008) in the cultural context of China. Initially, social presence pressures consumers (X. Liu, 2005). Driven by external pressure, consumers tend to behave in a way to meet social expectations—in this case by purchasing pro-environmental products. This promotes consumers’ purchase intention. Furthermore, the Chinese concept of face consciousness accounts for this promotion. J. Liu (2008) defines face consciousness as the experience of inner self-worth when showing one’s own value through individual behavior or social resources or seeking others’ affirmation and unexpected recognition. Social presence amplifies consumers’ demand for status. Consequently, in the condition of social presence, Chinese consumers are more likely to purchase proenvironmental products than they are without social presence.

My results also suggest that social presence negatively interacted with environmental knowledge relating to the product and information about CSR, but not for DN for environmental protection. This can be explained by information processing theory (Edell & Staelin, 1983). Because of the limited information- receiving capacity of sensory channels and information-processing capacity of the higher nervous center, people need to filter and adjust high volumes of external messages. Thus, Broadbent (1958) proposed a filter model, in which it is posited that people’s attention acts as a filter that sifts inputs when processing information to avoid overload in an information-transmitting passage with restricted capacity (Z. Zhang, 2004). In terms of information processing, consumers filter a large quantity of marketing information from merchants and retain the information that impacts them. Information that fails to get through this filter does not exert influence. Therefore, I contend that social presence activates this filter, which, as explained, sifts the marketing information received by consumers. This means that only messages matching the situation of social presence can pass the attention screening, and can affect consumers’ purchase intention. Among the three types of marketing information tested in my experiments, environmental knowledge relating to the product and information on CSR do not match the case of social presence, and, thus, this information is ignored by consumers. Therefore, in this situation, social presence is restricted by information processing. In contrast, DN for environmental protection involves others, thus fitting with social presence. Consequently, this type of information passes the individual’s attention screening and influences his or her purchase intention.

General Discussion

In this research I explored the effect of three types of marketing information on consumers’ purchase intention for a proenvironmental product, and further probed the influencing mechanism of social presence for purchase of a proenvironmental product. The findings suggest that environmental knowledge relating to the product, information on corporate CSR, and DN for environmental protection all have a positive effect on intention to purchase a proenvironmental product. Social presence also plays a significant role in influencing consumers’ purchase intention for proenvironmental products. However, social presence could weaken the effect on purchase intention of both knowledge relating to the product and information on CSR, but not for DN for environmental protection. I have argued that information processing explains the interaction that results in the weakening effect.

Theoretical Contribution and Practical Implications

Based on the findings in previous research, in this study I classified marketing information of proenvironmental products into three types: environmental knowledge relating to the product, DN about environmental protection, and information about CSR. My study has pioneered examination of the influence of CSR information about the environment and consumers’ purchase intention of a proenvironmental product, which provides an explanation of the importance of consistency between what firms do and what firms offer.

In addition, in this study I tested the effect of information processing with and without social presence and I found that the interaction between environmental knowledge relating to the product and social presence, and the interaction between information about CSR and social presence were both negative. This new perspective could further promote the application of psychology in the study of purchase intention for proenvironmental products.

Based on the results of my empirical research, I propose the following recommendations for enterprises specializing in proenvironmental products. First, managers should focus on enhancing the company’s corporate image by undertaking environmental responsibility activities and broadening their promotion to garner a favorable impression in terms of consumers’ social obligation before purchase. From this, a positive corporate reputation will emerge, which will promote consumers’ purchase behavior. In contrast, once consumers perceive that the corporation has dodged its social responsibility, their purchase intention for the corporation’s products will be severely impaired. Second, managers of corporations should improve product knowledge publicity. For example, environmental knowledge and relevant product designs are important aspects of proenvironmental products. Managers of enterprises should expand their approach to product promotion and description to familiarize consumers with relevant knowledge to ensure clear and affirmative recognition of the product. Emphasizing how environmental resources are used during the production and how a product benefits the environment helps consumers establish a positive perception of that product. In addition, DN for environmental protection are another influential contributor to enhancing consumers’ purchase intention. Third, managers of enterprises should create purchase situations with social presence. They should pay attention to manipulating sales terminals, and increasing social presence by adding more sales personnel in malls and retail stores. Furthermore, given the moderating effects of social presence on different types of marketing information, marketers should convey this information in various ways, such as online to allow consumers to access the information independently, but according to real-world scenarios to ensure effective promotion.

My findings also contribute to governmental administrative arrangements and policymaking. First, the government should focus more efforts on publicizing environmental knowledge, including current environmental issues and channels for public participation to inform the public on how they can contribute to environmental protection. Furthermore, those responsible for putting government policies into practice should pay close attention to detailed actions in promoting environmental protection. Considering the significant effect of DN on the participants’ willingness to engage in environmental protection, appealing information and knowledge of others’ participation should be employed to improve the effects of promotion.

Limitations and Future Directions

To ensure that my research was rigorous, my aim was to control disturbing factors. Therefore, I selected mineral water as a virtual product because of its limited variations and the minor differences between the various mineral water products. As such, my findings in this study provide practical implications for fast-moving consumer goods. However, the application of the results of my study to other genres like luxury or durable goods needs further verification and exploration. Furthermore, the environmentally friendly mineral water product referred to in this paper differs from nonenvironmentally friendly water only in terms of price, not in terms of taste and usage. This is not the case in reality. In real life, environmentally friendly and nonenvironmentally friendly products differ in many aspects, including usage, effect, packaging, and energy consumption. Therefore, this study has limitations.

In future studies researchers could extend the virtual materials to durable or luxury goods to ensure a broader exploration of the topic. In addition, prospective research could be rooted in psychology, combining consumers’ mental activity after receiving marketing information with external factors to uncover the effects of marketing information. These recommendations are based on the results of this study in an attempt to extend its application, enrich existing theories, and produce research of further theoretical and practical significance.

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This research was supported by the Research Foundation for Youth Scholars of Beijing Technology and Business University (PXM2018_014213_000033) and Key Projects of the National Natural Science Foundation (71632001).

Yang Li, No. 33 Fucheng Rd., Business School, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]