Sustainability Advertising - Disadvantages, Limitations, and Challenges

Disadvantages, Limitations, and Challenges

Promoting sustainable solutions through Sustainability Advertising provides corporations with big competitive advantages and allows them to educate and inform consumers as well as stimulate their emotions towards the product. Nevertheless there are some limitations:

General advertising as well as Sustainability Advertising operate by sending out unidirectional messages to its entire audience at one. At the same time the ability to connect with the single consumers as well as the chances for them to respond are strongly limited. That means the creation of feedback-relationships between corporations and its customers through sustainable advertisement is limited too. To avoid the typical one-way communication and to provide consumers and corporations with the chance to give and receive feedback, advertising can be used in combination with other key media such as online communication or labeling. Interactive advertising then enables the company to build op strong customer-relationships despite the primer lack of personalized messages.

A special challenge for Sustainability Advertising is the complexity of the messages that have to be communicated. To avoid what is called ´Sustainability Advertising Myopia` – an exclusive focus on the “green” aspects of the product – the advertising message should not only include the social and environmental attributes of a product, but also connect them to the inherent consumer benefits, as well as men-tion the main buying criteria influencing the consumers´ buying decision. However, communicating meaningful about the complex interplay of social, environmental, economic, technical and consumer benefits of a product from a sustainability perspective using a 30-second radio or television slot or a single printed page can be a serious challenge. To make information uptake easier for consumers a selection of the core information and its transformation into simple advertising messages in combination with other key media, like annual environ-mental reports or links to web pages that provide more detailed information about the product, can be helpful.

A challenge related to the complexity of messages is the risk of information overload. It results from the corporations’ effort to gain more credibility and trust by providing search qualities in form of text and fact oriented advertising. However, facing the information overload of today’s consumers mainly socio-ecologically conscious consumers perceive the fact focused advertising. Enhancing the emotional appeal of Sustainability Advertising can create emotional connections with a larger range of consumers and stimulate their involvement with the product. One of the most common approaches is the so-called: „Ecotainment“ – the creation of consumers´ involvement by including a celebrity into the advertisement.

A strong threat to the credibility of Sustainability Advertising can be seen in corporate “greenwashing”, a form of disinformation from organizations seeking to repair public reputations and further shape public images. It allows firms to manipulate an image of environmental, social, and cultural responsiveness by communicating false or misleading sustainability claims. This common practice damages the overall credibility of corporate sustainability claims and leads to mistrust of the consumers. This general inconsistency between a company’s messages and it actions could finally explain the value action gap between consumers strongly expressed concerns about socio-ecological issues and their nevertheless relatively low purchase of sustainable goods and services.

Therefore the most important future challenge concerning firms as well as advertising agencies is certainly a better understanding of the benefits of corporate socio-ecological responsibility in communications. Especially advertising agencies often lack the technical expertise to ensure that the communications of new sustainable messages are credible and fail to ensure that there is alignment between a client's corporate practices and external communications. This often leads to passed up marketing opportunities and hinders the creation of positive brand value. To overcome those barriers advertising agencies must gain expertise and experience in the fields of sustainable advertising, so the promotion of sustainability issues becomes part of a real corporate philosophy advertised through all communication channels.

Read more about this topic:  Sustainability Advertising

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