INDORE: The Multi-national companies (MNCs) using green strategies to sell FMCGs and consumer durables products in the country may not be substantiating their claims in majority of the advertisements. A research conducted by the faculty and scholars of a leading business school presented at the Indian Institute of Management-Indore (IIM-I) has found evidences against the MNCs making misleading green claims in majority of the advertisements.
The research paper was awarded with second prize in a conference on Excellence in Research and Education where more than 120 delegates from reputed universities, institutions and corporate houses presented their research papers on various fields of management.
Subhadip Roy, one of the researchers, said, "The trend of environment-conscious consumerism has grown rapidly in the last few decades. Marketers have been extensively using terminologies such as 'recyclable', 'earth-friendly' and 'organic" for promotion. There is a need to understand exactly where do these ads cross the thin line between green advertising and green washing." More specifically, which aspects of green advertisement strategy need more amendments to stop such activities, he added.
To come to a result, the authors conducted a content analysis of 150 green advertisements published by the leading green companies of the world. The MECCAS model was used to code the data and understand to the extent of green marketing content in the same. The ads were classified into five categories: extra-green, green, light-green, green-brown and brown based on the nature and amount of green elements in them.
"We found that ad developers did not implement all aspects of green advertising strategies in majority of the cases. Implications for green marketers and advertisement developers to enhance the credibility of such advertisements have been provided in the study," said Roy. The research papers are awaiting review from US-based Journal of Advertising where the researchers have approached. "We have approached the US-based journal. It takes nearly six-months in review," said Roy.