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__**How Green Should You Be: Can Environmental Associations Enhance Brand Performance?**__

====As people are becoming more aware of changes in our environment, companies have started to associate their brands with the environment in order to enhance their brands equity. But over the years, there have not been many studies to prove that associating with the environment actually helps sell more products. So the purpose of this study is to find if the connection between the brand and the environment really helps consumer’s decision in wanting to purchase the product, by plugging in the Elaboration Likelihood Model theory.====

====Through out the years, concerns about the environment have been increasing and so has the trend of adding environmental information to marketing products. This is all due to public opinion, rather than actual proven scientific proof. In order to see if adding environmental information to products increases the sales, researchers have asked the following question. Because Petty and Cacioppo says in their Elaboration Likelihood Model theory that, when motivation and ability are high, consumers use the central route, while if motivation and ability are low, individuals tend to lean towards the peripheral route. So according to the ELM theory, the association between the environment and consumer brands depends on the previous knowledge of the product and the type of product. Researchers ask the question, does the association between environment and the consumer brand more effective when the product is well known or when the consumer has good attitude towards the product?====

====Researchers used 828 adult shoppers and split them into three groups. One group was given information about the product that had nothing to do with environmental performance. The second group received the same information as the first group, plus information about environmental performance. And the final group was given all the information the second received as well as independent documentation. Then researchers asked each group what they felt about the product and had them fill out a questionnaire.====

====After careful studies, the researchers found two significant results. First of all, that the most influential part of the test was the high level of involvement by the consumer. The more involved the consumer had with the product, the better they paid attention to commercials, and had more motivation to process the information in depth. They found out that adding environmental practices to the brand did not necessarily effect the products sale but helped consumers want to find out more about the product. Another thing researchers found was that costumer persuasion occurred throughout the central route and not the peripheral route. They found that when marketers added anything that is popular to the product like environmental information, consumers wanted to look deeper into the product and actually pay more attention to advertisements and commercials for the certain product. Researchers found that when adding extra features like environmental conscious products to the market, that consumers choose the central route and want to get more information about the product, and thus help the sales of that product.====



Lugue-Martinez, T., Montoro-Rios, F.J., & Rodriguez-Molina, M.A. (2008). How Green Should You Be: Can Environmental Associations Enhance Brand Performance? //Journal of Advertising Research, 48(4),// 547-563. Retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete database: []
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