Advertising has from its earliest days, been regarded as a way to

provide strictly factual infor- mation, so-called cognitive information. The

first formal model of advertising was AIDA, which stands for AttentionInterest-Desire-Action, and is still one of the most commonly used
advertis- ing models (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999). Since then,
advertising has developed and is today an important part of an
organizations
marketing
communication
in
the
means
of
communicating with current and potential customers.
The objectives of advertising are to create awareness, informing
customers and to create a desired perception for the product or brand.
The purpose of advertising is also to create a preference for the product
or brand and to persuade consumers to purchase the product (Bendixen,
1993). Ad- vertising can also help to influence audiences to differentiate
a product from others in the mar- ketplace and by that, reach large
audiences through messages that help the consumers to under- stand the
product, and make their final decision (Percy & Elliot, 2009; Fill, 2005).
Advertising should provide information or create a positive feeling that
goes beyond just catching the consumers attention for the ad; it should
be designed to provide information in order to cre- ate a positive brand
attitude, formed by a favorable impression (Percy & Elliot, 2009). The
con- tent and delivery of an advertising message is derived from an
understanding of the context of where the ad is to be used (Fill, 2005).
3.1.1
How does advertising work?
The main objectives of advertising are to build awareness, induce
engagement and to position brands by changing the customers
perception or attitude and can create a competitive advantage for the
advertiser (Fill, 2005). Creating the perfect advertisement is a complex
task; the consumer must have the opportunity to pay attention to the
advertisement and then gain an understanding of the presented message
and finally take the decision to act upon it (Percy & Elliot, 2009). The
complexity of producing the right message lies within the difficulty of
understanding how hu- mans have different possibilities in their
thinking, feeling and behaving towards products and services. Humans
are capable of being logical, illogical, objective, subjective, obvious and
subtle at the same time (Vaughn, 1980).
Based on the findings of 25 conclusions of previous research, Vakratsas
and Amber (1999) creat- ed a theory suggesting how advertising works.
The ad itself should work as an input for consum- ers and trigger an
unconscious or conscious response. The ad should also aim for some
kind of mental effect, for example awareness, memory or attitude, before
it can have an effect on the be- havior of the consumer. Two major
intermediate advertising effects of responses are responses

that are affective (emotions) and cognitive (thinking). Further, the

memory or experience also plays a major role in the consumers mind.
Consumers often have conscious or unconscious memories of product
purchasing or usage, which means that the memories affect the behavior
of the consumer.
Individual responses to advertising are also affected by factors such as
motivation and the ability to process information, which are factors that
can have a big impact on the response. Factors that affect responses,
can function as filters between the advertising input, the consumers and
their behavior. Dahln, Lange and Smith (2010) argue that advertising is
the link between market- ing communications and consumer behavior and
that the latter has changed to a more cognitive orientation. Forming
attitudes is an important part of advertising and an effective marketing
campaign has the ability to form or change an attitude towards a company
or product in the mind of the consumers. Dahln et al., (2010) suggest
several examples of why companies use marketing communications where
repositioning of the brand, building credibility, changing performance
and attribute beliefs of a product as well as creating new attitudes about
the companys competi- tors products, are examples of why a company
would create an effective and successful market- ing communications
strategy.

3.2 Green advertising

The interest for environmental issues in the society has led to more
environmentally focused consumers. This has consequently led toward
organizations displaying willingness to respond to the consumers
interest of environmentally safe products. Due to the higher consumer
awareness of environmental issues, companies have adopted a more
green profile in order to gain an ad- vantage over competitors (Kangun,
Carlson & Grove, 1991; Ahmad, Shah & Ahmad, 2010) and also to create
a more favorable image of the brand.
Advertisers have adjusted their advertising to meet the green
customers and are using envi- ronmental claims to show the benefits of
a product or a service. These claims can influence the consumers
preferences of a product or service, either in a positive or in a negative
way. In other words, if an advertiser uses the environmental claims in the
right way the product or image of the company can be enhanced, and if
used in a wrong way, by making false claims, can damage the product
and the company image (Davis, 1993).

It should be noted that advertisers can have a tendency to push the

boundaries when it comes to promoting these kind of appeals, for
example green appeals (Zinkham & Carlson, 1995). Claims can be
confusing, misleading or trivial and the potential for abuse within
environmental claims are high. Many organizations have used false or
less true environmental claims in order to be profiled as more green than
they are in reality (Kangun et al., 1991).
There are a number of reasons that environmental advertising can be
confusing or misleading to the customer. Words like degradable,
environmentally friendly or ozone-friendly have no clear meaning and
companies can use the same terms to promote different benefits.
Scientific\
knowledge may be required to understand certain environmental claims,
since they can be com- plicated and difficult to understand (Kangun et al.,
1991). It can also be questioned how consum- ers comprehend specific
environmental claims, such as recycled or environmentally-friendly.
Studies have shown that there can be great variations between different
individuals in the inter- pretation of the same claims (Morris, Hastak &
Mazis, 1995). Research has supported the view that consumers have
formed skeptical attitudes towards green advertising, leading to avoidance
in purchasing. The higher the level of perceived trickery and deception
has been found connected with lower levels of perceived credibility
(Ahmad, Shah & Ahmad, 2010).
Advertisers might use vague or unspecific environmental claims without
any factual support to describe a products characteristics or benefits,
where an example of vague wording could be better for the
environment (Davis, 1993). Finally the environmental benefits uses are
often lim- ited to one benefit, which can cause uncertainty in the
consumers mind about the whole aspect of the environmental issues
relating to a company (Kangun et al., 1991).
David (1993) suggests that environmental claims should satisfy three
criteria:
1. Specific environmental claims provide details is the most
important aspect. Environmental advertising claims should be
informative and useful in helping the consumer to determine
differences in products and to help them make a better decision.
Consumers want to be in- formed in order to make product decisions

and they expect green advertising to be specific, informative and

detailed, and advertisers should avoid information that is
considered vague. As a result, advertisers should provide
information so the consumers can evaluate product attributes and
make an appropriate decision.
2. Specific environmental claims present real benefits, useful
information; a common advertising strategy is to imply superiority
claims. An example of these claims is Nobody cleans better.
Consumers appear to reject these kinds of claims in the context of
green advertising be- cause they claim it does not provide much
information about how good they are and it could be interpreted as
our cleaning ability is at least as good as our competitors.
3. Specific environmental claims provide meaningful benefits, the
products of green advertising should contribute to a meaningful
improvement of the environment. A consumer seems to reject
advertising that only provides minimal environmental improvement.
Green advertis- ing should present real environmental sensitivity and
advertisers should focus on develop- ing products with real benefits
and not hope that advertising will convince the consumer otherwise.

3.3
Attitudes toward the ad
Attitudes towards the ad have been defined as a learned preposition to
respond in the consistently favorable or unfavorable manner to
advertising in general (Metha & Purvis, 1995). Kotler and Keller (2006)
suggested that an attitude is a persons enduring favorable or
unfavorable evalua- tions, emotional feelings and action tendencies
toward an object or an idea. Therefore, a positive attitude towards
advertising is based on the favorable evaluations and willingness to it.
Metha
(2000) argues that the influence of attitudes is an important area to
study because of its implica- tions on the industry. In order to be effective
or successful in the context of the advertising land- scape today, an
advertiser has to break through the clutter to get the needed attention
(Metha & Purvis, 1995).
Attitudes exist because they serve as a function for a person and are
driven by a persons motives. People can have the same attitude towards
an object but there can be different reason behind it (Solomon, Bamossy,

Askegaard & Hogg, 2010). Attitude and attitude changes can influence
how people feel about their world and can have a direct or indirect effect
upon their behavior in sev- eral situations (Cacioppo, Claiborn, Petty &
Heesacker, 1991). Understanding attitudes are im- portant for
advertisers since it is the attitude they need to make more favorable,
toward a brand or a product (Solomon et al., 2010). In other words, to
create ads that result in a positive attitude from consumers, it is
important to understand what factors affect the attitude as well as to be
able to know what kind of appeals to use to achieve the desired result. It
is also important to re- member that advertising is often an unwelcomed
intrusion and is therefore considered to be a source of irritation.
Advertisers must therefore consider using the ad message to
differentiate themselves on the market, and at the same time be aware
of the risk of skeptical consumers (Ahmad, Shah & Ahmad, 2010).