The sustainability communication challenge : two-sided message framing and virtual reality to tackle the self promoting paradox

Abstract

Although consumers have proven to be increasingly appreciative of companies’ responsibility efforts, sustainability communication toward them is not a widespread practice because of its paradoxical effects on consumers’ skepticism. In this thesis, we aimed to investigate effective and innovative ways that companies can use to communicate their sustainability initiatives to consumers. In particular, we tested the effects that twosided message framing has on consumers, when they are exposed to a sustainability advertisement through virtual reality. We carried on our study by creating two VR advertisements which we submitted to consumers by conducting a field experiment. The analysis of the data collected did not support our thesis that two-sided message framing has a positive effect on consumer behavior, nor that virtual reality as a channel improves such communication. However, our results confirmed the hypothesis that consumer behavior benefits from corporate responsibility communication in general, which increases consumers’ brand attitude, purchase intention and evaluation of the company’s sustainability efforts.