When and How Joint-Motive Advertising Works: The Role of Temporal Benefits and Restaurant Type in Environmental Sustainability Advertising

Although studies have attempted to discover effective environmental sustainability communication tactics, others have suggested that when consumers doubt a company’s motives, such doubts impede the effectiveness of the communication. For such communication to be more effective, companies could explicitly disclose their motives, such as whether they are firm-serving or public-serving. However, existing research that incorporates stated motive advertising mostly takes a dichotomous lens on these two motives. This paper investigates the effectiveness of communications that incorporate both motives (i.e., joint motives) in promoting restaurants with environmental sustainability practices. Drawing upon construal level theory and differential dining value focuses, this paper uses a 2 × 2 experimental design to explore whether temporal benefits (immediate vs. future) stated in joint-motive advertising would cause varying effects based on the type of restaurant that consumers visit (quick vs. full service). Furthermore, this paper investigates if it is emotion (affective state) that would explain the observed mechanism (mediation effect) in such a persuasion process, as proposed in the Stimulus–Organism–Response model. Results suggest that joint motive advertising that emphasizes immediate benefits would be perceived as more sincere among quick-service restaurant consumers. However, the mediation effect of emotion is not significant.