Framing the harvest: advertising message framing, perceived benefits and consumer participation in adoption agriculture

Purpose This study examines how advertising message framing influences consumer participation in adoption agriculture, an emerging agri-food service model. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on message framing theory and the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, we developed a mediation model with regulatory focus and context-specific trust as two proposed moderators. A one-factor between-subjects experiment was conducted with Chinese consumers after pretesting stimuli. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrapping, with artificial neural network (ANN) and Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) analyses for robustness. Findings Gain-framed ads outperform loss-framed ads on short-term, long-term and recommendation intentions, with small-to-moderate effect sizes. Functional and emotional-social benefits jointly mediate this relationship. In addition, a post-hoc exploratory analysis suggests a positive association between functional and emotional-social benefit appraisals. The proposed interactions of regulatory focus and context-specific trust are not significant. However, context-specific trust has a strong positive main effect on perceived benefits, suggesting a general positive association with benefit appraisals rather than a framing-specific moderating effect. Research limitations/implications This study has several limitations. It does not directly measure adoption-agriculture-specific risks, and different operational forms may elicit different consumer responses. The use of self-reported participation intentions also limits inference about actual behavior. In addition, regulatory focus was measured post-exposure, while context-specific trust and perceived benefits were assessed within the same post-exposure session, limiting causal or temporal interpretations. Future research should incorporate risk perceptions, compare alternative adoption formats and cultural contexts and employ field experiments examining actual participation behavior. Practical implications Adoption agriculture providers should emphasize the positive value of participation while strengthening traceability and reliable fulfillment. Social implications The findings highlight the social value of transparent and credible communication in adoption agriculture. Strengthening traceability, production disclosure, fulfillment guarantees, third-party certification and platform accountability may enhance consumer confidence and facilitate participation in more sustainable and locally embedded agri-food systems. Such practices can also support responsible consumption, strengthen connections between consumers and farmers and improve the visibility and credibility of sustainable agricultural production. Policymakers and platforms can contribute by promoting traceability standards, credible certification mechanisms and stronger accountability throughout the adoption-agriculture service process. Originality/value This study extends message framing research to adoption agriculture by explaining how framed advertising claims are translated into participation intention through a benefit-appraisal process comprising functional and emotional-social dimensions in a credibility-dependent agri-food service context. It also distinguishes motivational fit from credibility evaluation as theoretically distinct mechanisms and finds that the current data support a contemporaneous positive association between context-specific trust and benefit appraisals, rather than framing-specific moderation.