Green makes it feels good: Articulating the euphoria appeal of sustainable consumption through social-media conversations

Green products tend to be expensive and have questionable benefits—what is their allure for consumers? This paper seeks to better understand the consumption of green products and the part played by advertising from consumers’ own perspectives as articulated through their social-media conversations. Using netnography, it investigates consumer-to-consumer communications on social-media sites around Naked Juice and Innocent Smoothies—two products heavily reliant on green imagery, sustainability, and all-natural ingredients claim in their marketing communications. Findings suggest that using green imagery and euphoria appeals in advertisements and product labels help to cultivate the products’ virtuous image which affords consumers a sense of well-being, guilt-avoidance, and positive self-image. The study also demonstrates how consumers’ moral intuition and cultural frames may lead to idealization or skepticism of advertisers’ claims. Implications for advertising research, practice, and policy over the use of green imagery and euphoria appeals are discussed.