“They deserve it, right?” Using other-benefit advertising frames to boost sales of sustainable products

Remember that one time you went out shopping for a coat and came back with a coat and a pair of new shoes?

You definitely experienced some impulsive buying behavior there! Impulsive purchases are by definition unplanned and make you want the product immediately. These impulsive purchases are often evoked by advertisements – especially in the case of more hedonic products that stimulate immediate joy. In this blog, you will learn a simple copywriting technique that allows companies to promote this impulse buying and how sustainability-driven companies can implement this principle to strengthen their competitive position.

Justifying Your Impulsive Shopping Spree

During an impulsive purchase, people often experience something called cognitive dissonance. This means your behavior is not aligned with your norms or ethical standards. And oh…. we really hate that feeling!

For instance: You want to buy the shoes, but you care about the environment and your CO² footprint. Buying them, does not align the goal of minimizing your CO² footprint. So if you buy these shoes, you might feel bad about yourself afterwards. Because we want to avoid that feeling, the need to justify the behavior emerges (and the feeling of cognitive dissonance disappears). There are two ways to do this:

1)  Deservingness justifications

This is related to all kinds of ‘excuses’ related to why someone might deserve it to buy impulsively. This could be anything. We sometimes tend to come up with questionable arguments why we deserve something.

“I haven’t bought shoes in a long time”, “I worked so hard last week, I can gift myself this”.

2)  Moral justifications

This justification is related to all pro-social or moral arguments to buy something.

 “I bought these shoes, because they are cruelty-free and this brand is sustainable”.

How Message Framing Can Help Justifying Behavior

The perfect time for a brand to intervene in the buying process is when someone is trying to justify their behavior or purchase and is experiencing cognitive dissonance. You can give a push in the right direction with message framing. Meaning: you can literally hand them the argument (justification) they are looking for to justify their purchase.

Sustainable driven companies can choose between (at least) two types of advertising frames: self-benefit advertising frames and other-benefit advertising frames.

1)  Self-benefit

Within the self-benefit advertising frame, the benefits for the consumer him or herself are communicated: “These chocolates make you happier!”.

2)  Other-benefit

Within the other-benefit advertising frame, the benefits for someone or something other than the consumer is communicated: “These chocolates empower cacao farmers”. 

According to Moes et al., (2022) the best way for sustainable driven companies to frame advertisement messages is through the use of the other-benefit frame. The other-benefit frame influences consumers’ moral justifications which in turn stimulates impulsive buying urges and impulsive buying behavior of hedonistic products.

It appears people like a pro-social reason to impulsively buy a product and sustainability-driven companies can come up with these reasons to buy them!

Contribution To A Fairer World

So, do you work at a sustainability-driven company? And do you need to decide on an advertising strategy? Then the best idea is to use other-benefit-framed advertisements.

It might feel a bit contradictory to stimulate consumers to engage in impulsive buying behavior. But, it is important to strengthen your competitive position towards non socially responsible companies. A bigger share of consumers that buys from sustainability-driven companies, means a bigger contribution to a fairer world!

Take Home Points

1) When people are impulse buying they often experience cognitive dissonance, because people want to avoid this feeling, they come up with justifications for their behavior.

2) There are two ways to justify impulsive purchases: deservingness justification (focused on if you deserve it) and moral justification (focused on pro-social or moral reasons.

3) Using the right advertising frame can contribute to the justification process. The frames that are used often are: self-benefit frame (buying this has benefits for you, the consumer) and other-benefit frame (buying this has benefits for others).

4) A sustainability-driven company can best use the self-benefit frame to boost sales, because people like a pro-social reason to buy impulsively.