Older female consumers’ environmentally sustainable apparel consumption: The impact of time perspective and advertising appeals

Abstract

Purpose

Built on the socioemotional selectivity theory, the purpose of this paper is to analyze elderly female consumers’ consumption of environmentally sustainable apparel (ESA) according to their time perspective (TP) (expansive vs limited) and different types of advertising appeals (emotional vs rational and positive vs negative emotional appeals).

Design/methodology/approach

The study conducted a survey and experiments with 154 US female consumers who were 65 years of age or older. Data were analyzed through regression and ANCOVA.

Findings

The results showed that older female adults with an expansive TP tended to consume ESA, with their fashion consciousness moderating the results. Rational and either positive or negative emotional advertisements with environmental messages were found to encourage the higher purchase intentions of elderly consumers more effectively than advertisements with no environmental messages.

Practical implications

Apparel retailers are recommended to consider the factor of TP when encouraging environmental consumption. Environmental messages containing rational information and eliciting positive and negative emotions are suggested to promote purchase intention toward ESA among elderly consumers.

Originality/value

This study addressed an under-studied segment in ESA consumption – elderly female consumers – built on the socioemotional selective theory, and confirmed that this group’s ESA consumption can be explained by their perspective on time. In addition, this study confirmed which advertising appeals would effectively encourage their ESA consumption, and provided theoretical explanations for these findings.

Citation

Kim, G. and Jin, B.E. (2019), "Older female consumers’ environmentally sustainable apparel consumption: The impact of time perspective and advertising appeals", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 487-503. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-04-2019-0068