54th Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy - EMAC 2025, Pozuelo de Alarcón (Spain). 25-30 May 2025
Summary:
This study explores tradition-washing, where consumers mistakenly perceive traditionally marketed food products as eco-friendly or green due to associations with naturalness, healthiness, or authenticity. Despite limited evidence that traditional methods lower environmental impact, the study investigates how communication of traditionality influences green perceptions and the role of psychological mechanisms, such as groundedness. An online experiment with 280 participants reveals that promoting traditional production enhances consumer preferences and green perceptions, especially among those with low nostalgia, and applies equally across vice and virtue product categories. Highlighting the risk of tradition-washing, this research underscores the mediating role of groundedness in driving green perceptions, with practical recommendations for companies, policymakers, and consumer organizations to mitigate misperceptions.
Spanish layman's summary:
El trabajo demuestra que las marcas con métodos de producción tradicionales se perciben como más verdes porque elicitan sentimientos de groundedness.
English layman's summary:
The paper demonstrates that brands boasting traditional methods are perceived as greener because they elicit feelings of grounded.
Keywords: tradition-washing; greenness; groundedness
Publication date: 25-May-2025.
Citation:
A. Larrañaga, C. Valor, P. Antonetti, "From Tradition to Greenwash: How Heritage Imagery Shapes green-perceptions", presented at 54th Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy - EMAC 2025, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain, 25-30 May 2025
IIT-25-197C
