Decoding Demarketing Advertising: The Role of Company Mission Commitment and Credibility on Demarketing Efforts

Abstract: Consumers are increasingly in support of sustainable marketing and demarketing has received attention as a viable strategy in response to this growing sentiment. As only a few studies focused on testing demarketing in the context of mindful or anti-consumption, this study tested the effects of practical elements such as a company’s mission commitment level to the cause and corporate social responsibility (CSR) credibility between traditional green advertising and demarketing advertising. Consumer ratings for the green advertising exceeded that of demarketing advertising only under certain conditions (e.g., low impact mission commitment given low CSR credibility, high impact mission commitment given high CSR credibility). There were no conditions where demarketing outperformed the green ad. A generally higher processing disfluency towards demarketing might have been a contributing factor. Further, perceived company integrity was a significant mediator that drove consumer ratings. These results provide an in-depth discussion regarding the viability of demarketing campaigns.