Abstract

Despite the widespread prevalence of greenwashing and escalating consumer skepticism in the sustainability sector, limited research exists on identifying ways to enhance the believability of eco-friendly fashion brands’ communications. This gap is critical, especially given the need to promote such brands, considering the harmful environmental and health effects of unsustainable fashion practices. The current research aims to address this gap by investigating the interplay of fear appeal threat level, message framing, and consumer message involvement on message believability, which is critical in shaping consumer attitudes and purchase intentions toward eco-friendly fashion brands. Through a pre-test and two online experiments, the results suggest that high-threat fear appeals are likely to increase advertising message believability compared to low-threat fear appeals (Study 2). Additionally, it was found that in the low-threat condition, there was a slight preference for promotion-focused advertisements over prevention-focused ones in terms of believability (Study 1). Furthermore, in instances of low-threat fear appeals, heightened consumer involvement might enhance the believability of advertising messages (Study 2). The study also explores the downstream effects of message believability on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions (Study 2). This study investigates the persuasive power of fear appeals in the realm of eco-friendly fashion, identifying cues to enhance message believability and offering actionable strategies for marketers to address consumer skepticism. Furthermore, it proposes strategies to augment the effectiveness of governmental campaigns aimed at encouraging more sustainable consumption habits within the fashion industry.