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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of subjective ambivalence on ethical consumption behaviors and the role of ethical claims in reducing feelings of ambivalence toward buying ethical products.

The authors conducted two studies. In study 1, the authors carried out an online survey with a sample of 230 French consumers. The authors applied structural equation modeling with Amos to test the relationships among skepticism, ambivalence and ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 is an experimental design in which the authors manipulated ethical claims (low – few ethical arguments vs. high – many ethical arguments) in advertising (176 French panelists). The authors tested the relationships among consumer ethical sensitivity, perceived brand ethicality, skepticism, ambivalence and intention to purchase an ethical product, depending on ethical claims in advertising.

Study 1 shows that skepticism toward advertising of ethical products amplifies feelings of ambivalence and that ambivalence reduces consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 shows that strong claims in advertising of ethical products reduce skepticism toward advertising of ethical products and feelings of ambivalence toward buying an ethical product through perceived brand ethicality, with consumers’ ethical sensitivity positively moderating these relationships.

The two studies explore only one form of ambivalence (i.e. subjective), and the experimental study focuses on a single category of products.

The findings highlight the difficulties in promoting ethical products. Consumers need to know if a product is “really” ethical, as they may feel ambivalent toward that product. This paper shows that strong ethical claims in advertising ethical products significantly help to overcome this barrier.

Based on attribution theory and persuasion models, this research reveals how ethical claims in advertising affect feelings of ambivalence, which negatively influence consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption. In addition, it follows a holistic approach to ethical consumption behaviors to explore consumers’ ambivalence.

This study aims to explore the motivation as well as barriers for ethical food consumption behaviour by focussing on the food consumption pattern of young adults in the North East of Scotland. Considering the recent involvement of young adults in environmental activism, consumption behaviour of young adults in the North East of Scotland, an oil-based community, presents essential research interest to understand whether young adults often contemplate the consequences of their lifestyle.

The authors explored the perceptions of ten purposive recruited young adults using semi-structured interviews to understand factors underpinning consumer's decision-making towards ethical food products.

The study reveals three key factors influencing ethical food consumption behaviour among young adults. The findings show that personal health and well-being are the main reasons why consumers engage in ethical food consumption. Also, it is observed that information facilitates decision-making by raising awareness regarding the social, environmental and health consequences of food production and consumption. Further, the findings show that situational attributes, such as product price and product availability, are creating dissonance when engaging in ethical food consumption.

This study contributes to sustainability research and the ongoing debate on consumerism by exploring ethical food consumption behaviour and highlights the need to address situational challenges, such as product price and availability. The study suggests that interventions to address current consumption patterns should also emphasise the social and personal benefits of food consumption rather than the environmental benefits that have been the focus of prior research.

Although research demonstrates the importance of ethical product attributes for consumers, a prior study has not examined the role of consumption target (i.e. self-purchases vs gift-giving) on consumers’ preference for products with ethical attributes. Notably, consumers’ preference for quality can differ between self-purchases and gifts, and the presence of ethical attributes can impact product quality perceptions. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the presence of ethical attributes alters decision-making in a gift-giving context using perceptions of product quality as an explanatory variable for these differences.

One field study and two controlled experiments test the proposed hypotheses. The experiments were conducted across different product categories and samples.

Results showed that the presence of an ethical attribute leads to higher purchase intentions for products in a gift-giving context compared to self-purchase. Perceived quality mediates this effect. Further process evidence through moderation, including resource synergy beliefs, support the findings. This paper discusses the theoretical, managerial and societal implications of these results.

Although care was taken to select products to enhance generalizability, the studies presented here are limited to two products. Further, although the present research includes a field study with actual charity-related purchases, the role of time pressures is not explicitly explored. Finally, the role of brand-self connections is not explored in the current research. The ability for a donor to integrate the mission of a charity into their self-perception or the potential for social normative influences to impact behaviors remains open for exploration.

Charities are facing increasing pressures to raise sustainable funds to support their missions. The research provides guidance to marketers and fundraisers in the non-profit sector that allows them to direct more focused fundraising appeals to donors and adapt their fundraising efforts to create a fit between their audience and fundraising appeals.

This research demonstrates that consumption target (purchasing for the self versus purchasing for others) is a vital contextual factor that influences customer preference for ethical attributes. These results complement the extant literature by exploring the underlying mechanism behind consumers’ responses to the ethical attributes in the case of self-purchase and other-purchase. The underlying effect is supported theoretically by resource synergy beliefs.

Moral issues such as environmental degradation and workers’ rights are no longer relegated to the political realm; today, they permeate the marketing of consumer products. Some consumer studies focus on organics, others on green goods and still others on fair trade products, but none include the full range of ethical consumption. This study, aims to investigate consumer willingness to pay for five distinct ethical narratives.

Using original data from a national sample, this paper parses out five types of ethical narratives: fair trade, sustainable/green, American-made and two types of charitable partnerships. Using random assignment and an experimental design allows in isolating the effects of gender, age, education, income, political orientation and political involvement on how much consumers are willing to pay for each type of ethical product.

This survey experiment demonstrates that the fair trade narrative is the most valuable to consumers, followed by the charitable narratives. The two charitable narratives are universally appealing, whereas fair trade, green and American-made products appeal to three distinct groups of consumers. This paper demonstrates that there is not one sort of ethical shopper, but many.

This study examines what sorts of stories appeal to particular demographics. It will help socially and environmentally responsible companies better understand their target demographic and how to motivate their target audience.

Previous research yields conflicting findings about who values ethical products because each study focuses on a different form of ethical consumption. This study uses original data to investigate consumers’ valuations of five different types of ethical narratives. The results help in making sense of divergent findings in the literature and expand understanding of socially conscious shoppers.

Despite the existence of various approaches for promoting ethical consumption, it remains a challenge to determine which ethical product features are actually decision relevant for consumers. Based on the assumption that values influence behavior across a range of situations, the purpose of this paper is to explore consumers preferences for product information items that address underlying motivators (i.e. concerns about the environment, animal welfare, other humans, price). Information preferences are also determined for different consumer segments separately, enabling one to target consumer groups with specific decision-relevant information.

A German online survey was conducted with mainly young consumers. The survey used a choice-based conjoint analysis (CBCA) with the relevant product information items chosen based on an analysis of the attributes of dairy products and the guidelines for eco- and fair trade labels. The identified items were assigned to the ethical criteria of animal welfare, environmental protection, and labor and human rights. These criteria, along with price and country of origin, represent the attributes of the CBCA.

The results indicate that information about animal welfare increases consumer choice the most, followed by information about labor and human rights, and environmental protection. Three identified segments differ with respect to their decision-relevant product information: ethically motivated consumers (53.8 percent), price oriented consumers (12 percent), and price-quality oriented consumers (34.2 percent).

This study contributes to a better understanding of how ethical product information can most effectively be communicated to consumers, particularly for dairy products. The results highlight the need to carefully select ethical product information based on the target consumer segment in order to promote ethical consumption.

This paper aims to provide an adequate instrument to measure involvement, its antecedents and its impact on behaviours relating to ethical product consumption, using the case of fair trade.

Based on an in‐depth analysis of the involvement literature and the specificities of ethical products, a model is derived using a hypothetico‐deductive approach. It is then analysed using structural equation modelling.

The new construct specific to ethical products is a strong predictor of involvement. In addition, the involvement in the ethical aspect of products is much stronger than the involvement in the product category to explain selected consumer behaviours.

It is likely that highly involved consumers are more prone to participate in such a survey, which limits the representativeness of the sample.

Beyond the theoretical contribution for ethical consumption analysis, practical implications for fair trade marketing can be derived. A section of the article discusses how to improve fair trade products' communication, how to make those products more competitive, and who should distribute them.

Current generic involvement models are insufficient to apprehend ethical consumers, who constitute a market in constant expansion. This research fills this gap by providing an original instrument which distinguishes the product‐specific involvement from the involvement in the ethical values carried by the product.

This paper aims to quantify the relative importance of reasons used to explain consumers’ selection and rejection of ethical products, accounting for differences in ethical orientations across consumers.

Reviewing previous literature and drawing on in-depth interviews, a taxonomy of reasons for and against ethical purchasing is developed. An online survey incorporating best–worst scaling (BWS) determines which reasons feature more in shaping ethical consumerism. Cluster analysis and multinomial regression are used to identify and profile segments.

Positively orientated consumers (42 per cent of respondents) purchase ethical products more so because of reasons relating to impact, health, personal relevance, and quality. Negatively orientated consumers (34 per cent of respondents) reject ethical alternatives based on reasons relating to indifference, expense, confusion and scepticism. A third segment is ambivalent in their behaviour and reasoning; they perceive ethical purchasing to be effective and relevant, but are confused and sceptical under what conditions this can occur.

Preferences were elicited using an online survey rather than using real market data. Though the task instructions and methods used attempted to minimise social-desirability bias, the experiment might still be subject to its effects.

Competitive positioning strategies can be better designed knowing which barriers to ethical purchasing are more relevant. The paper challenges the benefits in altruistic-based positioning and outlines shortcomings in communication about ethical products, including those relating to product labelling.

Through their purchase behaviours across a number of categories, ethical consumers aim to minimise the harm and exploitation of humans, animals and the natural environment. This research provides insights into the potential reasons why the uptake of ethical products is not being achieved and how it can be addressed to make improvements in making this movement more mainstream.

This research examines an extensive list of reasons for and against ethical purchasing used by a general population of consumers. By forcing respondents to make trade-offs, this is the first study quantifying the relative importance of reasons utilised by consumers. It also highlights the value in using cluster analysis on best–worst scores to identify underlying segments.

This study aims to assesses the relative importance that Belgian consumers attach to different characteristics and marketing practices of ethically labelled coffee, i.e. type of ethical issue, label issuer, amount of information provided, distribution and promotion strategy and branding.

Buying behaviour is studied by means of a web‐based survey in a sample of 750 Belgian consumers, using conjoint analysis.

Consumers attach greatest importance to the distribution strategy of ethically labelled coffee, followed by the type of ethical label, and the issuer of the label. Ethically labelled coffee should be available in ordinary supermarkets and be presented along with non‐ethical coffee brands. Fair trade labelled coffee is by far the most preferred over eco‐ and bio‐labels. European government labels, or labels issued by non‐governmental organizations, are preferred over national (Belgian) government endorsed labels. Consumers prefer extra information on the package, in addition to a label. Out‐of‐shop promotion of the label and the type of brand are of minor importance. The results are similar across different socio‐demographic groups.

Implications for governments, NGOs, and manufacturers and distributors of ethically labelled coffee (and possibly other ethical products) are offered.

The contribution of the study is that it measures the relative importance of factors that have previously been identified as relevant in a realistic multi‐attribute preference‐formation framework.

Concern about ethical practices in the marketing of financial services has increased in recent years, despite an apparent strengthening of the regulatory framework. In part the ethical problems associated with the promotion and distribution of financial services may be attributable to specific features of the market such as asymmetric information. From the consumers’ perspective, there is a range of anecdotal evidence concerning ethical problems in the marketing of financial services in general and insurance products in particular. Information concerning the industry perspective on these issues is limited. Presents evidence of the extent to which ethical problems in marketing are identified by those in the industry and the extent to which the views of marketing staff differ from those of non‐marketing staff.

This paper aims to examine to what extent congruity between ethical attributes (i.e. product attributes with positive implications for the environment, human rights, social issues and animal welfare) and brand concept (i.e. the unique meaning associated with a brand in consumers’ minds) influences consumers’ evaluations of brands offering ethical attributes.

Four studies involving North American consumers empirically tested the moderation effect of brand concept on consumer evaluations of ethical attributes and the mediating role of perceived congruity.

This research finds an interactive effect of ethical attribute type and brand concept on brand evaluations, such that congruent ethical attribute–brand concept pairings (i.e. a utilitarian [symbolic] ethical attribute offered by a brand with a utilitarian [symbolic] brand concept) result in more favorable brand evaluations (Studies 1, 2, 3 and 4). Consumers’ perceptions of congruity between ethical attributes and brand concepts mediate this interactive effect (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, a positive congruity effect of ethical attributes and brand concepts emerges at higher levels of conspicuous brand consumption (Study 4).

It is important to acknowledge that the current research did not specifically consider the case of utilitarian and symbolic ethical attribute offerings by luxury brands. This is a question that is left to future investigations.

For marketing managers, findings indicate that brands gain from ethical attribute introductions only when these attributes are congruent with the brand concept. In addition, brands benefit to a greater extent from offering congruent ethical attributes when brand consumption is conspicuous.

The findings of this research contribute to the literature on the effect of ethical attributes on consumers’ responses to brands and highlight the importance of brands’ choice of ethical attributes.