The influence of unfamiliar ingredients on the greenness evaluation of environmentally friendly products
| Date | 25 June 2024 |
| Pages | 684-701 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-09-2023-4741 |
| Published date | 25 June 2024 |
| Author | Qingyi Li,Hong Zhu,Yayu Zhou,Zhijun Li,Chunqu Xiao |
The influence of unfamiliar ingredients on the
greenness evaluation of environmentally
friendly products
Qingyi Li, Hong Zhu, Yayu Zhou and Zhijun Li
School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, and
Chunqu Xiao
School of Business, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to assist brand and product managers in selecting appropriate ingredient names for environmentally friendly
products. It investigates the effects of unfamiliar ingredients on consumers’evaluations of environmental friendliness andtheir purchase intentions,
based on the cue consistency theory.
Design/methodology/approach –Five experimental studies (n¼968) were conducted to achieve the research objectives. Study 1 found that
consumers tended to avoid choosing unfamiliar ingredients. Study 2 examined the impact of ingredient familiarity on consumers’perceived
greenness. Study 3 investigated the mediating role of perceived naturalness. Studies 4 and 5, respectively, explored the moderating effects of
emphasizing the importance of technology in environmental conservation and product category.
Findings –The findings indicate that when environmentally friendly products are labeled with unfamiliar ingredients(vs. familiar), consumers’
perceived greenness and purchase intentions decrease. This effect is mediated by perceived naturalness. Moreover, the negative impact of
unfamiliar ingredients is mitigated by emphasizing the importance of technology and the high-tech product category.
Originality/value –This paper reveals the unique role of unfamiliar ingredients in shaping co nsumer attitudes toward environmentally friendly
products. Based on cue consistency theory, it uncovers how unfamiliar ingredients influence the perceived greenness of environmentally
friendly products through perceived naturalness. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates the impact of emphasizing the importance of
technology (emphasis vs. control) and product category (high-tech vs. low-tech) on consumer attitudes and behaviors toward environmentally
friendly products.
Keywords Product ingredients, Familiarity, Perceived greenness, Purchase intention, Cue consistency theory
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The latest survey by the International Food Information
Council (IFIC) reveals that 60% of American consumers
consider ingredients when purchasing food, and nearly 30%
associate unfamiliar ingredients with safety concerns (Food
insight, 2023). The challenge po sed by consumers’concerns
over unfamiliar ingredients extends not only to the food
sector but also to green products. Brand managers often
grapple with labeling between unfamiliar or familiar
ingredients to showcase a product’s green attributes. For
example, they may choose between printing “Polylactic Acid
(PLA) degradable”or “cornstarch-based degradable”on
eco-friendly straw packaging. In practice, some companies
opt to label unfamil iar ingredients, like Apple as serting its use
of materials without Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs)
and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) for green growth (apple.com.
cn/environment), while German brand Fisslerspecifies
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) for its nonstick pans (fissler.
com). In contrast, some companies use familiar ingredients,
like Huawei stating that all its product packaging uses 100%
biodegradable eco-friendly soy ink and bio-based plastics to
reduce carbon emissions (huawei.com/cn/sustainability).
Industry practices vary, and academia lacks empirical
research on the impact of labeling unfamiliar (vs familiar)
ingredients in green products.
The current issue and full text archiveof this journal is available on Emerald
Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
33/6 (2024) 684–701
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-09-2023-4741]
The authors of this work would like to thank the editors who provided
comments.
This research is supported by the Major Program of the National Social
Science Fund of China (Grant Number: 19ZDA362).
Author contributions: Qingyi Li, Hong Zhu, Yayu Zhou, Zhijun Li and
Chunqu Xiao were responsible for this research’s idea and first draft.
Qingyi Li was responsible for data collection and analysis.
Disclosure statement: This work has no competing financial, professional or
personal interests from other parties.
Received 28 September2023
Revised 5 March 2024
5 May 2024
Accepted 5 May 2024
684
“Unfamiliar ingredients”refers to those ingredients or
components in products that make consumers feel unfamiliar. For
clarity, this research will hereafter refer to them collectively as
“ingredients.”The food industry emerges as the primary domain
for studying unfamiliar ingredients (Youn and Kim, 2018;Liu and
Mattila, 2015), where on one hand, the perceived lower
“naturalness”of products with unfamiliar ingredients deters
consumer consumption (Asioli et al., 2017). Unusual food
ingredients can enhance the perception of food authenticity,
conversely, elevating purchase tendencies (Youn and Kim, 2017).
However, the realm of green product research noticeably lacks
attention to labeling unfamiliar ingredients, particularly within
eco-friendly products domains where consumer perception of
environmental friendliness is pronounced (Gershoff and Frels,
2015). There is insufficient research exploring the impact of
unfamiliar ingredients on perceived greenness, leaving businesses
unclear on how such labeling in eco-friendly products affects
consumers.
The research posits that labeling green products with
unfamiliar ingredients is likely to diminish consumers’
perceived naturalness, subsequently reducing the perceived
greenness of the product and the purchase intention.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that individuals have an
innate aversion to foods not found in nature, such as blue-
colored meat (Eckstut and Eckstut, 2013;Hagtvedt and Brasel,
2017), and a natural resistance to unfamiliar foods (Food
insight, 2023;Asioli et al.,2017). Socially, unfamiliar
ingredients are deemed nonnatural, decreasing the perceived
naturalness amongindividuals (Siipi, 2008;Mill, 1969;Räikkä
and Rossi, 2002). Consistency between “naturalness”and
“green products”exists. According to cue consistency theory,
consistent cues lead to cumulative positive effects (Tseng and
Wang, 2023), whileinconsistent cues result innegative impacts
(Ahluwalia, 2002;Campbell and Goodstein, 2001). For
example, compared to familiar ingredients like corn starch,
unfamiliar ingredients in green products, such as PLA, diverge
from the natural concept typically associated with such
products. Thisdeviation reduces perceivedgreenness and leads
to lower purchaseintention.
Through five experiments, this research explored how
labeling eco-friendly products with unfamiliar ingredients
affects consumers’perceived greennessand purchase intention.
The studyconfirms that perceived naturalnessplays a mediating
role and that emphasizing the importance of technology in
environmentalconservation, as wellas the product category, has
a moderating effect. This paper contributes to cue consistency
theory and extends previous research on perceived greenness.
Practically, itoffers feasible strategies for businesses to enhance
consumers’perceived greennessand purchase intention for eco-
friendly products.It also provides guidance for brand managers
on how to label eco-friendly products with appropriate
ingredientnames.
2.Conceptual model and hypotheses
development
2.1Unfamiliar ingredients
As the name suggests, the concept of unfamiliar ingredients
refers to the ingredients that consumers have low familiarity
with. Park and Lessig (1981) proposed distinguishing
consumer familiarity into objective and subjective categories,
which reflect a person’s actual product knowledge versus
their perceived understanding, respectively. Researchers
then amalgamated these concepts, defining product
familiarity as the degree of consumers’accumulated
product-related experience (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987).
Unfamiliar products,as identified by Walter et al. (2020),are
those never purchased or used by consumers. Drawing on
previous research, this study adopts a definition for
unfamiliar ingredients as those within a product about which
consumers possess limited knowledge and familiarity.
Research on unfamiliar ingredients can be divided into two
main aspects. The first aspect focuses on the impact on consumer
experience, such as authenticity, perceived risk and satisfaction.
This line of research has primarily been conducted in the food
consumption domain. The mere mention of ingredients or
attributes in food can provide cues that influence individuals’
expectations and evaluations of the food (Sukalakamala and
Boyce, 2007). Liu and Mattila (2015) found that Americans’
satisfaction levels increased when they were provided with menus
featuring unfamiliar ingredients, such as mimosa. Youn and Kim
(2017) demonstrated that unfamiliar ingredients in food and
unique food names will enhance consumers’willingness to
consume. The research suggests that the increase in consumer
satisfaction is due to the secret menu containing unfamiliar
ingredients meeting consumers’needs for belongingness or
uniqueness. The increase in consumer willingness to consume is
attributed to unfamiliar ingredients, unique food names and
narratives about the origins of foods, enhancing consumers’
perceptions of authenticity. The subsequent research conducted
by Youn and Kim (2018) further adds that unfamiliar ingredients
also increase consumers’perceived risk, while unfamiliar food
names only impact the perception of authenticity.
In addition, some researchers have begun to examine the
effects of unfamiliar ingredients on the inference of product
efficacy. For instance, Haws et al. (2017) found that
participants, when presented with higher-priced options,
inferred that the unfamiliar ingredient (DHA) was a more
crucial ingredient of a healthy diet. This is because consumers
lack prior knowledge about unfamiliar ingredients and rely
more on heuristic information processing, which leads them to
overgeneralize the lay theory and perceive higher-priced
unfamiliar ingredients as more important. Asioli et al. (2017),
on the other hand, demonstrated that consumers infer lower
“naturalness”of unfamiliar ingredients in food, which leads
them to avoid consumption. This is because when health risks
are present, consumers’fear of unfamiliar ingredients tends to
amplify the perceived risks associated with the product
(Wansink et al.,2014). Grunert et al. (2009) also found that
consumers inferthose familiar active ingredients (e.g. omega-3)
are healthier than unfamiliar active ingredients (e.g. bioactive
peptides). This occurs because, in the absence of additional
cues, familiar ingredients aremore likely to trigger associations
with health in consumers’minds.
However, overall, research on the impact of unfamiliar
ingredients on product efficacy remains limited, especially outside
the realm of food. While there are widespread market
applications, such as Xiaomi smartphones’use of plant-based
bio-nylon resin for internal support and low-temperature
polycrystalline oxide for the screen, dedicated research specifically
The influence of unfamiliar ingredients
Qingyi Li et al.
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 33 · Number 6 · 2024 · 684–701
685
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