Consumer Perception of Sustainability : A cross-cultural study of green advertisement in the automobile industry between Japanese and Swedish consumers.

Abstract: As sustainability becomes a pressing issue, companies are increasingly adopting green advertising strategies to promote their products and increase consumer awareness. However, the effectiveness of these advertisements across different cultural backgrounds are often overlooked. In light of this, the research addresses two questions: (1) What are the characteristics of successful green advertisements in Japan and Sweden? and (2) How should Japanese and Swedish companies in the automobile industry design and deploy green advertisements to optimize the effect? To answer these questions, the research involved data analysis on green advertisements to understand key themes and develop survey samples. The survey was then conducted to examine the impact of cultural and green messages on participants' perceptions. The main findings indicate that both Japanese and Swedish participants perceive green advertisements with a soft-sell and single-message approach more appealing. However, when it comes to cultural messages, more Japanese participants showed positive attitudes towards green advertisements with high-context messages than Swedish participants with low-context messages.