Green advertising in Argentina. An analysis of environmental claims in TV ads

Abstract

This article summarizes the results of a content analysis study on green advertising in Argentina. The main objective was to develop a diagnostic study of TV advertisements that use environmental claims for commercial purposes. To do this, we quantitatively analyzed a sample of advertisements classified as “green” to objectively and systematically describe the content of these messages and define patterns that allowed us to establish some trends. The data revealed that the purpose of most of green advertisements are sales rather than to build an image, and that the environment is mostly used as context for the message or as a creative complement. Most advertisers seek to link the environment attributes to their products or services, but they do not communicate real environmental benefits.