Move the mind of fashion consumers with low environment saliency: use well- and healed-baby appeals and increase anticipated positive emotions

Purpose This study aims to investigate the effects of sick-, well- and healed-baby appeals used in fashion products on purchase intentions through anticipated emotions. Consumers' perceived saliency of the environmental issues in the fashion industry was examined as an influencing factor that further explains the persuasion of the advertising appeals. Design/methodology/approach Two sets of experimental studies were conducted with 201 participants in Study 1 and 186 participants in Study 2. Findings The results demonstrated that well- and healed-baby appeals increased purchase intentions fully mediated by anticipated positive emotions. In particular, the mediation effect was conditionally significant when individuals' saliency of environmental issues was low. The three types of advertising appeals did not differ in consumers with high saliency for environmental issues. A sick-baby appeal did not induce purchase intentions through anticipated negative emotions. The mediation effect of anticipated negative emotions did not work with any appeal type. Originality/value Retail marketers can use the findings to create commercial messages to persuade their fashion consumers. If the brand has consumers with low saliency, either educating consumers about the importance of environmental issues in the fashion industry or using a well- or healed-baby approach in their advertising can increase purchase intentions due to the increased anticipated positive emotions. Increasing the threat level of environmental problems by using a sick-baby appeal would not work, as consumers' anticipated negative emotions (e.g. feeling of guilt from not buying green products) would not convince them to purchase the green product.