Digital Green Advertising and Green Purchase Intention: Considering Attitude toward the Ad as a mechanism and Moderating Role of Environmental Concern

Abstract

This study examines how digital green advertising, attitude toward advertisements, environmental concern, and advertising appeal types influence consumers’ green purchase intention in Pakistan. It contributes to digital green marketing literature by focusing on an emerging-market context. Data were collected through an online survey of 450 respondents from Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. The proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling and PROCESS macro analysis. Digital green advertising positively influenced attitude toward the advertisement (β = 0.42, p < 0.001), while attitude toward the advertisement significantly enhanced green purchase intention (β = 0.51, p < 0.001). Attitude toward the advertisement partially mediated the relationship between digital green advertising and green purchase intention (indirect effect = 0.21, p < 0.01). Environmental concern also moderated the attitude–intention relationship (interaction β = 0.38, p < 0.001), with the effect being stronger among consumers with high environmental concern (β = 0.68) than those with low environmental concern (β = 0.34). Among the advertising appeal types, emotional appeals had the strongest effect on consumer attitude (β = 0.48, p < 0.001), followed by normative appeals (β = 0.35, p < 0.05) and informational appeals (β = 0.31, p < 0.05). The model explained 42% of the variance in green purchase intention. The findings show that digital green advertising can strengthen green purchase intention by shaping favorable attitudes toward advertisements, particularly among environmentally concerned consumers. The study also highlights the importance of emotional appeals in green advertising campaigns. By examining these relationships in Pakistan, this research extends green marketing knowledge in the context of a developing South Asian economy.