Sungyun Kim
The Hotchkiss School
Abstract
This study investigates the effectiveness of persuasive messaging techniques in Instagram advertisements for gourmet food brands, specifically comparing ads with eco-friendly and non-eco-friendly packaging. Considering the rising environmental concerns and significant influence of social media, understanding how to promote eco-friendly products is an essential task. This study provides an analysis of 32 Instagram advertisements, focusing on the persuasive techniques of luxury, lifestyle, ease, humor, and the number of hashtags. The results of the study showed that humor is more common in non-eco-friendly advertisements. Furthermore, lifestyle appeals, humor, and hashtags lead to more engagement. On the other hand, humor emerged as the only significant predictor of engagement for eco-friendly packaging. Overall, lifestyle appeals, humor, and the number of hashtags positively influence the number of likes for both non-eco- friendly and eco-friendly packaging. According to the conducted research, in order to promote products with eco-friendly packaging, the companies should utilize humor on their social media posts.
