45 Chapter 3 sustainability-driven companies should advertise their products. Both academic and industry research have highlighted the importance of sustainability management (e.g., CauseGood, 2017; Chang & Cheng, 2015; Coleman et al., 2019). However, because of the inconsistent results observed in the research on the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives (e.g., Singh et al., 2009; Acuti, Pizzetti, & Dolnicar, 2022), message framing (e.g., Yadav, 2016; Jäger & Weber, 2020), and the lack of research on moral justification in consumer behavior and marketing fields, it is unclear how socially responsible companies should frame their advertisements to strengthen their competitive position by enhancing consumers’ impulse purchase behavior. Therefore, in this study, three experiments are conducted to examine the effect of self- versus other-benefit-framed advertisements of a sustainability-driven company on consumers’ impulse purchase behavior. Furthermore, we explore the extent to which the effect of the advertising frame on impulse purchase behavior can be explained by deservingness versus moral justification. This research contributes to the literature on sustainability management, advertising framing, purchase behavior, and justification, and it offers implications for marketing practitioners and consumer psychologists. Theoretical Background and Hypotheses Development Using advertising frames to solve the vice/virtue response conflict in impulse buying Impulse purchases are, by definition, unplanned and are accompanied by a sudden, strong, and persistent urge to buy the product immediately (e.g., Rook, 1985; Thürmer, Bieleke, & Wieber, 2020). Impulse buying urge, a strong predictor of impulse buying, is the state of desire felt upon encountering a certain product (Beatty & Ferrell, 1998). Such urges are not rarely evoked by advertisements, especially when they promote hedonic products (e.g., Fennis & Stroebe, 2015). The urge to buy an advertised product often leads to an internal conflict between vice and virtue among many consumers. On the one hand, people feel the urge to succumb to their impulses and buy the product (vice). On the other hand, people want to stick to their long-term (ethical) goals, such as saving, eating healthy, or consuming less to contribute to a better world, and therefore, they do not want to buy the advertised product (virtue; de Witt, Evers & de Ridder, 2014). The vice/virtue response conflict can also be described as a struggle between two contradictions: the pleasure principle, whereby consumers choose for immediate gratification, and the reality principle, whereby consumers choose for long-term goals, and, therefore, consider the consequences of their behavior (Freud, 1920/1956; Rook, 1985). Correspondingly, various research works suggest that impulse buying is the outcome of a conflict between desire (vice) and reflection on long-term consequences (virtue), where the vice option wins (e.g., Hoch & Loewenstein, 1991; Lades, 2014; also see Fenton-O’Creevy, Dibb, & Furnham, 2018). Marketers and advertising practitioners address this vice/virtue response
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