‘They only get the feed that grows on our farm’: A survey experiment on greenwashing of Swiss meat and agricultural policy using a showcase design

Increased consumer interest in environmental and other process-related aspects of products
has led to a surge in green advertising, including misleading forms known as greenwashing.
While usual definitions of greenwashing refer to companies misleading consumers about
products, greenwashing may also involve governments and mislead citizens about policy
outcomes. The present study experimentally explores the effects of government-subsidized
greenwashing of Swiss agricultural products and agricultural policy. The greenwashing ad we
examined presented a ‘showcase’ beef production with only farm-grown feed to create an
overly positive impression of the environmental outcomes of ‘Swiss meat’ production in
general. We used a survey experiment (N=637) to examine how the video commercial
affected consumers’ perceptions, product beliefs and related policy opinions. A two-factorial
design was used to study effects of the commercial and of an information treatment that
placed the showcase in perspective. The information treatment presented the solutions to a
preceding knowledge test about animal feeding in Swiss farms more generally. In the
treatment condition with the showcase ad, more than half of the respondents agreed with the
statement ‘the ad conveys a realistic image of Swiss meat production’, and forty percent
agreed with the statement ‘the ad shows the production of Swiss beef as it is.’ The video
commercial did not influence beliefs about Swiss meat but changed opinions in the favor of
government subsidies for Swiss meat. Exposure to contextual information decreased the
support for subsidies but did not decrease the effect of the misleading ad. Other significant
predictors of support for increased meat subsidies including frequent meat consumption, low
factual knowledge, and positive product beliefs are consistent with theories of motivated
information processing. The findings suggest that the current self-regulation of the
communication industry and government sponsoring of misleading ads for Swiss products
and agricultural policy may undermine fair competition and unduly influence political opinion.