Luxury goods: ‘Progress-focused’ wording beats 'sustainable' terms

In two field studies examining almost a million product listings on a second-hand luxury clothing website and Facebook posts by luxury car brands, the researchers compared consumer engagement, such as ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, of product descriptions that mention sustainability or circular economy with descriptions that have no mention of sustainable features. 

They then compared these with circular luxury product descriptions using progress-focused language – mainly words such as ‘reduce’, ‘change’ or ‘make’ from each category. 

First author, doctoral researcher Emma Joenpolvi from the university’s School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, says the results show that using the right language to inform consumers of the sustainability credentials of the product is vital to ensure their appeal.  

The study, titled ‘Driving Consumer Engagement for Circular Luxury Products: Two Large Field Studies on the Role of Regulatory Mode Language’, has been published in the Journal of Consumer Behaviour. 

‘Likes’ plummeted to zero in certain instances 

“For example, a random selection of three product listings on the [luxury goods website] with no mention of sustainability factors had between 492 and 853 ‘likes’. However, when the posts explicitly mentioned the word ‘recycled’, the number of ‘likes’ received plummeted to zero,” Joenpolvi explains. 

“When we then looked at listings for sustainability-backed products that achieved [above-average] ‘likes’, we found that they used progress-focused language that frames the product in a process of moving forward. 

“For example, words [such as] ‘make’, ‘dynamic’, ‘get’, ‘fast’, ‘flow’ and ‘launch’ generated greater consumer engagement with circular and sustainable luxury brand claims than using words [such as] ‘recycled’, ‘sustainable’, ‘eco-friendly’, ‘green’ and ‘source-to-sea’.” 

According to Joenpolvi, similar results were found in social media posts on the luxury cars. Those that included progress-focused language about sustainability achieved well above-average shares on Facebook for each brand. 

“The posts that mentioned the luxury cars had ‘sustainable materials’, ‘eco-friendly materials’ or were fighting ‘plastic pollution’ achieve dismal shares – just 6% of the average shares for that brand,” she notes. 

“In summary, getting the language right for marketing circular luxury products cannot be underestimated. Luxury brands are well-positioned to spearhead a change to circular business models due to their prominent positioning in their respective industries.” 

You can find out more about the study here.