When a Good Thing Becomes a Better Thing: The Role of Lateral Display in Upcycled Product Advertisements

Abstract

An upcycled product—a new product created from reused waste materials—has two identities: a past identity derived from the source materials and a present identity associated with the product’s current value. This research investigates how the lateral display of an upcycled product’s past identity relative to its present identity changes consumers’ evaluations of upcycled product advertisements and their word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions. Across four studies, including an eye-tracking experiment, we demonstrate that consumers evaluate an upcycled product advertisement more (vs. less) favorably when the product’s past identity is presented to the left (vs. the right) of its present identity, which, in turn, affects consumers’ WOM on social media. We suggest that this lateral display effect is driven by consumers’ spatial representation of time. Our research carries managerial implications for marketing professionals who want to effectively advertise their upcycled products and contributes to the literature on upcycling by demonstrating the role of past-identity location in upcycled product advertisements.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Paul Herr, John Roberts, and Kwanho Suk for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this work. The authors also thank Ka Wing Chan, Srikaanth Srinivasan, William Gu, Camila Navajas, Kavitha Narayanan, and Terry Zhuo for their research assistance.

Additional information

Funding

This article was funded by the Seed Money Grant at the NEOMA Business School and Faculty Research Grant at the UNSW Business School.

Notes on contributors

Junghyun Kim

Junghyun Kim (Ph.D., Virginia Tech) is an assistant professor, Department of Marketing, NEOMA Business School, Rouen, France.

Youngju Kim

Youngju Kim (Ph.D., Korea University) is an assistant professor, Department of Marketing, NEOMA Business School, Reims, France.

Junbum Kwon

Junbum Kwon (Ph.D., University of Toronto) is a lecturer, School of Marketing, UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.