GREEN ADVERTISING - SALVATION OR OXYMORON

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of green advertisin g, thus demonstrating that the concept is far more complex than the ex tant marketing literature suggests. Green is characterized here as a t wo dimensional concept with political (reformism to radicalism) and hu man positional (anthropocentric to ecocentric) dimensions. It is argue d here that there are at least five different types of green, includin g environmentalism, conservationism, human welfare ecology, preservati onism, and ecologism. To understand the greenness of an advertisement, it is useful to position it within this framework; and each type sugg ests a different human position with respect to nature and a different political orientation. The proposed framework is useful for defining terms such as ''green,'' ''environmental,'' and ''ecological'' which a re often used interchangeably in the marketing and advertising literat ure.