Responsible consumption and production themed advertisements in sustainable marketing: A cross-generation comparative neuromarketing research

The purpose of this research is to determine whether there is a difference in the attention (number of focus and viewing time) of generations X, Y and Z towards the sustainability messages in the responsible production and consumption themed advertising visuals published by ready-to-wear brands within the scope of sustainable marketing. In this context, a field study was conducted to determine the brands to be included in this research and a total of 12 advertising visuals (with models, products and neutral stimuli) belonging to the brands LCW, DeFacto, Colin's and Mavi were included in the research. The research method is a mixed research method. The research field is neuromarketing, the research technique is eye-tracking research, and a post-experimental survey was conducted to support the research. The research was conducted with data from a total of 66 participants, 22 from each of generations X, Y and Z. The Gazepoint GP3 device was used in the experiment. The eye-tracking data collected in the experiment was analyzed with the Gazepoint Analysis Software Professional Edition (v6.8.0) program and heat maps were obtained. In order to test the hypotheses; participants' fixation count and viewing time metrics were taken and statistical analyses were performed in IBM SPSS Statistics 29.0 program. Hypotheses were tested using ANOVA for data showing normal distribution and Kruskal-Wallis test for data not showing normal distribution. In cases where differences were detected between generations, post hoc (Tukey and Mann-Whitney U test + Bonferroni correction) tests were performed to determine which generations the difference was between. As a result of the research; 10 of the 24 hypotheses assumed for the research were accepted and 14 were rejected. Within the framework of the 10 accepted hypotheses; it was concluded that there was a difference in fixation counts and viewing times (attention) towards sustainability messages between generations. It was determined that these differences were between generations X and Y in some hypotheses and between generations X and Z in some hypotheses. No statistically significant difference was detected between generations Y and Z. Keywords: Neuromarketing, Eye-Tracking, Sustainable Marketing, Responsible Production and Consumption, Generations