Getting smart on green branding: Ideological sorting and the targeting of environmentally conscious branding

Implementing existing green digital technology at scale could lead to a 20% reduction in global emissions annually. However, climate change has become a central focus of the "culture wars" providing a significant hindrance to the adoption of this technology. Using two survey experiments (total N = 2,089), we show that there is substantial heterogeneity in purchasing intentions when the same pro-environmental product is called "smart" or "green." Environmental concern serves as an important moderator, with participants low in environmental concern showing a substantial aversion to green branding. We consider the marketing actions available to firms in this polarized environment and suggest that ideological sorting reduces the burden of targeting. We demonstrate that political party, an easily observable or inferred characteristic, provides a clean market segmentation correlating highly with environmental concern while capturing additional variation in the efficacy of green branding. Using simulations of multiple targeting schemes corresponding to different levels of sophistication and data access, we estimate that showing consumers the branding that aligns best with their political affiliation can increase purchasing intentions by 4%, performing just as well as a causal machine learning targeting approach. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that a 4% increase in purchasing intentions for just the five products tested here would reduce carbon emissions by approximately 1.2 gigatons by 2050, the equivalent of 5.4 million flights from London to New York City.