Does sustainability sell? The impact of sustainability claims on the success of national brands’ new product introductions

In the hope of benefiting from increasing focus on sustainability in Western markets, national brands are introducing new sustainable products. We investigate success products with a unique dataset combining household panel data, consumer survey expert and advertising expenditure data. show that product introductions achieve lower sales than their conventional counterparts. Investing corporate social responsibility activities compensates for this negative effect is therefore viable strategy to boost Importantly, making clearly innovative mitigates claim sales, whereas price promotions aggravate effect. furthermore caution may not decrease as becomes more mainstream, even if our data covers period before currently increased interest sustainability.