Sustainable Paris Olympics vs. health concerns over plastic bottles: effective marketing communications to promote the use of canned beverages

While environmental consideration and economic value were once considered a trade-off, today, organizations are expected to achieve both. Therefore, brands must make decisions and act more conscientiously than ever before. This conscientiousness must be integrated into the company’s competitive products and organizational culture. In conducting honest business, considering environmental issues, brands face difficult challenges. One prime example is the elimination of plastic bottles. Marketing communication strategies that encourage changes in consumer attitudes and the use of plastic are required to reduce plastic pollution, a worldwide environmental issue. This study examined the effects of two stimuli in encouraging a switch from plastic bottles to cans: (1) a policy banning single-use plastics for spectators at the 2024 Paris Olympics and (2) a recent study finding that plastic bottles contain large amounts of microplastics. A randomized controlled trial in Japan revealed that the Olympic stimulus significantly increased the attractiveness of cans compared with plastic bottles; this influence was more pronounced among people with higher levels of personal innovativeness. This is the first study to extend Olympic effects—calculated for economic impacts that can be channeled into fiscal and physical urban development—to changes in consumer environmental attitudes.