IMPACT OF GREEN MARKETING ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR

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1 IMPACT OF GREEN MARKETING ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR MS. NEHAMAHAJAN Assistant Professor in Management, S.D.P College For Women, Ludhiana ABSTRACT Green marketing refers to the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits. Green marketing activities are increasing globally, and have had an important influence on increasing consumer knowledge and in shifting consumers attitude towards purchasing green products. In recent years, Green marketing has concentrated on various eco labeling, eco branding and environmental advertising strategies. The main objective of this study was to measure the impact of these marketing tools on consumer buying behaviour. A survey was undertaken and questionnaire was used to collect the data from 100 respondents of Chandigarh UT. Linear Regression Technique depicted the results using SPSS. Results showed that consumers easily recognized the eco labels and they trusted on eco brands when they made a purchase. Further no significant impact on environmental advertisements was found on the consumer buying behaviour. Keywords: Green marketing, consumer buying behaviour, eco labeling, eco branding, environmental advertising. INTRODUCTION Environmental marketing, more popularly known as green marketing or sustainable marketing can be defined as the effort by a company to design, promote, price and distribute products in a manner which promotes environmental protection (Polonsky, 2011). Green marketing has been defined as 'all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment' by Polonsky (2011). REVIEW OF LITERATURE Green marketing, also alternatively known as environmental marketing and sustainable marketing, refers to an organization s efforts at designing, promoting, pricing and distributing products that will not harm the environment (Pride and Ferrell 1993). Polonsky (1994) defined green marketing as all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment. Stanton and Futrell (1987) defined green or environmental marketing as actions intended to replace current needs and wants with minimal harmful impact on our environment. Ginsberg and Bloom (2004) claimed that there was not any single marketing tool that would be appropriate for all firms. Rather, strategies should be different based on different markets and the degree of consumer concern on the environment. Three green marketing tools are considered in this study as enhancements to a consumer s knowledge about environmental friendly products. Currently, these tools are also used to help consumers distinguish between green products and conventional products. These tools include ecobrand, eco-label and environmental advertisement. ECO LABEL Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) introduced electricity eco labeling in 1996, suggested that companies could create competitive advantage if they use innovations related to environmental sustainability rather than simply comply with the government regulations (D Souza et.al. 2006). Environmental labels make ease consumer to identify the product is environmentally friendly eco-label 25

2 is positively correlated with consumer willingness to purchase. Leire and Thidel (2005) indicated that eco-label did not motivate consume to purchase green product Significant influence of eco-labeled information on recycling behavior. Sammer and Wustenhagen (2006) communicated brand image between buyer and sellers and consumer made purchase decision with less effort and time. Bleda and Valente (2008) investigated eco-labelling as a green marketing tool was not effective under certain conditions. ECO BRANDS Eco-brand is a name, symbol or design of products that are harmless to the environment. Utilizing ecobrands features can help to consumers differentiate them in some way from other non-green products. The significant factor motivating consumers to change actual purchase behavior to buy ecofriendlyproducts is emotional brand benefits. Hartmann et al, (2005) listed different types of emotional brandbenefits as: a feeling of well-being, auto-expression benefits through the socially visible consumptionand nature-related benefits. Knowing about consumers brand purchase decisions is very important for marketers and market researchers. This effect is known as brand equity. Brand equity can be defined as data that has different effects on consumer response to the marketing. Green brands that generally focus on the environment should be used to highlight the status of green products, in a similar way to non-green products (Aker, 1992). ENVIRONMENTAL ADVERTISEMENT Green advertisements influence consumers purchase behavior by encouraging them to buy products that do not harm the environment and to direct their attention to the positive consequences of their purchase behavior, for themselves as well as the environment. Now a day s most organizations have chosen environmental advertisements through media or newspapers as green techniques for introducing their products to environmentally responsible consumers. According to Baldwin (1993), environmental advertisements helped to form a consumer s values and translate these values into the purchase of green products. CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR The field of consumer behavior covers a lot of different areas. Antonieset. al. (1998) defined consumer behavior as studies concerning attitudes, intentions and decision processes in order to explain and predict behavior. They defined attitude as an individual particular trait. Individual behaved and saw the world according to his own preset favorable or unfavorable manner? Ottman (1993) defined green consumer as those actively seek and support those products satisfy their needs that were having less impact on environment. When a consumer has choice to buy from two identical products, the consumer will prefer to buy environmentally friendly product. Kreidler et.al. (2009) suggested that there was no significant relation between gender and green behavior.however in turn research of Mainieri et.al. (1997) founded that women were generally more environmentally conscious and willing to buy green products. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The main objective of the study was to measure the impact of green marketing on consumer buying behaviour. For this purpose, three green marketing tools such as eco-brand, eco-label and environmental advertisement were considered in this study as enhancements to a consumer s knowledge about environmental friendly products (Rahbar and Wahid, 2011). 26

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Scope of the Study The theoretical scope of the study is limited to green marketing tools such as eco labels, eco brands and environmental advertisements and consumer buying behaviour. The geographical scope of the study is limited to Chandigarh (UT). Research design For the purpose of the present study, descriptive research design is used. Sampling technique and sample size For the purpose of data collection, convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data from 100 respondents of Chandigarh (UT) but only 82 responses came out to be relevant to the study. Research instruments Structured questionnaire is used to get the responses of the respondents regarding eco labels, eco brands and environmental advertisements. Reliability of scale Reliability of each scale was checked using Cronbach s alpha. Value of Cronbach s alpha showed reliability at 0.90, 0.91, 0.90 and Statistical tools for analysis Descriptive and inferential tools were applied to analyze the data to comply with the objective. Descriptive statistics like percentage and frequencies were used and inferential statistics like regression analysis technique using SPSS 16.0 was used. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS OF THE STUDY The targeted participants for the study were those consumers who had purchased environment friendly products. To conduct the study 100 questionnaires were distributed to the people of different gender, education and occupational status. Frequency Analysis of Demographic information Frequency table on the basis of gender Gender Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid male female Total Frequency table on the basis of education Education Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid undergraduate graduate postgraduate doctorate others Total

4 Frequency table on the basis of occupation Occupation Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid student working self employed housewife others Total HYPOTHESES TESTING AND RESULTS H 0 1: A significant and positive relationship exists between eco labels and customer s actual buying behaviour. To check this hypothesis Linear Regression method was used. Regression analysis was performed on three factors of eco labels viz. awareness of eco labels, eco labels are recognizable and trust on eco labels. Tables below show the results after regression: Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate a a. Predictors: (Constant), trust on eco labels, eco lables are recognizable, aware of eco labels ANOVA b Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression a Residual Total a. Predictors: (Constant), trust on eco labels, eco lables are recognizable, aware of eco labels b. Dependent Variable: eco lables help in identification Coefficients a Standardized Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig. 1 (Constant) aware of eco labels eco labels are recognizable trust on eco labels a. Dependent Variable: eco lables help in identification Results showed that the values are significant at 0.05 values for only one factors viz. eco labels are recognizable (.001). Hence, the hypothesis (H01) is partially accepted for this factor and rejected for other two factors viz. awareness of eco labels and trust on eco labels. H 0 2: A significant and positive relationship exists between eco brands and customer s actual buying behaviour. 28

5 To check this hypothesis Linear Regression method was used. Regression analysis was performed on three factors of eco brands viz. awareness of eco brands, eco brand is symbol of product reliability and trust on eco brands. Tables below show the results after regression: Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate a a. Predictors: (Constant), trust on eco brands, aware of eco brands, eco brand is symbol of product reliability ANOVA b Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression a Residual Total a. Predictors: (Constant), trust on eco brands, aware of eco brands, eco brand is symbol of product reliability b. Dependent Variable: eco brands help in defferentaition Coefficients a Standardized Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig. 1 (Constant) aware of eco brands eco brand is symbol of product reliability trust on eco brands a. Dependent Variable: eco brands help in defferentaition Results showed that the values are significant at 0.05 values for only one factors viz. trust on eco brands (.009). Hence, the hypothesis (H 0 2) is partially accepted for this factor and rejected for other two factors viz. awareness of eco brands and eco brand is a symbol of product reliability. H 0 3: A significant and positive relationship exists between environmental advertisement and customer s actual buying behaviour. To check this hypothesis Linear Regression method was used. Regression analysis was performed on three factors of environmental advertisement viz. eco advertisement enhance my knowledge; enjoy watching eco advertisement and eco advertisement guide in purchase decision. Tables below show the results after regression: Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate a a. Predictors: (Constant), eco adv guides in purchase decision, enjoy watching eco adv, adv enhance my knowledge ANOVA b Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression a 29

6 Residual Total a. Predictors: (Constant), eco adv guides in purchase decision, enjoy watching eco adv, adv enhance my knowledge b. Dependent Variable: eco adv help in purchase decision Coefficients a Standardized Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig. 1 (Constant) adv enhance my knowledge enjoy watching eco adv eco adv guides in purchase decision a. Dependent Variable: eco adv help in purchase decision Results showed that no value was significant at 0.05 values. Hence H 0 3 is rejected. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION This study was conducted to find the impact of green marketing on consumer buying behaviour. For this green marketing tools such as eco labels, eco brand and environmental advertisement were taken to measure the impact. Results had shown that the consumers were aware of the eco friendly products and nearly half of the responses agreed on the fact that eco friendly products are important in order to safeguard the environment. Moreover, one third of the consumers considered eco friendly products while purchasing. An investigation on the coefficients of each dimensions of green marketing tool showed eco-labels and trust in eco-label as the positively significant variable related to actual purchase behavior. It showed that eco-branded products had been commercially successful due to its positive public image, which led consumers to purchase and causing the growth to brand loyalty. Result findings showed that eco labels on green products were recognizable to the consumers and they could easily identified green products when they made a purchase but they doubted the trustworthiness of those labels. Further, while making purchase, consumers had trusted on eco brands that helped them in differentiation with other non eco friendly products. Environmental advertisement was also another dimension of green marketing tool that was not significant with purchase behavior. The environmental advertisements demonstrated that a majority of the respondents believed environmental advertisement enhanced their knowledge on green products and they also considered green advertisement guided consumers into making an informed purchasing decision. However their belief had no influence on their purchase behavior concerning buying green products. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH While conducting this research, certain limitations were identified, with some suggestions for future studies; it may provide helpful insight to be considered in generating a new framework. First, this study was limited to consumers of Chandigarh UT and did not cover other geographical setting. In future studies, it would be ideal to consider large geographical area. Secondly, this study is conducted on general eco-brands. As such, future studies could focus on a specific eco-brand for a better understanding by respondents. Additionally, choosing a specific eco-brand can provide respondents with 30

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