ABSTRACT:

California's annual rainfall figures rank the state among the driest in the nation. Moreover, drought conditions across the state seem to occur now at more frequent intervals. Paradoxically, according to the US Geological Survey, California is the largest, per capita, consumer of water in the country. To avoid the worsening of an already tenuous balance between supply and demand of freshwater, water irrigation districts frequently embark on water conservation programs.

Whether de-marketing may be used to foster residential water conservation in drought-prone states such as California was the focus of this study. The study investigated customer awareness (knowledge of) water conservation behaviors, paired with their current practices (actual water consumption) in the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts. By linking awareness to behavior, we sought to ascertain the potential for "de-marketing" to succeed in promoting sustainable residential water use.

The findings indicate a significant degree of correlation between awareness and behavior and lend support to arguments by sustainability proponents that water district managers include de-marketing (via consumer education) in their efforts to foster residential water conservation in drought-prone states such as California.

Keywords: De-marketing, water conservation, hierarchy of effects model.

1. INTRODUCTION

Marketing is about creating and resolving exchange relationships, and the marketing concept posits that customers are kings/queens in that process. A strict interpretation of this orientation would have organizations give customers what they need/want without limitations. However, such an interpretation often clashes with a consideration of society's best interest. Thus, in a departure from strict consumer sovereignty, de-marketing is sometimes undertaken in certain product-market situations. First popularized by Philip Kotler, de-marketing means to actively discourage the unbridled consumption of a product or service, in the pursuit of higher societal interests. Understandably, de-marketing tends to apply to such unsafe (hazardous) products as tobacco or alcohol (Comm, 1997). But its potential is much broader in scope. De-marketing has been used to manage virtually all imaginable inadequate supply or unwanted demand problems:

* When crowds and overdevelopment hurt such heavily visited national parks as the Grand Canyon, the national parks service encourages visitors to stay away, albeit momentarily (Quan, 2000).

* When too many people were calling their headquarters emergency number with complaints about noisy parties next door, pleas to rescue cats, or requests to turn off leaky fire hydrants, NYPD mounted a campaign to discourage demand for non-emergency calls.

* In countries like Canada with universal health care coverage, paid for with taxpayers' dollars, overconsumption prompted the Canadian government to adopt policies aimed at curbing inappropriate consumption of health care services (Bokowski, 1994; Kindra, 1995).

Whether de-marketing could be used to foster residential water conservation in drought-prone states such as California was the focus of this study.

2. RATIONALE AND SIGNIFICANCE

2.1 Significance of Freshwater: Water is essential to life, human or otherwise. Its lack may have dire consequences. In a recent study, the General Accounting Office (GAO) was asked to determine the current conditions and future trends for US water availability and use, the likelihood of shortages and their potential consequences, and states' views on how the federal government may help in state water management efforts to meet future demand. The conclusions of the study (GAO, 2003) underscore the importance of freshwater availability, by pointing to some economic, environmental, and social consequences of water shortages:

* economic--billions of losses in agricultural production (heavily agricultural states).

* environmental--damage to plant and animal species, wildlife habitat, and water quality.

* social--conflicts between water users, reduction in quality of life, perception of inequities in the distribution of impacts and disaster relief.

2.2. The California Freshwater Paradox: Climatically, California is a semi-desert region. Annual state rainfall figures rank the state among the driest in the nation. Moreover, drought conditions across the state seem to occur now at more frequent intervals.

Paradoxically, according to the US Geological Survey, California is the largest consumer of water in the country: in 2000, California alone accounted for almost 11 percent of all freshwater used in the United States. Most of the water used in California was for crop irrigation. More alarming, is the US Census Bureau's estimate that California, already the most populous state in the nation, will grow by 6 million more people by 2025, worsening an already tenuous balance between supply and demand of freshwater.

California's insatiable appetite for water, however, cannot be solely attributed to the populous nature of the state, or even to the size of its agriculture alone. Indeed, whereas national water use estimates point to an average daily use of up to 100 gallons per person, per day, Modesto Irrigation District (MID) estimates the district's average to up to 200 gallons per person, per day. Clearly, Californians seem to exhibit water consumption behaviors that deviate significantly from national norms.

To be sure, the freshwater shortages problems forecasted by the majority of state water managers across the country could be attacked on both supply and demand fronts. The GAO survey shows clearly, however, the strong supply-side bias held by most state water managers. This in a context where the study's own findings (i.e. ground water depletion, increasing saltwater intrusion into freshwater sources, tremendous population growth, etc.) cast doubts on Western and Southern states' ability to meet their future needs by just relying on supply-side remedies. Clearly, residential water conservation must be part of the equation, if the current fragile equilibrium between supply and demand of freshwater is to be maintained in the future.

2.3. Research Objective

Tools commonly used by organizations for de-marketing include:

Higher prices--high taxes on cigarettes and liquor.

Counter-advertising--counter-ads advising young people not to take crack, cocaine, or heroin.

Limiting advertising--Cigarettes, for example, may not be advertised on television.

Limited distribution--Alcohol may only be sold in stores with a license.

Warning labels--labels on cigarette boxes warning the public about respiratory diseases if they smoke.

Development of substitutes for products or services.

Social & welfare support and Information dissemination of information

Favored by most water districts among these tools is often the price deterrent. Here, households are first allocated a "reasonable" volume of water for their consumption. Households that exceed this "normal" allocation are subsequently penalized with a higher price for quantities above the threshold.

Besides the challenges inherent in setting a consumption base that is actually "reasonable", a notable problem with using price as a step function of quantity used, is the dubious nature of some key assumptions underlying the strategy: first, it is assumed that consumers are aware of consumption reduction behaviors but are unwilling to adopt them (e.g. lack of cooperation justifies the stick); and second, that the demand for freshwater is price elastic (i.e. the stick will elicit desired behavior). The fact, however, is that most conservation schemes based on price as a deterrent do not seem to work, as exemplified by Californians continuing insatiable appetite for water. A contention of this study is that these limited successes may be blamed on decision-makers neglect of the fundamental concept of customer sovereignty in the conservation equation. What if consumers were just ignorant, not uncooperative (e.g. they do not really know enough about water saving behaviors)? Clearly, answers to these questions may point to conservation policies by demand-side management practices that differ from the current state of affairs where price is used to attempt to regulate demand, only because price is a convenient supply-side tool.

The current study investigated customer knowledge of water conservation behaviors, paired with actual water consumption practices in the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts. The purpose of this awareness vs. behavior investigation was to help ascertain the potential for "de-marketing" to succeed in promoting sustainable residential water use.

3. METHOD AND FINDINGS

3.1. Method: The data relating to this study were solicited from 1,200 randomly selected households in Stanislaus County, CA, using the structured self-administered survey questionnaire format.

The 28 questions in the survey covered both residential water usage indoors (i.e. bathroom, laundry room and kitchen) as well as outdoors (i.e. landscaping watering). Each question item in the survey proposed to respondents a tip for water conservation, with each tip followed by a statement prompting the respondent to indicate whether they knew of the tip already and whether they used if frequently or not. The water saving tips used in this questionnaire were gathered from a variety of sources including the Modesto Water District, the Turlock Irrigation District. Many were slighted adapted/rephrased, when needed, to conform to the need of this research.

3.2. Findings: Following the survey administration, 220 usable responses were received (the 18.33% response rate is typical of such surveys).

Initial analysis of the responses revealed interesting contrasts both in terms of breadth of consumer awareness of water saving tips, as well as their actual water conservation habits: Overall, the item (conservation tip) with the broadest awareness was item 11 (91.8% of respondents reported being aware of it prior to receiving the survey). Conversely, respondents listed item 9 on the questionnaire as the one they were the least previously aware of (only 28% of respondents). Regarding water conservation habits, the largest number of respondents (93.6%) listed item 11 as their most widespread practice. By contrast, item 3 was the least widespread practice (only 7.7% of respondents).

In the specifics, the following was observed when it comes to water conservation awareness and behavior indoors vs. outdoors:

Water conservation awareness (indoors):

Highest level of awareness: item: 11 in the survey, with 91.8% of respondents. Lowest level of awareness: item 9 in the survey, with only 28.63% of respondents.

Water conservation awareness (outdoors):

Highest level of awareness: item 21 in the survey, with 91.36% of respondents. Lowest level of awareness: item 25 in the survey, with only 48% of respondents.

Water conservation behavior (indoors):

Most widely used tip/behavior: item 11 with 93.63% of respondents. Least used tip (item 3 in the survey, with only 7.7% of respondents.

Water conservation behavior (outdoors):

Most widely used tip: item 19 in the survey, with 94.55% of respondents. Least used tip: item 27 in the survey, with only 49% of respondents.

4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

At the center of this research was the issue of whether behavior correlates with awareness; or more specifically whether (high/low) level of awareness of a water conservation tip correlates with similar (high/low) use by respondents. This is because, in the affirmative, one could argue/recommend that water conservation policies start with consumer (demand-side) education.

The general existence of a relationship between consumer awareness and consumer behavior has always been hypothesized. In their seminal contribution to the debate, Lavidge and Steiner (1961) and Ray (1973) posited the existence of a hierarchy of effect whereby buyer behavior (intention) is normally preceded by the two cognitive stages of awareness (beliefs) and attitude (evaluation). Our research did not consider the intermediate step of attitude, but rather sought to investigate the relationship between our sample's prior knowledge of the water conservation tips (awareness) provided them in the survey, and their self-described use of such tips (behavior) prior to the survey.

Given our interest in quantifying the overall association between respondents' awareness (rank ordered from highest to lowest) and their behavior (rank ordered from most to least often used), we computed the corresponding Spearman R statistics. Spearman R is similar to the regular Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (Pearson r) applicable to Gaussian populations; that is, in terms of the proportion of variability accounted for, except that Spearman R is computed from ranks and applies to non-Gaussian populations.

The results of the test indicate a very high and significant degree of correlation (r = 0.67) between awareness and behavior as indicated in Table 2. In other words, the broader the awareness of a water conservation tip, the broader the application of that tip in respondents' daily water consumption habits.

The policy implications of these findings are quite important for drought-prone states. As indicated earlier, most state water managers prefer to attack their freshwater shortages problems with supply-side tools; this, in spite of GAO (2003) expressed doubts on Western and Southern states' ability to meet their future needs by just relying disproportionately on supply-side remedies. For many water districts, de-marketing has been equated with the use of the price deterrent; indeed, as this paper is being written, the Turlock Irrigation District has just installed water meters for their residential customers and is in the process of requesting approval for price hikes based on some predetermined threshold. Clearly, price hikes will likely have some effect, but the findings of the current study strengthen the argument that consumer education be part of residential water conservation efforts aimed at maintain a balance between supply and demand of freshwater in U.S. Western and Southern states. Not only they offer a less painful way out, but they appear more sustainable.

REFERENCES:

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Comm, Clare L. (1997), "Demarketing Products Which May Pose Health Risks: An Example of the Tobacco Industry." Health Marketing Quarterly, vol. 15(1); pp. 95-102.

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Modesto Water District: http://www.mid.orq/html/clasrm_act.htm#cwh

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Quan, Holly (2000), "Please Don't Visit: Crowds and Overdevelopment are Hurting our National Parks. But What if Parks Canada Were to Try a Little Demarketing to Encourage Potential Visitors to Stay Away?" Marketing Magazine, vol. 105 (33); pp. 14.

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Tahi J. Gnepa, California State University-Stanislaus, Turlock, CA, USA

Tahi J. Gnepa is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned a Ph.D. in International Business and Marketing. He has published extensively in marketing and international business, his primary areas of teaching and research. He is the current editor of the Journal of International Business and Economics (JIBE) and the International Journal of Business Strategy (IJBS).

TABLE 1: RESIDENTIAL WATER USAGE SURVEY

(Saving Water Indoors and Outdoors)

Indoor Water Conservation Tips [Bathroom]

1. Time your shower to keep it under 5 minutes. You can
also save several gallons per shower by turning off the
water when lathering our body, shaving or lathering your hair.

2. Turn off the water while you brush your teeth or wash
your face and save 4 gallons a minute. That's 200 gallons
a week for a family of four.

3. Install an instant water heater on your kitchen sink so
you don't have to let the water run while it heats up.
This will also reduce heating costs for your household.

4. Don't use the toilet as a wastebasket. Drop that tissue
in the trash instead of flushing it and save gallons every time.

5. Keep a bucket in the shower to catch water as it warms
up or runs. Use this water to flush toilets or water
plants.

Indoor Water Conservation Tips [Laundry/Kitchen]

6. Fill your drinking water container while you are waiting
for the water to get warm for washing dishes or some other
purpose.

7. When washing dishes by hand don't let the water run
while rinsing. Fill one sink with wash water and the
other with rinse water.

8. Wash your fruits and vegetables in the sink or a pan
that is partially filled with water instead of running
water from the tap.

9. When you clean your fish tank, use the water you've
drained on your plants. The water is rich in nitrogen
and phosphorus, providing you with a free and effective
fertilizer.

10. Don't use running water to thaw food.

11. Wash your clothes and your dishes only when you
have a full load and save up to 1,600 gallons each
month.

12. If you accidentally drop ice cubes when filling
your glass from the freezer, don't throw them in the
sink. Drop them in a house-plant instead.

13. When you give your pet fresh water, don't throw
the old water down the drain. Use it to water your trees
or shrubs.

14. Cook food in as little water as possible. This will
also retain more of the nutrients.

Outdoor Water Conservation Tips [Landscaping Watering]

15. When you wash a car, wash it on your lawn. Use a
trigger-type nozzle so the water comes out of the
hose only when you need it.

16. When mowing your lawn, raise the blade on your
lawn mower to at a higher setting (Closely-cut grass
makes the roots work harder, requiring more water).

17. Check your sprinkler system frequently and adjust
sprinklers so only your lawn is watered and not the
house, sidewalk, or street.

18. Plant during the spring or fall when the watering
requirements are lower.

19. Minimize evaporation by watering during the early
morning hours, when temperatures are cooler and winds are
lighter.

21). Use a layer of organic mulch around plants to reduce
evaporation and save hundreds of gallons of water a ear.

21. Use a broom instead of a hose to clean your driveway or
sidewalk and save 80 gallons of water every time.

22. Use the sprinkler for larger areas of grass. Water small
patches by hand to avoid waste.

23. Don't water your lawn on windy days. After all, sidewalks and
driveways don't need water.

24. Remember to weed your lawn and garden regularly. Weeds compete
with other plants for nutrients, light, and water.

25. While fertilizers promote plant growth, they also increase
water consumption. Apply the minimum amount of fertilizer needed.

26. Next time you add or replace a flower or shrub, choose a low
water use plant for year-round landscape color and save up to 550
gallons each year.

27. When the kids want to cool off, use the sprinkler in an area
where your lawn needs it the most.

28. More plants die from over-watering than from under-watering. Be
sure only to water plants when necessary.

TABLE 2: AWARENESS VS. BEHAVIOR CORRELATIONS

                                                Awareness   Behavior

Spearman's  Awareness  Correlation Coefficient      1.000  .687 (**)
rho                    Sig. (2-tailed)                ...       .000
                       N                               28         28

            Behavior   Correlation Coefficient  .687 (**)      1.000
                       Sig. (2-tailed)               .000        ...
                       N                               28         28

(**) Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).