Buyer Characteristics of the Green Consumer and Their Implications for Advertising Strategy.

The authors construct a psychographic profile of the green consumer in terms of variables directly related to purchase behavior, such as price consciousness and general care in shopping, interest in new products, and brand loyalty. Additionally, they address attitudes toward advertising and

media preferences. Data from 3264 respondents to the DDB Needham Life Style Study were analyzed. The results show the green consumer to be an opinion leader and a careful shopper who seeks information on products, including information from advertising, but also suggest that the green consumer is rather skeptical of advertising. The implications are that green consumers may be receptive to green marketing and advertising, but marketers should take care not to alienate them by using ambiguous or misleading messages.

Polls consistently show that a large majority of U. S. citizens consider themselves to be "environmentalists" (Donaton and Fitzgerald 1992; Ottman 1992; Schlossberg 1991; Schwartz and Miller 1991). Moreover, Roper Organization polls have shown that the "greenest" segment of consumers nearly doubled over the two year period 1990 to 1992 (Roper Organization 1992, cited in Iyer, Banerjee, and Gulas 1994). It is therefore not surprising that marketers have attempted to exploit consumers' environmental concern by using environmental claims in their advertising. Research indicates that consumers are concerned enough to consider paying more for environmentally friendly products. In a 1990 poll by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, for example, 82% of the respondents said they would pay at least 5% more for a product that was environmentally friendly, up from 49% the previous year (Levin 1990). A more recent Advertising Age poll conducted by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman found that for 70%] of the respondents, p urchase decisions were at least "sometimes" influenced by environmental messages in advertising and product labeling (Chase and Smith 1992).

Such findings notwithstanding, other evidence suggests that consumers are not only confused about environmental advertising claims, but also distrustful of them. For example, in the same Advertising Age poll, more than half of the respondents indicated they paid less attention to such messages because of overkill, and most respondents reported that environmental claims were not particularly believable (Chase and Smith 1992). In another survey (the third annual Nationwide Environmental Survey conducted for the packaging company Gerstman & Meyers), 83% of the respondents indicated they preferred buying environmentally safe products and 79% reported they considered a firm's environmental reputation in purchase decisions; however, only 15% said that environmental claims were "extremely or very believable" (Dagnoli 1991). Finally, a 1990 Roper poll showed that Americans tend to think companies are not environmentally responsible and that they distrust advertising and labeling claims pertaining to the environment ( Schwartz and Miller 1991).