Consumer Behavior in Green Marketing for Luxury Brand: A Cross-Cultural Study of US, Japan and Korea

Abstract

This study proposes and tests an integrative model to examine the relations among luxury brand value, brand image, customer satisfaction with green marketing activities, brand attitude and purchase intention. The subjects selected for the present study were undergraduate and graduate students residing in New York, US; Tokyo, Japan; and Seoul, Korea. And in order to help consumers more simply understand the investigation, the present study limited the research brand to Louis Vuitton. The survey was conducted in winter 2009–10, collecting 200, 121 and 203 questionnaires from US, Japan and Korea, respectively.

First, the results of SEM analysis involving all the consumers (524 persons) show that all the hypotheses are significant. That is, luxury brand value has positive effect on luxury brand image, and luxury brand image has positive effect on satisfaction with green marketing activities for luxury brand. Significant luxury brand values in green marketing are product integrity, preference for luxury, and specialty, and that such images of luxury brand as honesty, professionalism for luxury, social contribution and high-quality have direct and positive effect on satisfaction with green marketing activity. Since all the factors of green marketing 4P's mix are shown to be statistically significant, it is considered necessary to establish an appropriate strategy for individual marketing mix.

Second, the results of SEM analysis involving consumers in US, Japan and Korea, respectively, show that all the hypotheses except one hypothesis “green marketing satisfaction→purchase intention” are significant. It is found that in the case of the consumers in US, the influence of green marketing activities for luxury brand on the improvement of brand attitude and purchase intention is relatively less compared to the cases of consumers in Japan and Korea. Rather, there is strong influence between personally perceived brand value and brand image, and the reason is that US is characterized as probably the best example of the individualist ideology (Lodge, 1990). This is in line with the result of a preceding research that consumers in US estimated a brand highly when the brand provided high profitability and productivity, which are the main responsibilities of the firm, rather than CSR activities. In addition, luxury brands’ marketers should pay attention to the result that in all the three countries green marketing satisfaction has no direct effect on the increase of purchase intention, but indirect effect through the improvement of brand attitude. For there are so many cases where although consumers have high interests in and positive attitudes toward environmentally concerned products, yet such interests and positive attitudes do not lead to purchase. There could be many reasons for attitude toward environmentally concerned products being not in accordance with purchase. One of the reasons is that consumers do not have high confidence in environmentally concerned products and it is not easy to induce consumers’ choice only by the character of being environmentally concerned (Peattie, 2002). It is highly probable that consumers consider not just physical properties of environmentally concerned products but also the values they consider important, while each product has unique consumption values that can have effect on the purchase of and satisfaction with that product (Sheth et al., 1991); therefore it is very important to investigate the values consumer consider important. Accordingly, the results of the present investigation into significant factors of SEM using luxury brand values would be valuable to be utilized as basic data for green marketing for luxury brand. The result of multi-group analysis also shows that there is no significant difference in SEM among US, Japan and Korea.

Third, there are significant differences between green consumers and non-green consumers in SEM of green marketing for luxury brands. In case of non-green consumers, green marketing satisfaction has no direct effect on the improvement of purchase intention, and the effect is very low; on the contrary, in case of green consumers, green marketing satisfaction has direct and positive effect on the change in purchase intention. Thus, considering that there certainly exist submarkets of green consumers (Coddington, 1993) and that such markets are expanding more and more, it is necessary to segment consumers who have environmentally concerned propensity, to make categorized targets of them, in order to maximize the effect of green marketing in luxury brand.

Fourth, there are significant differences between the group of low purchase frequency of luxury goods and the group of high purchase frequency of luxury goods in SEM. In case of the group of low purchase frequency of luxury goods, all the research hypotheses are adopted; whereas the group of high purchase frequency of luxury goods luxury products shows no significant effect of green marketing satisfaction on purchase intention, and the estimate is negative although not statistically significant. In addition, since the impact on the improvement of purchase intention caused by the effect of the improvement of brand attitude is low, it could be expected that green marketing will be more effective for entry customers than for regular customers of luxury brand.

The results offered information on luxury brand's green marketing and provided useful data for luxury brands that are planning to begin green marketing, particularly targeting American, Japanese and Korean consumers similar to the sample of the present study. Considering that there is no significant difference in the SEM of this research among US, Japan and Korea, but that environmentally concerned consumption behavior and luxury product purchase behavior have the moderating effect, it is understood that consumers’ responses to green marketing for luxury brand depend on consumption type rather than nationality. This may be interpreted as the result of the characteristic of luxury brands being reflected in green marketing also-the characteristic that most of them are global brands and in many cases standardizing strategies are used for global consumers. Considering the results of this study along with the fact that homogeneous marketing of luxury brand is being practiced regardless of nationality, it would be necessary, when establishing green marketing strategy, for marketers of luxury brand to pursue targeting based on consumers’ environmentally concerned propensity or luxury product purchase frequency rather than to subdivide consumers by nationality.

摘要

本研究提出ᅳ个整合的模型来测试奢侈品牌价值，品牌形 象，顿客对绿色营销‘活动满意度，品牌态度和购买意图之间的 关系。本研究所研究的对象为居住在美国纽约，日本东京和韩 国首尔的本科生和研究生。另外，为了帮助消费者更筒单地了 解调 金，本研究将研究品牌限制 为路易 威登0 这项调 查是在 2009年冬季进行的，收集了200粉美国问卷，121 份日本问卷 和203粉韩国的问卷。

首先，涉及所有消费者 (524人) 的结构方程模型的结果显 示，所有的假设都具有重要意义。也就是说，奢侈品牌价值对 品牌形象有叙极影响，奢侈品牌形象对奢侈品牌绿色营销活动 的满意度有粒极影响。綠色营销中 益著的奢侈品牌价值是产 品 完整性，对舍侈的偏好，独特性以及ᅳ些奢侈品牌形象例如诚 实，对奢侈的专业性, 社会贡献和高品质、都对绿色营销活动的 满意度有直接和叙极的影响0 由于所有的绿色行销4P的組合 因素都表现出有统计学意义，所以有必要为个人营销組合建立 一个合适的战略。

第二, 对美国、日本和韩国的消费者的结构方程模型分析结 果表明 除了 “绿 色 营销满 意度—购 买意图”这个假设之外，其他 的假设都成立。结果发现对美国消费者来说，奢侈品牌的绿色 营销活动对提高 品牌态度和购 买 意 图 的 影响相对少于 日 本和韩 国的消费者。而且，个人感知品牌价值对品牌形象有较强的影 响。原因是美国被认为可能是个人主义意识形态(Lodge, 1990) 最好的例 子。这与之前有 关美国 的 消 费者对具有 高效益和高 生 产率的品牌评价更高的研究结果相ᅳ致。另外，奢侈品牌的营 销者需要更关注研究的另一个结果，那就是所有드个国家的綠 色营销满意度对购买意图的提高没有直接影响， 但能通过品牌 态度的提高间接影响购买意图。有很多的例子都表明尽管消费 者对环保类的产品有兴趣，有叙极的态度，但是这些兴趣和叙 极的悉度并不导致购 买行为。这种现象是有很多原因 的0 其中 一个原因是消费者对环保类产品没有信心，仅环保这ᅳ个特点 并不能改变消费者的选择(Peattie, 2002)o 消费者不仅考虑环保 产 品的物理属性而묘还有他们认为 重要的价值，每个产 品都有 独ᅳ无二的消费价值可以对此产品的购买和满意度有影响 (Sheth et al.; 1991)，因此探索消费者认为重要的价值是十分重 要的0 本文用 结构 方程模型 测试的 奢侈 品牌价值的 盈著 因 素可 以 为 奢侈 品牌 的 绿 色 营 销提供基해 数据。多 組分析的 结 果也 显 示在结构方程模型中美国，日本和韩国之间没有호著差弄0

第드，在奢侈品牌绿色营销 中绿色消 费者和非绿色消 费者没 有显著差异。以非绿色消费者为例，绿色营销满意度对购买意 图的提高没有直接影响，而且影响很小;相反，以绿色消费者 为例，綠色营销满意度对购 买意图 的 变化有直接和粒极的影 响。因此，我们认为存在綠色消费者的子市场(Coddington, 1993)而묘这个市场正在不断的r大。所以有必要去划分哪些消 费者具有环保倾向，从而对他们进行分类来保 1：正奢侈品牌的綠 色营销的效果能最大化0

第四，在较少购买奢侈品组別和经常膨买奢侈品組別中存在 显著差异。在教授购 买奢侈品组別中，所有的假设都被接受， 但在经常购买奢移品組別中绿色营销满意度对购买意图没有显 著影响，测试值为负值且没有统计学意义0 另外，由于品牌态 度对购买意图的提高的影响力和低，所以我们认为绿色营销对 奢侈品入门消费者更有效而不是奢侈品的常规购买者0

我们的结果提供了奢侈品绿色营销方面的信息，为打算在美 国，日本和韩国市场进行绿色营销的普侈品牌提供了有用的数 据。 考虑到美国，日本和韩国的样후4结构方程模型中没有 호著的差异，但是环保消费行为和奢侈品购买行为有谓节作 用， 这是因为消费者对奢侈品牌绿色营销的反应取决于消费类 型而不是国籍0 这可以被解释为 是奢侈品牌反映在绿色营销的 特征的结果0 因为这些全球品牌通常对全球消费者实行统ᅳ标 准化的 战略。考虑 到 本研究的结 果以及奢侈 品牌实行全球统ᅳ 化的 营销的事 实，所以 当 奢侈品牌的行销者制 定绿色 营销战略 时应该根据消费者的环保倾向和會侈品的购买频度而不是简单 的按国籍划分消費者。

Keywords:

• Customer satisfaction with green marketing
• Brand attitude
• Purchase intention
• Luxury brand value
• Brand image

关键词:

• ： 消费者对绿色营铺的满意度
• 品牌态度
• 购买意 图
• 奢侈品牌价值
• 品牌形象