Consumer Practices
Environmental Wine Certifications: Who in the World Knows?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniel Moscovici, Lionel Valenzuela
Consumers are inundated with many options when purchasing a bottle of wine. Do they pick their favorite winery, varietal, price, ratings, recommendation or region of the world? To add to these difficult choices, wineries and distributors are increasingly advertising wine which are produced with reduced environmental impacts. They are often labelled or certified through third parties. How does a consumer choose between the many types of beneficial environmental certifications? Do they even know there are differences? And do they care? Given that many wineries are seeking expensive and exclusive certifications and adapting their production and marketing systems, this research seeks to elucidate what consumers know about certifications. This should enable wineries to better position their environmental wine product in the market. We consider the following certifications: Biodynamic, Fair Trade, Organic, Natural, and Sustainable. This research has two objectives. First, to differentiate between the certifications from a consumer perspective. Second to reveal consumer preferences with associated willingness to pay. The methodology involves a survey of consumers. The survey is divided into three sections. The first asks consumers about their backgrounds and habitat with respect to wine. The second set of questions will collect perspectives and opinions on the various multiple environmental wine certifications. The third set of questions collects demographic information. The survey will be disseminated via an embedded link using the Qualtrics survey platform. A minimum of 500 respondents will be surveyed in the United States, Netherlands, and Chile, France, Australia, Italy & South Africa.
The U.S. Airline Oligopoly's Use of Social Media to Communicate Sustainability Initiatives
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dixie Button
The airline industry worldwide is making significant strides in reducing its carbon footprint and minimizing environmental impact yet there is a financial cost. To offset these costs, this paper posits that the communication of sustainability initiatives will enhance an airline’s reputation ultimately increasing positive brand value and profits. Zhang, et al. (2017) noted that the interaction between firms and customers via social media builds customers loyalty. Indeed, customers look for information and common ideals in firms. The U.S. airline industry is arguably an oligopoly as four airlines American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines control about 80% of the U.S. passenger market. This paper investigates the social media channels used by participants of this oligopoly to communicate environmental sustainability efforts. A qualitative content analysis of current digital marketing by each airline in communicating sustainability initiatives was undertaken. The social media marketing content analysis included four popular social network sites: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Environmental sustainability initiatives selected for examination were carbon offset programs, fuel efficiency, recycling, and alternative energy. This paper focuses on how these airlines are embracing environmental sustainability and how are they communicating their efforts to consumer and customer stakeholders.
Consumer Product Use and Variance of Sustainability Impacts
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Diane Martin
This study examines how consumer practices during product use results in a wide variance in overall environmental sustainability impacts. At the macro level, sustainable marketing research has focused primarily on institutional actors and systemic change efforts. At the consumer level, sustainable marketing research has focused primarily on consumer product choice and post-use disposal. Employing a practice theory lens, this study examines both the macro level institutional regulations and micro level of cultural expectations and demonstrates how embedded practices shape consumer options. Practice configurations also illuminate the ways material marketplace resources, both stagnated products and innovations, provide opportunity for variance. Finally, the competence element of practice varies between a traditional consumer culture ethos and innovative change vis-a-vis consumer creativity. This study contributes to consumer culture theory and demonstrates how changing patterns and cultures of consumption interact with the centrality of enforcement of both governmental level regulations and consumer best practices for improved environmental sustainability. The context of this research is the use of anti-fouling paint among leisure boaters.
