Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify what lifestyles best explain and impact ecological behavior among young Indian consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adapts the lifestyle scale developed by He et al. (2010) and the Actual Commitment scale to the Indian context to describe its impact on the young consumer’s ecological profile. The study is based on an extensive literature review. The data were obtained from a questionnaire handed out to a sample of 250 students. With the information obtained, and after the scale validation process, a structural equation analysis has been conducted.
Findings
Findings of the study highlight that environmental patterns and lifestyle factors are those that best characterize the ecological market segment. This group of young consumers is characterized by their self-identity and a feeling of uniqueness. They are people who always try to improve themselves and take actions which pose a new challenge for them. They are also characterized by having an ecological lifestyle, selecting and recycling products and taking part in events to protect the environment. This type of consumer is a present and future investment for firms that are committed to the environment.
Originality/value
The results of this study might interest consumer behavior researchers and those firms that care about the ecological consumers. Moreover, previous studies have not dealt with young consumers. Further research is needed including new psychographic variables.
PurposeThe study attempted to gauge the relative effectiveness of celebrity and product image match-up in comparison to non-celebrity attractive endorsers for two distinct high involvement situations. Also, due to the expected demographic diversity among target consumers, the study aimed at assessing the impact of respondent's age and gender on the effectiveness of image match-up.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on the three-order hierarchy model, two experiments were conducted (utilising celebrity and non-celebrity endorsers) for two high involvement hierarchies, i.e. standard learning and dissonance/attribution. Through fictitious print advertisement, the experiments assessed the effectiveness of the match-up in terms of consumer attitudes towards advertisement and brand and intentions to purchase.FindingsThe match-up consistently and significantly outperformed non-celebrity attractive endorser in case of standard learning hierarchy. The same conclusion was not established for dissonance/attribution hierarchy due to the lack of significant results. The findings also suggest that the match-up subdues the impact of consumer's gender and age on consumer attitudes only in case of standard learning hierarchy.Research limitations/implicationsThe study provides interesting theoretical implication by challenging a widely held postulation about the applicability of celebrity and product match-up under high involvement.Practical implicationsThe research provides the practitioners with a better understanding of important issues, mainly, whether to use a celebrity endorser and selecting the right celebrity, especially if high involvement is expected.Originality/valuePrevious research concerning celebrity endorsements has largely considered consumer involvement as unitary, i.e. either high or low. However, the multifaceted aspect of consumer involvement is well established in the field of consumer psychology. The present research, therefore, is a pioneering attempt as it studies the effectiveness of match-up for two distinct high involvement situations. Moreover, unlike the majority of previous studies that have focused on the performance of “celebrity match” versus “celebrity mismatch”, the impact of match-up was studied in comparison to a non-celebrity attractive endorser.
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