Demarketing, Minorities, and National Attachment

Abstract

This study addresses two important global trends: protection of public goods, specifically the environment, and the emergence of multiethnic societies with influential minority groups. The study tests the effect of a government proenvironmental demarketing campaign on the deconsumption behavior of minority groups and the majority population. It suggests that minority consumers use consumption or deconsumption to manifest their social identity, beliefs, and goals as minorities in relation to the majority and that their motivation to respond positively to a government's demarketing campaign is shaped by their national attachment levels. The study was conducted in Jerusalem, Israel, and involved a large data set (N = 66,272) containing household-level data on actual behavior of consumers. The studied groups involved the majority of non-ultra-Orthodox Jews and three minority groups: Israeli Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Jewish Russian immigrants. The findings show that in a proenvironmental context, government demarketing is more effective on the majority group than on any of the three minority groups. In addition, minority groups with lower national attachment levels respond more negatively to the demarketing effort. However, higher education levels lead to a more positive response across the majority and minority groups. A central implication of the findings is related to the benefits derived from demarketing for different consumer groups (majorities versus minorities based on religion, ethnicity, and immigration status). The findings also provide a benchmark for demarketing efforts in an environmental context. Finally, they suggest that policy makers and marketers should consider using demarketing more to complement regulatory and economic tools.

An Exploration of Consumers' Perceived Value of Sustainable Brands in India

“…Studies have also the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) or Value-Belief-Norm models to explain sustainable consumption behavior. These streams of research have tested the effects of several new constructs like attitude towards sustainability, green lifestyle, perceived consumer effectiveness, consumer awareness, consumer environmentalism, perceived behavioral control, and consumer value orientations on sustainable purchase behaviors (Grinstein and Nisan, 2009;Kalamas, Cleveland, and Laroche, 2014;Trudel and Cotte, 2009;White and Simpson, 2013).…”

Still Waters Run Deep: Comparing Assertive and Suggestive Language in Water Conservation Campaigns

“…Furthermore, demarketing tools can be implemented quickly when needed. For these reasons, they may face less resistance both by consumers and policy-makers (e.g., [23][24][25][26]). …”

“…The relatively limited studies of objective consequences following demarketing poses a limitation on our understanding of such practices because of the subjective nature of self-reports and the often weak correlation between consumers' reported attitudes or intentions and their actual behavior [26]. Further, some of the studies that did collect objective, "hard" data on actual consumer behavior through natural experiments (e.g., [24,27]) cannot firmly conclude that the demarketing effect they find is fully attributed to the campaign studied, as they could not control for various intervening factors that could play a significant role in influencing consumer behavior, such as simultaneously launched campaigns, various policy interventions, or other exogenous changes during the period studied. Finally, most demarketing studies focus on short-term interventions and the long-term effect of such campaigns is unclear [24].…”

Relationship behavior between customers and service providers in demarketing situations: What makes customers try to improve their relationships?

“…7 Demarketing activities, as defi ned by Kotler and Levy, 1 and demarketing campaigns, described by subsequent scholars, typically include: advertising, PR and sponsorship (Deutsch and Liebermann; 8 Pechman et al ; 3 Wall 9 ). These types of promotional activities fall under the domain of traditional marketing activities; however, the spirit of the communication is to discourage rather than encourage consumers.…”