The influence of individual and social
benefit communication on water saving
behavior
3
TURN OFF THE TAP
Save Yourself or Save the
Environment?
The influence of individual and social
benefit communication on water saving
behavior
Amsterdam October 1, 2011
Author:
F.E.M. (Fleur) Polman
Department:
Department of Marketing Management,
University of Groningen
Qualification:
Master Thesis BA Marketing Management
Completion date:
October 1, 2011
Author’s address:
Waalstraat 78-2
1079EA Amsterdam
Phone number:
+31(0)616080648
E-mail:
fem.polman@gmail.com
Student number:
s1658255
First supervisor:
dr. J. van Doorn
4
In this thesis, the research question: ‘How do shampoo brands need to communicate water saving benefits in order promote water saving behavior of consumers?’, will be answered. In order to answer this research question, individual and social benefit communication in relation to water saving behavior is studied, in which a hedonic and utilitarian condition is highlighted. A framework resulting from gaps and opportunities in prior literature is used in order to generate the hypotheses. Three hypotheses are tested in an experimental design by using an online questionnaire which was completed by 160 Dutch participants. The results indicate that social benefit communication has a greater effect on water saving behavior than individual benefit communication. Besides this, there is no significant difference in water saving behavior between highlighting a hedonic or utilitarian aspect in case of individual and social benefit communication. The hypotheses that were developed are not supported.
The results also indicate that there is a main effect of environmental concern on water saving behavior, but that environmental concern does not moderate the relation between communication and water saving behavior.
5
Quite a strange feeling to quit my time as a student and start to begin using the knowledge I gained here at the University in business life. From September 2006 till now, I had a great experience here in Groningen, studying BSc. business administration followed by the MSc. in Marketing Management. This thesis will be my final piece as a student and it was a pleasure working on it.
Off course I would like to thank some people for making it all happen. First of all I would like to thank Dr. Jenny van Doorn for being my supervisor. Her knowledge on the topic and her suggestions and comments really helped me during the whole process of writing my thesis and really broadened my focus. Besides this I would like to thank Marijke Leliveld, my second supervisor for reading and criticizing this thesis.
I also would like to thank Unilever. They gave me the opportunity to do an internship at Andrélon for 6 months. This internship was the inspiration for my thesis and the Andrélon team allowed me to use all the information I needed in order to write my thesis.
Finally I would like to thank my parents. They always supported me in everything I did and because of their support I was among others able to have a yearlong fulltime position in the MARUG board. This year was really an eye-opener for me and from that time I knew that Marketing is really my passion and finally led to finishing my MSc. in Marketing Management by writing this thesis.
6
Abstract 4
Preface 5
1. Introduction 8
1.1 Background 8
1.2 Problem statement and research questions 10
1.3 Theoretical and social relevance 11
1.4 Structure 11
2. Theoretical Framework 12
2.1 Prior Literature 12
2.1.1 Research on sustainable behavior 12
2.1.2 Communication of sustainable behavior 15
2.1.3 Individual versus social benefits 17
2.1.4 Hedonic versus utilitarian aspect 18
2.1.5 Conclusion 21 2.2 Conceptual Model 23 2.3 Hypotheses 25 3. Research Design 30 3.1 Research method 30 3.2 Participants 30 3.3 Experimental design 31 3.4 Experimental stimuli 35 3.5 Procedure 35 4. Results 36 4.1 Descriptive statistics 36 4.2 Manipulation check 38 4.3 Test of hypotheses 39 4.4 Environmental concern 42 4.4.1 Main effect of EC on BI 42
7
7. Limitations and directions for further research 49
8. References 50
9. Appendices 57
Appendix A: Research on sustainable behavior 57
Appendix B: Individual and social benefits 60
Appendix C: Hedonic versus utilitarian 61
Appendix D: Guilt and justification 62
Appendix E: Questionnaire 63
8
1. INTRODUCTION
This introductory chapter consists of four parts. In the first part, some general information about the background of this research will be discussed in order to come up with a problem statement and different research questions. This statement and research questions will be presented in the second part of this chapter. The third part of this chapter explains the theoretical and social relevance of this research. In the last part, the structure of this research will be explained.
1.1 Background
Over the last decades, a number of problems that are a threat to human life and the environment have been identified; for example global warming, ozone depletion, loss of species, water and air pollution, and farmland erosion. The industrial nations show the highest consumption rate and overconsumption of natural resources in these countries is one of the main causes of all the problems just mentioned (Tanner & Kast, 2003). This all led to an increased feeling of companies‟ responsibility to save the environment and therefore many companies are adopting a CSR strategy. For example Unilever developed the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) (unilever.com), Procter & Gamble just introduced a new sustainability vision (pg.com), Henkel created a sustainability strategy (henkel.nl) and L‟Oreal has a big sustainability forum (loreal.com).
9
categories, in which for example water use and greenhouse gases cause most of the impact on the environment (Janes, 2011).
At the moment, Dutch people are not consciously aware of the consequences for the environment when it comes to water use and the impact of greenhouse gases. They use on average 120.1L of water per person a day. This is a lot, compared to many countries where they only have access to about 50L a day (Foekema & van Thiel, 2011). Only for hair washing 9.7L of water is needed and 99.99% of the water impact during hair washing comes from consumer-use. Besides this, 95% of the greenhouse gas impact on the environment by using shampoo, comes from the use of heated water by the consumer (Janes, 2011). These facts and numbers make changing the behavior of consumers in order to decrease the use of water the focus of this research. The relation between the type of communication by shampoo brands and water saving behavior by consumers during hair washing will be examined. A distinction will be made between communication of individual and social benefits in order to promote water saving behavior.
It is stated that, in general consumption serves individualistic and social needs (Janssen & Jäger, 2002; Grolleau, Ibanez, & Mzoughi, 2009). Prior research extensively discussed these social and individual benefits however; no prior research focuses on the communication of individual and social benefits in relation to water saving behavior. In other words, no prior research focuses on the type of benefit (individual or social) that will have the greatest effect on promoting water saving behavior.
10
It is expected that both, whether the utilitarian or the hedonic aspect is highlighted, will influence the relation between the communication of individual/social benefits and water saving behavior. Besides this, it is expected that the strength of this influence depends on the type of benefit that is communicated. This expectation is in line with the results of the article of Strahilevitz and Myers (1998), who found that charity incentives (social) are more effective in promoting hedonic products than in promoting utilitarian products. The results of this research will lead to recommendations for shampoo brands in order to find the best way of communication in order to promote water saving behavior.
One final comment that needs to be made is that creating water saving behavior not only decreases the amount of water used, but also has an indirect effect on the emissionof greenhouse gases. However; the main focus of this research will be on water saving behavior itself.
1.2 Problem statement and research questions
As long as consumers are not confronted with the negative effects of their amount of water used, it is hard to promote water saving behavior. That is why the focus of this research is to find the best way to communicate water saving behavior by shampoo brands, in order to decrease the use of water during hair washing. The following research question is used as the base for this research:
‘How do shampoo brands need to communicate water saving benefits in order to promote water saving behavior of consumers? ‘
Does communicating individual or social benefits have a greater effect on water saving behavior by consumers?
Does the effectiveness of benefit communication depend on whether an utilitarian or hedonic aspect is highlighted?
11 1.3 Theoretical and social relevance
Companies increasingly feel the responsibility to communicate ways in which they can promote sustainable behavior of consumers (Pomering & Dolcinar, 2008; Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004). However, no prior research focused on the best way to communicate individual and/or social benefits in order to promote water saving behavior when it comes to shampoo use. The results of this research can help marketers of shampoo brands better understand how to communicate water saving behavior to consumers. A distinction will be made between the communication of individual and social benefits and which of these two will have a greater effect on water saving behavior. Besides this, highlighting a hedonic and utilitarian aspect will make clear which of the two aspects work best when communicating individual or when communicating social benefits. 1.4 Structure
In the first part of this research, the theoretical framework will be presented. This framework consists of a literature review, a conceptual model and the deduced hypotheses. In the literature review, prior research results will be discussed in order to find gaps in literature. These gaps will lead to a conceptual model in order to create a clear overview of what will be examined in this research. The hypotheses that will be tested are derived from commonly used psychological models that are used in order to find justification for the hypotheses.
12
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this chapter, the theoretical framework will be presented in which firstly most of the relevant literature for this research will be discussed in order to find out what is already known about the different subjects that will be used for this research. In the second part, the conceptual model will be presented based on the gaps and related opportunities from prior research.
In the last part, theoretical models are used in order to present the hypotheses derived from the conceptual model. These expected outcomes are based on existing theories that are relevant for this research, and they will be tested in chapter four.
2.1 Prior literature
There is a lot of prior literature when it comes to sustainable behavior. In the first part of this literature review, the results of this prior literature related to sustainable behavior will be presented. Besides this, prior findings of communication in relation to sustainable behavior will be discussed. After this discussion about sustainable behavior in general, prior research of individual and social benefits will be discussed, followed by a discussion on the hedonic and utilitarian aspect. In the end there will be a conclusion of the findings. This conclusion is an introduction to paragraph 2.2, in which the conceptual model will be presented.
2.1.1 Research on sustainable behavior
13
Finally, research in which the main result is dependent on personal characteristics and supply characteristics (De Groot & Steg, 2008; Gilg & Barr, 2006; Haanpää, 2007; Ngo, West,& Calkins, 2009; Urien & Kilbourne, 2011; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2008; Welsch & Kühling, 2009, 2010).
What can be concluded from prior research is that there are different factors that influence sustainable behavior. These factors can be divided in characteristics of the individual itself, like demographic aspects (Auger et al., 2008; Gilg & Barr, 2006; Haanpää, 2007; Ngo et al., 2009; Welsch & Kühling, 2009), value orientation (De Groot & Steg, 2008) and environmental concern (Cornelissen, Pandelaere, Warlop, & Dewitte, 2008; Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008; Welsch & Kühling, 2009) and supply characteristics, like price and availability (Krystallis et al., 2006; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2008; Welsch & Kühling, 2009) and functionality of the product (Auger et al., 2008).
One of the factors related to the individual itself are demographic aspects like age, income, gender and household size (Auger et al., 2008; Gilg & Barr, 2006; Haanpää, 2007; Ngo et al., 2009; Welsch & Kühling, 2009). When it comes to age, Gilg and Barr (2006), Haanpää (2007) and Ngo et al. (2009) found that the older, the more likely to behave in a sustainable manner. Besides this, they found that when it comes to gender, men are less willing to behave in a sustainable way than women. Looking at education, higher educated people are pursuing a greater level of sustainable behavior. Education is an important aspect and even has a higher influence on sustainable behavior than age (Haanpää, 2007; Auger et al., 2008). Besides this, Gilg and Barr (2006) and Welsch and Kühling (2009) found that the lower the income and the bigger the household size, the less likely to behave in a sustainable way.
14
oriented, prefer donating behavior. The biospherically oriented people are more likely to donate to environmental organizations, and altruistically oriented people have a stronger intention to donate to humanitarian organizations. These value orientations are useful to better understand the relationship between intentions, beliefs and values when it comes to sustainable behavior. Another aspect related to value orientation, are personal values like self-transcendence, conservation and self-enhancement. Self-transcendence is positively related to sustainable behavior, as opposite to the self-enhancement value and conservation (Follows & Jobber, 2000).
15
matter. If the functional attributes do not meet the standard, the number of respondents that would buy the product decreases significantly, even if the price is lowered and if the social features like „labor practices‟ and „animal rights and the environment‟ do meet the standards (Auger et al., 2008). Besides these aspects related to the individual and the supply factors, there is also research that focuses on the communication aspect as main independent variable, when it comes to promoting sustainable behavior (Cornelissen et al., 2008; Creyer, Ross, & Kozup, 2004; Goldstein et al, 2008; Sharp, 2010).
2.1.2 Communication of sustainable behavior
Bhattacharya and Sen (2004) state that specific types of involvement by a company in the relation with the consumer, including communication, can motivate consumers to have some form of „behavioral change‟ themselves. Helpful and clear communication enhances satisfaction, trust and loyalty among consumers, which leads to this behavioral change (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004). This is why communication is an important tool to differentiate a specific firm from other companies (Ball, Coelho, & Machas, 2003). Duncan and Moriarty (1998) found that communication is the base for marketing efforts that focus on the consumer. According Duncan and Moriarty (1998), the new generation marketing can best be explained by the communication-based model of marketing, in which communication as a part of marketing plays an important role.
16
Burke, 2010). However, despite the fact that pro-social behavior by companies has positive implications for society, marketers have been unwilling to promote such pro-social marketing initiatives, because it is hard to estimate how consumers will respond to pro-social marketing initiatives (Creyer et al., 2004). In contrast to research that focuses on personal characteristics as main independent variable, there are just a few researches, that focus on this communication aspect by businesses/government in order to promote sustainable behavior (Auger et al., 2010; Cornelissen et al., 2008; Creyer et al., 2004; Goldstein et al, 2008; Luchs, Naylor, Irwin, & Raghanathan, 2010; Mair & Bergin-Seers, 2010; Sharp, 2010). First of all, there is research that focus on the specific way in which sustainable behavior can be communicated to the consumer. For example Cornelissen et al. (2008) found that positive cueing of behaviors as environmental friendly, increases the likelihood that people will see themselves as consumers who are worried with the degree to which their behavior is environmentally responsible. Positive cueing makes people see themselves as more environmentally friendly, and increases their feeling of moral obligation towards the environment. Goldstein et al. (2008) tried different ways in which they could communicate re-using towels by travelers in a hotel chain. They found that communicating a descriptive norm creates a significantly higher towel re-use rate than the basic environmental message.
17
A general comment on communication is that attributions of consumer responsibility and trust of consumers in the marketing communication source is important to make pro-social positioning strategies work (Osterhus, 1997). Trust in the marketing source leads to consumers‟ attraction and retention (Vlachos, Tsamakos, Vrechopoulos, & Avramidis, 2009). Besides creating trust, educating consumers plays an important role in communication in order to create favorable consumer attitude and behavior (Pomering and Dolcinar, 2008). In order to educate consumers, a company can for example choose to communicate an individual benefit (cash rebate), or a social benefit (donation to a charity) (Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998).
2.1.3 Individual versus social benefits
Consumption serves individualistic and social needs (Janssen & Jäger, 2002; Grolleau et al., 2009). However, individual and social benefits are often seen as competing with each other (Huang & Rust, 2011; Van Doorn & Verhoef, 2009). Private profitability and social desirability are seen as incompatible for consumers (Garcia-Gallego & Georgantzis, 2009). When it comes to making a decision, the dilemma is whether to act as a self-interested consumer and get what the individual wants, or to act as a responsible citizen and do what is asked based on what the collective environment wants from you (Kilbourne, McDonagh, & Prothero, 1997). Despite the fact that people are interested in social objectives, they definitely have a preference for the individual interest (Kilbourne et al., 1997; Huang & Rust, 2011), which is made clear by prior research.
Appendix B gives an overview of prior research on individual and social benefits. A distinction can be made between research that focus on both, the individual and the social aspect in which one of the two is preferred (Grolleau et al., 2010; Andreoni, 1990; Van Doorn & Verhoef, 2009). Besides this, there is research that focus on just the individual or just the social aspect (Auger et al., 2010; Frey & Meier, 2002; Frey, 1999; Huang & Rust, 2011; Kilbourne et al., 1997).
18
(individual or social versus individual and social) of prior research, different research also used different independent variables, in order to come up with the conclusion of which of the two benefits are preferred. Income (Andreoni, 1990), education (Frey & Meier, 2002), type of consumer (egoistic/altruistic) (Grolleau et al., 2009) and geographical information (Auger et al., 2010) are used to explain differences in choosing for the individual or social benefit. These demographic differences are also processed in the results of Appendix B.
The conclusion is that people have a high level of concern for individual benefits (Follows & Jobber, 2000; Huang & Rust, 2011; Kilbourne et al., 1997). In general people do not want to give up any reduction in comfort by consumption (Gilg & Barr, 2006). When people are concerned about the effect of their consumption on the environment, they are willing to change their consumption pattern, but especially for their own interest (Huang & Rust, 2011; Kilbourne et al., 1997). An extra point that can be made based on the results of prior research is, that when it comes to communication in order to create environmental responsible behavior, it can be successful to communicate individual benefits seen as incentive for the consumer. Frey (1999) found that people will not behave in an environmental friendly way without using incentive instruments in order to create an advantage for the individual. He found that taxes and subsidies are more important in improving the condition of the environment than controls and commends used as communication tool.
2.1.4 Hedonic versus utilitarian aspect
19
& Ahtola, 1990). The hedonic and utilitarian aspects are important when it comes to consuming products and brands, and consumer preferences and perceptions have both, a hedonic and utilitarian aspect (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; Batra & Ahtola, 1990; Ryu et al., 2010).
Results of research in which the hedonic and utilitarian aspect is discussed, are presented in Appendix C. First of all, there is quite a lot of research that focuses on hedonic and utilitarian attributes in general (Batra & Ahtola, 1990; Chitturi, Raghunathan, & Mahajan, 2007; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; O‟Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001; Okada, 2005). Some of this research mentions specific situations in which utilitarian attributes are preferred, and situations in which hedonic attributes are preferred (Batra & Ahtola, 1990; O‟Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001; Okada, 2005;) Besides this, some of this research clearly found a preference for one of the two attributes (Chitturi et al., 2007; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000).
20
Van Doorn and Verhoef (2009) discovered that there is a relation between organic products and higher pro-social benefits. This relation was greater for vice (hedonic) product categories or in vice manipulation compared to virtue (utilitarian) categories or virtue manipulation. This result was found, because in these vice categories, the organic claim functions as guilt reducing mechanism. So they found that consumers are likely to value pro-social benefits in combination with vice products. This result is almost identical to the conclusions Strahilevitz and Myers (1998) however; the difference is that their research focuses on charity incentives instead of organic claims.
Besides the fact that in general both, the utilitarian and hedonic dimensions are important, another important aspect that is discussed in prior literature is the feeling of guilt related to hedonic consumption. Besides and related to this is the need for justification that influences hedonic consumption (Chitturi et al., 2007; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000, 2004; Khan & Dhar, 2005; Kivetz & Simonson, 2002; Lascu, 1991; O‟Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001; Okada, 2005; Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998).
Appendix D presents the findings of prior literature related to guilt and justification of hedonic consumption. What can be concluded from Appendix D, is that hedonic consumption evokes guilt. Although consumers enjoy consuming hedonic goods, they have mixed feelings when it comes to the acquisition and consumption of hedonic products, because of this guilt aspect related to consuming hedonic goods (O‟Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001). If the consumer chooses a hedonic or utilitarian good based on the feeling of justification, a consumer will have a preference for the hedonic good, if he or she can justify his choice (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2004).
21
hedonic consumption is hard to quantify evokes guilt, and so a need for justification, does not mean that people are less likely to enjoy hedonic consumption. Overall, people even respond more favorably to a hedonic good than to a similar utilitarian good, but it is harder and it takes more time to justify the consumption of the hedonic good (Okada, 2005).
Overall it can be concluded that utilitarian and hedonic attributes are considered as important to understand consumers‟ evaluations of the experience related to consumption (Ryu et al., 2010). Despite the fact that hedonic and utilitarian attributes can be seen as important in consumer decision making, most of the prior research focuses on the fact that a product can be seen as utilitarian or hedonic, while it is likely that a product will have both, a hedonic and utilitarian aspect (Ryu et al, 2010).
2.1.5 Conclusion
In can be concluded that there are mixed results on sustainable behavior. There is research that show no or limited effect of an effort by a company or government in order to create more sustainable behavior on actually changing behavior (Bickman, 1972; Geller, 1981; Krystallis et al., 2008; McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; Tarkiainen & Sundqvist, 2009; Tedeschi et al., 1982) Secondly, there is research that proved positive effect of an effort by a company of the government on sustainable behavior (Auger et al., 2008; Frey & Meier, 2002; Sharp et al., 2010). Finally, there is research in which the effect of the effort in order to create sustainable behavior is dependent on personal characteristics and supply characteristics (De Groot & Steg, 2008; Gilg & Barr, 2006; Haanpää, 2007; Ngo et al., 2009; Urien & Kilbourne, 2011; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2008; Welsch & Kühling, 2009, 2010). Different behaviors are examined in prior research (reducing the amount of plastic bags used, picking up litter, energy conservation and ethical product buying) however, there is just one research on water saving behavior (Gilg & Barr, 2006).
22
Communication is an aspect that is less used compared to these individual differences, despite the fact that research that focus on the communication aspect (Auger et al., 2010; Cornelissen et al., 2008; Creyer et al., 2004; Goldstein et al, 2008; Luchs et al., 2010; Mair & Bergin-Seers, 2010; Sharp et al., 2010) show that communication might have a positive effect on sustainable behavior.
Despite the fact that people have a high level of concern for the individual consequences (Follows & Jobber, 2000) they are also interested in social objectives (Kilbourne et al., 1997; Huang & Rust, 2011). This means that consumption behavior serves both, individualistic and social needs (Jäger, 2002; Grolleau et al., 2009). However, there is no prior research in which communication of an individual and a social benefit is discussed, in order find out which of the two works best.
23
(Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998) and by attaching greater value to the pro-social benefits in case of vice products (Van Doorn & Verhoef, 2009). There is no prior research that focuses on the influence of the hedonic and utilitarian aspect on the relation: communication of individual and social benefits – water saving behavior. By combining all these gaps and related opportunities of prior research, a conceptual model can be developed.
2.2 Conceptual Model
Based on the opportunities derived from prior research, a conceptual model can be developed (Figure 1). First of all, the relation between communication (independent variable) and water saving behavior (dependent variable) will be examined. There is a positive effect expected of communication on promoting sustainable behavior, based on the article of Bhattacharya and Sen (2004), who state that communication can motivate consumers to change behavior. Besides this, prior results of research in which communication is used also show that communication can have significant effect on consumer behavior (Cornelissen et al., 2008; Goldstein et al., 2008; Creyer et al., 2004; Sharp et al., 2010).
The communication variable will be split in individual benefit communication and social benefit communication, in order to create water saving behavior. Trying specific ways of communication in order to create sustainable behavior, proved to be successful in prior research (Cornelissen et al., 2008; Goldstein et al., 2008). This is the reason why both benefits will be taken into account in this research. Besides this, the split between communicating individual and social benefits is made, because Janssen and Jäger (2002) and Grolleau et al. (2009) state that consumption behavior serves both, individualistic and social needs. So when it comes to water saving behavior, it is expected that both, individual and social benefits will have a positive effect on promoting water saving behavior of consumers.
24
water saving behavior. This moderator is chosen because Dhar and Wertenbroch (2000) and Batra and Ahtola (1990) state that the hedonic and utilitarian aspects are essential when it comes to the consumption of products and brands. Besides this, consumer perceptions and preferences have both, a hedonic and utilitarian aspect. Ryu et al. (2010) even state that both, the utilitarian and hedonic aspect are seen as crucial in order to understand consumers‟ evaluations of their consumption. This makes the hedonic and utilitarian aspect an important variable in this research.
The fourth variable is environmental concern. Environmental concern serves as moderator in the model. Many of the prior research showed that the level of environmental concern is positively related to sustainable behavior (Cornelissen et al., 2008; Goldstein et al., 2008; Welsch & Kühling, 2009). This is why for this research it is expected that environmental concern has a direct effect on water saving behavior and that it has a moderating effect on the relation between communication and water saving behavior.
Communication
Water saving behavior
Hedonic versus utilitarian aspect Individual benefits Social benefits H1 H2 H3
Figure 1: Conceptual Model
25 2.3 Hypotheses
When the economy was studied in former years, a powerful approach was to think that the behavior of human beings is only driven by the interest of the individual himself (Frey & Meier, 2002). This approach was known as the neoclassical economic approach (Gintis, 2000). In the neoclassical approach, it is assumed that the individual in general would like to maximize utility and that the maximum social good is achieved as the sum or the individual utilities. This means that, the more we have as individual, the better off we are (Kilbourne et al., 1997).
The individual used for this neoclassical approach is the homo-economicus, who can be defined as a person who is only interested in himself and who only cares about his himself and focus on things like work, leisure and belongings (Gintis, 2000). This self-interest of the individual is seen as the main motivator of not only economic, but even all behavior of individuals (Kilbourne et al., 1997). This selfish behavior is viewed as a fact of life, economic and social. It became an irremovable part of the current society (Laffont, 1975).
In any consumer decision, the dilemma is whether to act as a consumer interested in himself and get what he wants, or to act as a responsible citizen and do what is asked to be done based on what the collective environment wants. Because of the private self-interest of consumers, people generally want to get what they want, and thus economic well being is seen as more important than the condition of the environment (Kilbourne et al., 1997).
26
Based on this theory, it is expected that communicating individual benefits will have a greater effect on water saving behavior than communicating social benefits.
This is in line with the research of Van Doorn and Verhoef (2009), who found that the quality aspect of the product is more important than the collective and social interest. Besides this, it is in line with the findings of Frey (1999), who found that taxes and subsidies are seen as more important in improving the state of the environment than controls and commends. So, as long as there is an individual benefit attached to it, people are willing to behave in a socially responsible way. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H1: Communicating individual benefits will have a greater effect on water saving behavior than communicating social benefits.
Both, the utilitarian and hedonic aspect are considered as important to understand the consumers‟ evaluations of the consumption experience. However, the feeling associated with goal-oriented or “necessary” consumption is not the same as the feeling associated with more pleasure oriented (hedonic) consumption (Ryu et al., 2010).
In general people are willing to enjoy themselves, but this enjoyment also raises feelings of guilt and related to this, the need for justification (Okada, 2005). Many of the prior literature mentioned this guilt aspect when it comes to hedonic consumption (Chitturi et al., 2007; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000, 2004; Khan & Dhar, 2005; Kivetz & Simonson, 2002; Lascu, 1991; O‟Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001; Okada, 2005; Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998).
27
collective environment in order to reduce guilt (Lascu, 1991). So both, the feeling of guilt and the anxiety related to hedonic consumption, let people behave more socially.
The former paragraphs make it reasonable to believe that highlighting hedonic attributes (instead of utilitarian attributes) will have a greater effect on the relationship between social benefit communication and water saving behavior, than highlighting utilitarian attributes. This is in line with the evidence that charity incentives are more effective than a price discount with hedonic products than with utilitarian products (Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998) and leads to the following hypothesis:
H2: Communicating social benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when hedonic product attributes are highlighted than when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted.
The guilt aspect is only related to hedonic goods. Utilitarian alternatives are seen as necessary instead of pleasure oriented consumption, and this is why there is no guilt aspect attached to utilitarian consumption (Ryu et al., 2010). Utilitarian goods fill a primary need or a functional task (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982) and are often seen as a regular component of the budget of a consumer. This is because they are seen as „practical‟ or „necessary‟, while hedonic goods are seen as „frivolous‟ and „decadent‟ (O‟Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001).
28
saving can be labelled as an individual benefit. So utilitarian motivation is influenced by cost savings (To, Liao, & Lin, 2007).
The savings create positive feelings for consumers, like feeling efficient, effective and the feeling of being a „smart consumer‟ when receiving a saving. This perception of personal responsibility is greater when the consumer perceives internal factors as under his or her own control (controllability). Having these factors under your own control and creating a saving, leads to a positive feeling of the individual (Palmer, Oates, & Portney, 1995).
Besides this, savings lead to repeat intentions. The prospect of good feelings related to the saving, make it more likely to increase the intention to repeat the specific behavior in the future (Schindler, 1998). Cost savings (individual benefit) create a higher feeling of „being responsible‟, which is part of the prevention focus related to utilitarian goods. Communicating cost savings leads to a win-win situation, in which the individual takes advantage of the cost saving, while the environment stays is a better condition at the same time (Palmer et al., 1995). Based on these theories, it is reasonable to believe that in case of individual benefit communication, highlighting the utilitarian condition is preferred over highlighting the hedonic condition. This is because of the feeling of „being responsible‟ related to the prevention focus of utilitarian goods, and thus preferring a saving (individual benefit) compared to compensating guilt in case of hedonic consumption. This is in line with the findings of Stahilevitz and Myers (1998) who found that people prefer a saving over a contribution to a good cause in case of a utilitarian product and thus the following hypothesis will be tested: H3: Communicating individual benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted than when hedonic product attributes are highlighted.
29
30
3. RESEARCH DESIGN
In this chapter the research design will be presented. First of all the research method will be discussed in which the type of research is explained. Secondly, a short description of the participants of the research is given followed by the experimental design. Thirdly, the experimental stimuli are discussed. The chapter ends with the explanation of the procedure of how the research was conducted. The research question that is answered by this research is:
‘How do shampoo brands need to communicate water saving benefits in order promote water saving behavior of consumers?’
In order to find the answer to this question, 3 different hypotheses will be tested. The specific behavior that was examined in this research by showing different advertisements, is the intention of turning off the tap while hair washing.
3.1 Research method
For this research an experimental design was used. The effect of individual and social benefit communication on behavioral intention will be examined. This main effect will be manipulated with a hedonic and a utilitarian condition. First of all it will be tested whether individual or social benefit communication has a greater influence on water saving behavior. Secondly, the differences among the dependent variable are assessed to see which treatment (hedonic versus utilitarian) caused the biggest effect on behavioral intention. Experiments are used to determine whether certain marketing phenomena affect consumer behavior (Hoyer & MacInnis, 2007). To test the hypotheses, primary data in the form of an online survey, made in Qualtrics has been used in order to come up with quantifiable results (Malhotra, 2007).
3.2 Participants
31
respondents work fulltime/have their own business (45%) or were student (34.4%) and lived with a partner (40%) or in a student accommodation (28.8%). Everyone filled in the complete questionnaire so no participants were excluded and all four conditions contained 40 respondents. The complete questionnaire can be found in Appendix E. In the next chapter de different groups will be analysed in more detail.
3.3 Experimental design
To test whether communicating individual benefits will have a greater effect on water saving behavior than communicating social benefits (H1), whether communicating social benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when hedonic product attributes are highlighted than when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted (H2), and whether communicating individual benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted than when hedonic product attributes are highlighted (H3), four different conditions were used in the form of an advertisement. The combination of the independent variable (individual versus social benefit communication) and the manipulation variable (hedonic versus utilitarian aspect) made up the four different conditions (table 1).
Condition 1 The advertisement communicates an individual benefit with hedonic manipulation
Condition 2 The advertisement communicates an individual benefit with utilitarian manipulation
Condition 3 The advertisement communicates a social benefit with hedonic manipulation
Condition 4 The advertisement communicates a social benefit with utilitarian manipulation.
Table 1: The four different conditions
32 Hedonic Utilitarian Indiv idua l Advertisement 1:
Andrélon, The shampoo that really smells great.
Did you know that you could save at least €100 when you turn off the tap while washing your hair?
Advertisement 2:
Andrélon, The shampoo that really cleans your hair
Did you know that you could save at least €100 when you turn off the tap while washing your hair?
S
oci
a
l
Advertisement 3:
Andrélon, The shampoo that really smells great.
Did you know that the stock of water lasts for 3 more years when we all turn off the tap while washing our hair?
Advertisement 4:
Andrélon, The shampoo that really cleans your hair
Did you know that the stock of water lasts for 3 more years when we all turn off the tap while washing our hair?
Figure 2: the 4 different advertisements
33
loadings >.6 (KMO=.809 and Bartlett‟s test<.001). Reliability is high with α=.827 on the hedonic items and α=.822 on the utilitarian items, so all the items are taken into account in the manipulation check.
Utilitarian items (α=.822) Hedonic items (α=.827)
1 7 1 7
Effective Ineffective Pleasant Not pleasant
Helpful Unhelpful Dull Exciting
Functional Not functional Not delightful Delightful Necessary Unnecessary Not thrilling Thrilling
Practical Impractical Enjoyable Unenjoyable
Table 2: Utilitarian and hedonic items
„Behavioral Intention‟ (BI), the dependent variable, consisted of 6 items which were rated from 1 to 7 (1= totally disagree, 7= totally agree). The scale used for measuring behavioral intention is a combination of the scales used by Oberecker and Diamantopoulos (2011) and Zeithaml et al. (1996) (table 3). FA of the BI scales shows that there is a clear one factorial structure (KMO=.825 and Bartlett‟s test<.001). All components have loadings >0.6 and reliability is high (α=.912), so all the BI items are taken into account for further analysis. Two-way ANOVA was conducted in order to see if communicating a social or individual benefit has a greater effect on turning off the tap while washing the hair (behavioral intention) (H1), and in order to see the effect of manipulation with a hedonic and utilitarian condition on individual and social benefit communication (H2+H3). Both, the independent variable (individual versus social) and the manipulator (hedonic versus utilitarian) are dummy variables with (0=individual and 1= social, 0=hedonic and 1=utilitarian).
34
discover if there is a main effect of EC on BI and in order to see if there is a moderating effect of EC.
BI items (6) EC items (15)*
It‟s very likely that I will turn off the tap when washing my hair.
We are approaching the limit of the number of people the earth can support
I will turn off the tap during hair washing next time I wash my hair.
Humans have the right to modify the natural environment to suit their needs
I will definitely turn off the tap when washing my hair. When humans interfere with nature it often produces disastrous consequences
I will say positive things about turning off the tap during hair washing to other people.
Human ingenuity will insure that we will NOT make the earth unlivable
I will Recommend turning off the tap during hair washing to someone who seeks your advice.
Humans are severely abusing the environment I will encourage friends and relatives to turn off the tap
when washing their hair.
The earth has plenty of natural resources if we just learn how to develop them
Scales α Plants and animals have as much rights as humans to exist Behavioral
intention
Oberecker and
Diamantopoulos (2011) Zeithaml et al (1996)
.912 The balance of nature is strong enough to cope with the impact of modern industrial nations
Despite our special abilities, humans are still subject to the laws of nature
The so-called „ecological Crisis‟ facing human kind has been greatly exaggerated
Environmental concern
Dunlap et al. (2000) .806 The earth is like a spaceship with very limited room and resources
Humans were meant to rule over the rest of nature The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset * The bold items are excluded for further analysis Humans will eventually learn enough about how nature works to be able to control it If things continue on their present course, we will soon experience a major ecological catastrophe
Table 3: Scales used based on prior research
Factor analysis (FA) and reliability analysis (RA) are conducted to check whether the items measured of BI and EC measured the same component (factor analysis), and to measure the internal consistency of the items (reliability analysis) (Malhotra, 2007).
35
(α=.806). The number of items remaining and the Cronbach‟s Alpha‟s for the different scales are presented in table 3.
Overall reliability of the data was gained with a split half reliability test. This test showed a Spearman Brown Coefficient of .473 and a Guttman Split Half Coefficient of .470. This outcome is sufficient to state that the data is reliable. 3.4 Experimental stimuli
Four advertisements with a different content were shown (figure 2). Every participant was randomly assigned to one of the advertisements to achieve different „treatments‟ and to observe the effect of these treatments (Hoyer & MacInnis, 2007). So only the text and the pictures in the advertisement differed, everything else remained the same across groups. The advertisement was shown in the beginning of the questionnaire. In the advertisements that were manipulated with a hedonic condition (advertisement 1 and 3), the pictures in the advertisements were more hedonic by showing 2 beautiful women. In case of the utilitarian advertisements (advertisement 2 and 4), more functional pictures (technologies) were used in order to give a more utilitarian feeling of shampoo. 3.5 Procedure
36
4. RESULTS
In this chapter the results of the research will be discussed. Chapter 3 already showed that the data is reliable. The validity of the research will be checked first in this chapter by looking at the descriptive statistics. Secondly, the results of the manipulation check will be presented in order to see whether the manipulation with a hedonic and utilitarian condition had worked. Thirdly, the results related to the hypotheses are shown and discussed. Finally, the main effect of EC on BI is presented and the moderating effect of EC on the relation between communication and BI.
4.1 Descriptive statistics
The descriptive statistics of the different groups are shown in table 4 and it can be concluded that the groups are different based on demographics.
Therefore, in addition, it was tested whether the demographic aspects of the respondents significantly differ on the variables BI and EC. To underline the validity of the research, an independent sample t-test was used for gender and an ANOVA for age (clustered into 5 groups). There was no significant difference of gender on BI (F(1)=1.986, p=.068) or on EC (F(1)=1.009, p=.354), so it can be concluded that there is no significant difference between men and women on the variables BI and EC. Also for age there were no significant differences on BI (F(4)=3.564, p=.067) or on EC (F(4)=.916. p=.340). The results show that age and gender do not influence our research, which increases the validity of the research.
37 Hedonic Utilitarian Ind iv idu al
Gender Income Gender Income
Men Women N=13 N=27 <modal Modal >modal N=12 N=11 N=17 Men Women N=18 N=22 <modal Modal >modal N=11 N=13 N=16
Age Education Age Education
M= 32.88 SD=13.693 Secondary MBO HBO WO N=0 N=2 N=13 N=25 M=35.35 SD=13.701 Secondary MBO HBO WO N=0 N=0 N=12 N=28
Occupation Household Occupation Household
No job Student Part-time Fulltime Retired N=0 N=11 N=3 N=24 N=2 With parents Alone
Alone with kids Partner Partner&kids Student acc. N=1 N=8 N=10 N=17 N=4 N=10 No job Student Part-time Fulltime Retired N=2 N=13 N=8 N=16 N=1 With parents Alone
Alone with kids Partner Partner&kids Student acc. N=1 N=6 N=0 N=15 N=7 N=11 S oc ial
Gender Income Gender Income
Men Women N=13 N=27 <modal Modal >modal N=15 N=14 N=11 Men Women N=16 N=24 <modal Modal >modal N=10 N=12 N=18
Age Education Age Education
M=29.95 SD=10.198 Secondary MBO HBO WO N=1 N=2 N=9 N=28 M=36.40 SD=15.404 Secondary MBO HBO WO N=1 N=1 N=10 N=28
Occupation Household Occupation Household
No job Student Part-time Fulltime Retired N=1 N=17 N=6 N=16 N=0 With parents Alone
Alone with kids Partner Partner&kids Student acc. N=3 N=7 N=0 N=15 N=4 N=11 No job Student Part-time Fulltime Retired N=0 N=14 N=6 N=16 N=4 With parents Alone
Alone with kids Partner Partner&kids Student acc. N=0 N=3 N=0 N=17 N=6 N=14
38 BI results EC results df F p df F p Age 4 1.986 .068 4 1.009 .354 Gender 1 3.564 .067 1 .916 .340 Occupation 4 .895 .469 4 .592 .669 Education 3 1.650 .180 3 1.234 .299 Income 2 .388 .679 2 1.046 .354 Household 4 .646 .630 4 1.417 .231
Table 5: Effect of demographic variables
4.2 Manipulation check
The mean of the hedonic items for people that saw the advertisement manipulated with a hedonic condition is M=3.75, SD=1.20 and of people in the utilitarian manipulation the average score of the hedonic items is M=3.03, SD=.95. The mean of the utilitarian items for people in hedonic manipulation was M=4.17, SD=1.02 and for people in utilitarian manipulation M=3.80, SD=.871. In order to see whether these results are significant, two-way ANOVA was conducted (table 6).
39
Table 6: Manipulation check
4.3 Test of hypotheses
In order to test whether communicating individual benefits will have a greater effect on water saving behavior than communicating social benefits (H1), whether communicating social benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when hedonic product attributes are highlighted than when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted (H2) and whether communicating individual benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted than when hedonic product attributes are highlighted (H3), two-way ANOVA is conducted. The individual/social and hedonic/utilitarian variables are used as independent variables. BI is used as the dependant variable. Besides this, the interaction effect of ind/soc*hed/ut is measured. The results are shown in table 7.
Source df F p Main effect Individual/Social 1.156 6.267 .042 Main effect Hedonic/Utilitarian 1.156 .756 .557 Interaction effect Ind/Soc*Hed/Ut 1.156 2.756 .263
Table 7: Results hypothesis
Situation df F p Score on hedonic
items in:
Main effect hed/ut 1.156 17,251 .000** Effect social/individual 1.156 .013 .908 Interaction effect
hed/ut*ind/soc
1.156 .372 .543
Score on utilitarian items in:
Main effect hed/ut 1.156 5.962 .016* Utilitarian manipulation 1.156 .835 .362 Interaction effect
hed/ut*ind/soc
1.156 .080 .778 * Significant at the 5% level
40
H1: Communicating individual benefits will have a greater effect on water saving behavior than communicating social benefits.
The mean BI for people that saw the individual benefit is 2.92. The mean for people that saw the social benefit is 3.31, which is graphically presented in figure 3. This already makes clear that the average BI for social benefit communication is higher than for individual benefit communication. In order to check whether these scores are significant, two-way ANOVA is conducted. The results show that the opposite appears to be true for hypothesis 1. The main effect of individual/social shows a significant result (F(1.156)=6.267, p=.042),which means that hypothesis 1 is not supported, despite the fact that the result is significant. The opposite of hypothesis 1 is true and so social benefit communication has a significant greater effect on water saving behavior than individual benefit communication. Besides this, there is no main effect of hed/ut on BI, which is not related to the hypothesis, but can be seen as an extra result.
H2: Communicating social benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when hedonic product attributes are highlighted than when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted.
H3: Communicating individual benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted than when hedonic product attributes are highlighted.
Figure 3: BI for individual and social benefit communication
41 In order to test hypotheses 2 and 3, the interaction effect (table 7) will be taken into account. No interaction effect can be found between ind/soc benefit communication and hed/ut manipulation (F(1.156)=2,756, p=.263). This means that the effect of individual and social benefit communication on BI is not influenced by the hedonic and utilitarian condition. This means that hypothesis 2 is not supported. Figure 4 shows the graphical presentation of the result.
Overall, it can be concluded that hypothesis 1 is not supported, despite the fact that the results are significant. The results show that there is a significant difference between individual and social benefit communication on BI, with social benefit communication having a greater effect. Hypotheses 2 and 3 do not show significant results. No support is found for the expectation that in case of social benefit communication, highlighting hedonic attributes has a greater influence on BI than highlighting utilitarian attributes. Besides this, no support is found for the expectation that in case of individual benefit communication, highlighting utilitarian attributes will have a greater effect on BI than highlighting hedonic attributes (table 7).
supported H1: Communicating individual benefits will have a greater effect on
water saving behavior than communicating social benefits. No
H2: Communicating social benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when hedonic product attributes are
highlighted than when utilitarian product attributes are highlighted.
No
H3: Communicating individual benefits will have a stronger effect on water saving behavior when utilitarian product attributes are
highlighted than when hedonic product attributes are highlighted.
No
Table 7: Conclusion hypotheses
Figure 4: Influence Hed/Ut on relation Ind/Soc - BI
42 4.4 Environmental Concern
First of all the multicollinearity aspect will be discussed. In order to check what the multicollinearity level is for this research, the centered values of EC and BI were used. The centered values were used in order to decrease the amount of multicollinearity (Aiken & West, 1991). Results point out that multicollinearity is not a problem for the model in which the main effect was estimated (EC Tolerance=.999, VIF=1.001; Adv1 Tolerance=.666, VIF=1.502; Adv2 Tolerance =.667, VIF=1.500; Adv3 Tolerance=.666, VIF=1.501) and neither for the model in which the moderating effect was estimated (IE1 Tolerance=.753, VIF=1.328, IE2 Tolerance=746, VIF=1.340, IE3 Tolerance=.685, VIF=1.459). Tolerance levels <.1 and VIF levels > 10 are seen as problematic (Field, 2009) and this is not the case for this research, so there is no sign of multicollinearity.
4.4.1 Main effect of EC on BI
In order to check whether there is a main effect of EC on BI; a regression analysis is conducted for which the centered values of EC and BI were used. BI is used as the dependent variable and EC and 3 of the 4 scenarios (condition 1, 2 and 3 with condition 4 as reference group) as the independent variable.
The model makes a good estimation of BI (F(4)=1.514, p=.020). The model explains 13% of the variation in BI. The results show that none of the 3 scenario‟s (with the 4th
43
Unst. Béta St. Err. T value p value (Constant) .252 .233 1.082 .281
EC .340 .142 1.250 .021*
Adv1 -.243 .330 -.071 -.462
Adv2 -.652 .330 -.191 .050
Adv3 -.114 .330 -.346 .730
* Significant at the 5% level Table 8: Main effect EC on BI
4.4.2 Moderating effect of EC on relation Communication - BI
In order to check whether EC moderates the relation between the conditions and BI, a moderator analysis is conducted by using regression and again using the centered values of EC and BI. The model that was used is the same as for measuring the main effect however, three interaction terms were used in the model. The first three conditions were multiplied by the centered value of EC in order to create the interaction terms and thus 3 new variables were created (Adv1*ECcentr, Adv2*ECcentr and Adv3*ECcentr).
Results show that the overall model gives a good estimation of BI (F(7)=1.709, p=.011) and the model explains 23% of the variance in BI. The interaction effects are not significant (IE1 T=-.598, p=.551, IE2 T=-1.286, p=.200, IE3 T=.773, p=.441). So EC does not interact with one of the conditions and thus there is no moderator effect of EC on any of the conditions. The results of the analysis are presented in table 9.
Unst. Béta St. Err. T value P value (Constant) .248 .232 1.069 .287
Adv1*ECcentr (IE1) -.259 .433 -.598 .551
Adv2*ECcentr (IE2) -.553 .430 -1.286 .200
Adv3*ECcentr (IE3) .318 .412 .773 .441
Table 9: Moderating effect EC on relation communication - BI
44
5. DISCUSSION
First of all, it can be concluded that none of the hypotheses that were tested are supported. Social benefit communication has a significant greater effect on water saving behavior than communicating individual benefits, while it was expected that individual benefit communication would have a greater effect. So for this research it can be concluded that the individual motives such as cost savings are less important than the collective or social interests, such as a better environment. Consumers seem not only driven by self-interest which was stated by Frey and Meier (2002) and thus self-interest is not the main motivator of the behavior which was stated by Kilbourne et al. (1997). The „having it all‟ individualism (Bahr & Bahr, 2001) does not count for this research.
The fact that social benefit communication has a greater effect than individual benefit communication, is not in line with the theories that were used for this research, but might possibly be explained by the fact that consumers increasingly recognize that growth in their individual consumption may not be compatible with the greater society and thus may create negative effects on the environment (Huang & Rust, 2011).
One of the theories that is used, in order to explain the change in consumer behavior towards more social behavior, is the reciprocity model. This theory recently gained more attention and states that consumers are more and more acting in a cooperative manner. They are increasingly willing to act in a cooperative and non-selfish way (Frey & Meier, 2002), which makes saving the larger environment more important than benefits created for the individual itself. This might be an explanation for the results.
45
utilitarian condition is attached to a social benefit. This might mean that, in contrast to what Okada (2005) states, people do not feel a greater need for justification when it comes to water saving behavior during hair washing in case of highlighting a hedonic condition. It can also mean that consumers justify behavior in a different way than by saving water. Some consumers are not willing to sacrifice any comfort (Follows and Jobber, 2000), so they choose to behave in a sustainable manner when conducting activities in which they do not have to sacrifice any comfort (Lascu, 1991). Thus not by saving water during hair washing. Besides this, people do not have a greater intention to turn off the tap when a utilitarian condition is highlighted, than when a hedonic condition is highlighted in case of individual benefit communication. This is not in line with the expectations based on findings of prior research. It seems that, in contrast to the findings of Chitturi et al. (2007), people do not have a greater feeling of „being responsible‟ by turning off the tap in case of utilitarian benefit communication.
One possible explanation for this, is the fact that none of the prior research on which the hypothesis was based, focus on communication of pro-social behavior in relation to water saving behavior. Prior research that indeed focuses on hedonic and utilitarian aspects in relation to pro-social behavior (Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998; Van Doorn & Verhoef, 2009), does not focus on sacrificing in terms of comfort by turning off the tap. Turning off the tap in general might be hard for consumers, because of the fact that they have to sacrifice comfort (Gilg & Barr, 2006).
46
instead of necessary consumption. In this case, the choice to indulge yourself, is based on a conscious decision like doing something right for the environment (Khan and Dhar, 2006). It means that, buying for example green products, does not necessarily make you a better person, because after buying it, people might feel that they have the right to indulge themselves (Mazar and Zhong, 2010). For example research of Sachdeva et al. (2009) point out that donations to a charity are reduced, when people are confronted with their humanitarian traits. For this research, not turning off the tap on the one hand can be caused by the fact that someone feels licensed and thus chooses to indulge himself by not turning off the tap. On the other side, turning off the tap can have an effect on future behavior. If someone turns off the tap, this person can feel that he has the right to indulge himself in a different situation, which still might have a negative effect on the environment. So turning off the tap might lead to immoral behavior in case of other consumption activities.
Besides this, it is found that there is a significant linear relation between environmental concern and water saving behavior. This means that people with high environmental concern have a higher intention to turn off the tap. This finding is in line with the expectations based on the findings of prior research (Cornelissen et al., 2008; Goldstein et al., 2008; Welsch & Kühling, 2009).
47
6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The main objective of this research was to find an answer to the following research question: ‘How do shampoo brands need to communicate water saving benefits in order to promote water saving behavior?’. Despite the fact that none of the hypotheses were supported, some clear conclusions and recommendations will be presented, which are based on the results of this research.
The results illustrate that social benefit communication has a greater effect on water saving behavior than individual benefit communication. This means that when a company wants to communicate water saving behavior, communicating social benefits will have a greater effect on behavioral intention than communicating individual benefits.
If a company, despite the fact that social benefit communication has a greater effect on water saving behaviour, still chooses to communicate an individual benefit, it does not matter whether a hedonic or an utilitarian aspect is highlighted. The results show that, there is no significant difference between highlighting a hedonic versus an utilitarian aspect in case of individual benefit communication.
Furthermore, the results indicate that it does not matter whether a hedonic or an utilitarian aspect is highlighted in case of social benefit communication. This means that, when a company chooses to communicate a social benefit in order to create water saving behavior, it does not matter whether they highlight a hedonic or an utilitarian aspect.
