ATTITUDE OF CUSTOMERS IN THRISSUR TOWARDS GREEN PRODUCTS

By Mr. N.S.Padmanabhan & Ms. Deepthi Sankar Abstract Environment protection is the buzz word in the present day business world. The customers are also well educated about the ill effects of the environmental pollution. Eco friendliness has become the jargon of the day. Even though the customer concern towards the environment is high the marketers are not sure whether this is reflected in their buying behavior. This study is focused on understanding the customer attitude towards green marketing. The area in which the study is conducted is Thrissur City of Kerala State. The consumer attitude towards green marketing should be measured and included in the marketing plan of the firms. A study of this type will be helpful for market practitioners to understand the customer and apply green marketing strategy not only for customer satisfaction but also for winning the ongoing battle prevailing in the market.

Introduction
Green Marketing has gathered prominence in India quite recently. Thanks to the Climate change that has happened in the near past. It is now recognized as one of the most eminent challenges of the 21st century. A number of recent surveys done round the globe indicate that people around the world are increasingly concerned about the wellbeing of our planet. This has prompted companies to adopt the Green marketing strategies in order to promote their products. Green Marketing According to the American Marketing Association, green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as modifying advertising. Other similar terms used are Environmental Marketing and Ecological Marketing. Thus "Green Marketing" refers to holistic marketing concept wherein the production, marketing consumption an disposal of products and services happen in a manner that is less detrimental to the environment with growing awareness about the implications of global warming, non-

biodegradable solid waste, harmful impact of pollutants etc., both marketers and consumers are becoming increasingly sensitive to the need for switch in to green products and services. While the shift to "green" may appear to be expensive in the short term, it will definitely prove to be indispensable and advantageous, cost-wise too, in the long run. Google Trends reports that, on a relative basis, more searches for green marketing originated from India than from any other country. Since interest towards green marketing is increasing many companies are adopting green for capturing market opportunity of green marketing.

Avoiding Green Myopia One of the basic challenges faced by companies going green is Green Myopia. The first rule of green marketing is focusing on customer benefits i.e. the primary reason why consumers buy certain products in the first place. Do this right, and motivate consumers to switch brands or even pay a premium for the greener alternative. It is not going to help if a product is developed which is absolutely green in various aspects but does not pass the customer satisfaction criteria. This will lead to green myopia. Also if the green products are priced very high then again it will lose its market acceptability. So it is very important to understand the customer. This paper makes an attempt to understand the attitude of customers towards green products. Knowing this can help the companies avoid green myopia.

Statement of the Problem The demand for green products is increasing the market. But the companies are reluctant to go green at the outset. The competition on the other hand is forcing the companies to think of innovative ways to attract the customers. This has prompted the researcher to study on the attitude of the customers towards green products.

Objective of the study 1. To study the attitude of customers towards green products

Literature Survey
Pride and Ferrell (1993) Green marketing, also alternatively known as environmental marketing and sustainable marketing, refers to an organization's efforts at designing, promoting, pricing and distributing products that will not harm the environment.

Polonsky (1994) defines green marketing as all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment. Elkington (1994: 93) defines green consumer as one who avoids products that are likely to endanger the health of the consumer or others; cause significant damage to the environment during manufacture, use or disposal; consume a disproportionate amount of energy; cause unnecessary waste; use materials derived from threatened species or environments; involve unnecessary use of, or cruelty to animals; adversely affect other countries.

Research indicated that consumers choose or avoid buying products, dependent on their impact on the environment (McDougall, 1993; Davis, 1993). There are also studies that indicate that consumers are willing to pay more for less environmentally harmful products, which is an interesting fact for companies planning togreen their processes (Coddington, 1993; Ottman, 1992). Studies have however been performed on the effect of green benefit claims on brand attitude (Hartmann et al., 2005). The study supports significant attitude effects of both functional and emotional green positioning strategies. Also, some studies have been performed on linking green brand identities (of which green benefit claims could be a part) to brand awareness and firm performance (First, 2007, Hart and Ahuja, 1994).

Methodology
Measuring Customer attitude The customer attitude as we all know is a qualitative aspect. So it is not easy to directly measure attitude of customers towards green products.

The research design applied for the study is descriptive. The total population is infinite. Population includes all the customers for green prodcuts in Thrissur. The sample frame consists of the green customers in Thrissur city. The sample taken for this study is 100. Sample survey has been conducted to collect primary data. The technique used for selection is purposive sampling. Data collection was done with the help of a questionnaire and the collected data were tabulated. The secondary data was collected from journals and websites. Variables used for the study This study uses the following variables such as availability, efficiency in protecting the environment, cost effective, affordability, credibility, providing health and safety, performance, status provider, communication, convenience and quality. For analysis the researcher has used simple percentage analysis and chi square analysis Interpretation of Chi Square Analysis The chi square analysis was done on two variables viz. health & safety and status. The low significance value obtained for health and safety indicates that there is significant relationship between customer attitude and health & safety. So it can be inferred that customer buy green products because they are healthy and safe. The high significance value for the variable status indicates that customer buy green products not for getting a status but for other reasons.

Other Findings Majority of the consumers are indifferent regarding the availability of green products. This shows that the knowledge of customers about green products is poor. Majority of the respondents (80%) feel that the green products are efficient in protecting environment. Regarding cost effectiveness and affordability most of the respondents are neutral in their response. This shows that the customers are not sure regarding the same. The customers also opined that buying green products never gives you a status.

Regarding all the other variables i.e. credibility, performance, communication and quality the customers showed a positive response. The customers also have an opinion that they buy green products because they are healthy and safe.

Conclusion
In this era of holistic marketing, getting customer satisfaction is a tough ask for all companies. As the need for green products are increasing, companies can win customers only through marketing green products. The present study shows that almost all the customers have a favourable attitude towards green products. The study also reveals that a customer buy green products because they are healthy and safe. From the study it may be concluded that companies can go green as the customers are ready to buy.

Bibliography

1. https://reports.environmentalleader.com/report/green-marketing-what-works-whatdoesnt-a-marketing-study-of-practitioners 2. Ming Him Fung ,Green Marketing Initiatives and Firm Value An event study in the Automotive Industry(2010) 3. http://oaithesis.eur.nl/ir/repub/asset/7114/Fung,%20Ming%20Him%20(275345).pdf 4. http://epubl.ltu.se/1402-1773/2009/123/LTU-CUPP-09123-SE.pdf 5. www.greenmarketing.com/files/Stafford-MyopiaJune06.pdf 6. hig.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:120224/FULLTEXT01 7. ijrcm.org.in/download.php?name=31304703088.pdf&path...pdf