Consumer perception towards green marketing strategies employed by automotive sector

The environmental issue has become a global hot spot because of Global environmental degradation, the international community, the efforts of governments, the green movement and the impact of public media. Promotion of environmental protection is the theme of human society, and also is the voice of sustainable human development. Green marketing is increasingly becoming the mainstream of marketing strategy. Some Fortune 500 companies have had implemented green marketing. For example, in May 2005 GE announced the launch of a program called “Ecomagination”. This process gives an opportunity for the enterprises to explore and meet the green demands of consumers, consumers get environmentally friendly and healthy products and companies obtain ecological, social and business benefits. To successfully meet the green demands, it is important to know the consumer perception and attitude towards green marketing strategies (GMS). The objective of this research article is to check the overall perception of consumers towards GMS employed in automotive industry and to know sector wise (two and four wheeler) perception of consumers towards GMS adopted by the selected companies. Totally 180 respondents were selected based on convenience sampling, of them 90 respondents were two wheeler users and rest 90 were four wheeler users. The responses were coded and analysed by using statistical techniques like one sample‘t’ test and cross tabulations through computer aided SPSS version 16.0 software. The results of one sample ‘t’ test on statements relating to the perception of the consumers exhibited significant differences and all the statements had agreement. Further, sector wise (two and four wheeler) comparison of statements relating to perception of consumers showed significant difference except for the following two statements ‘The price of green products is higher than non-green products’ and ‘Companies contain green message in their communication’.