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To Be or Not to Be (Green)

Does Communication Experts’ Environmental Sensitivity Affect their Marketing Communication Plans?

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Handbook of Engaged Sustainability

Abstract

The rise of environmental sensitivity stands out as one of the most thriving trends of the twenty-first century that has gradually been reflected in marketing communication strategies. In this research, we aim to find out to what extent and how communication experts reflect their environmental sensitivity to the marketing communication strategies they develop. By purposive sampling, we choose senior communication students as the unit of analysis since they represent the forthcoming communication experts. Using a mixed-method approach, we follow a three-stage data collection procedure: In order to evaluate environmental sensitivity at an individual level, we first carry on a survey based on the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale. In the second stage, we ask participants to develop a green marketing communication plan for a brand that they choose. After analyzing the survey results statistically and the communication plans with content analysis, we move on to the last and the final stage in which we did in-depth interviews with representative participants from the first two stages in order to go in deeper in our discussion. We discuss our results on the basis of the similarities and differences between the strategies and the ideological preferences reflected in communication plans and interpret how ideology and practices rather converge or diverge from each other. Finally, it is found that there is significant convergence between experts’ green ideologies and the communication strategies that they planned which reflects one of innovator, investor, and propagator roles and characteristics.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Communication, Department of Public Relations and Publicity, Ege University, İzmir, Turkey

    Ebru Belkıs Güzeloğlu

  2. Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business Administration, Ege University, İzmir, Turkey

    Elif Üstündağlı Erten

Authors
  1. Ebru Belkıs Güzeloğlu
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  2. Elif Üstündağlı Erten
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ebru Belkıs Güzeloğlu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business, Woodbury University School of Business, Burbank, California, USA

    Joan Marques

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Güzeloğlu, E.B., Erten, E.Ü. (2018). To Be or Not to Be (Green). In: Marques, J. (eds) Handbook of Engaged Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53121-2_44-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53121-2_44-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-53121-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-53121-2

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