From Green Intentions to Actions: The Role of Covert, Overt, and Guerrilla Marketing in Promoting Green Consumerism

Traditional marketing tactics have been significantly challenged by marketers in various areas, especially in the food sector. Firms utilize overt, along with emerging marketing communication strategies in the form of covert marketing, to circumvent customer skepticism and build a good brand image. However, there is limited empirical research that integrates these traditional and novel marketing techniques in green consumerism to develop green purchase intentions and ecologically conscious consumer behavior (ECCB). Therefore, the current study investigates the impact of green product features, green pricing, covert advertising, overt advertising, and guerrilla marketing on purchase intention and ECCB. Furthermore, the study evaluates the moderating impacts of brand evangelism, environmental knowledge and habitat attitude in order to bridge the intention-behavior gap in green consumerism. Data were collected from 568 respondents using the public intercept sampling technique. The participants, who were customers of the frozen food industry in Pakistan, were shown videos or images before completing the questionnaire to help them understand covert and overt marketing tactics. The analysis used the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique through AMOS. The results reveal that covert, overt, and guerrilla marketing impact green purchase intention (GPI), and, in turn, GPI affects ECCB. The results also show that brand evangelism and environmental knowledge moderate the relationship between GPI and ECCB. This research is valuable for marketers as it can help them enhance green consumerism among consumers through green purchase intention and ecologically conscious behavior using innovative marketing strategies.