Integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior and social media marketing strategies: A study on green cosmetics consumption among young women

Type of the article: Research ArticleAbstractAmid escalating environmental concerns and the growing role of social media as a dominant platform for firm consumer interaction, understanding the determinants of green cosmetic purchase intention has become increasingly critical. This study integrates social media marketing dimensions with the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to investigate young women’s intentions to purchase green cosmetics in Vietnam. Using a non-probability quota sampling technique, data were collected from 200 valid questionnaires completed by women aged 18-35 who actively use social media during their cosmetic purchasing process in Ho Chi Minh City. Data were collected over an eight-week period from early February to late March 2024. Multivariate regression analysis was employed using SPSS to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings reveal that Brand Content (β = 0.398), Subjective Norms (β = 0.273), Influencer Marketing (β = 0.179), and Electronic Word-of-Mouth (e-WOM) (β = 0.130) exert statistically significant positive effects on green cosmetic purchase intention (p lt; 0.05). Conversely, attitude does not show a statistically significant influence on purchase intention (β = 0.078, p gt; 0.05). The proposed model explains 50.9% of the variance in green cosmetic purchase intention (adjusted R² = 0.509). Overall, the results underscore the pivotal role of integrated social media communication in fostering sustainable consumption, as marketing-related factors and subjective norms demonstrate stronger effects than attitudinal evaluations. These findings contribute to a clearer understanding of the combined influence of marketing and psychosocial mechanisms on sustainable consumer behavior and offer practical implications for firms in emerging markets by emphasizing the importance of transparent brand content, social norms, influencer engagement, and electronic word-of-mouth in communication strategies.