Analyzing the role of green consumption values to sustain consumer-brand relationships in the automotive industry

Creating and sustaining valuable consumer-brand relationships is becoming a relevant determinant of competitive advantage from a marketing perspective. Several brands have been changing their image towards a green brand image to meet the new needs of increasingly environmentally conscious consumers in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of green consumer behaviors on brand management. The work analyses the relationships among consumer perceptions (i.e., Green Consumption Values, Brand Image) and intentional behaviors (i.e., Intention to Use, Intention to Buy Product, Intention to Buy Substitutive Services) to managing consumer-brand relationships in the automotive industry. Coherently, the authors propose a research framework with five latent variables and twenty-six manifest variables. A questionnaire with questions relating to Toyota - a company operating in the automotive sector - was given to an Italian consumer sample (n=305). The framework was tested using the Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).