2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol.

18, 9, 697708
www.palgrave-journals.com/bm/
Correspondence: Jos Bartels
Wageningen University and
Research Center, Agricultural
Economics Research Institute,
PO Box 29703, the Hague 2502
LS, the Netherlands
E-mail: jos.bartels@wur.nl
Original Article
The role of social identity and
attitudes toward sustainability
brands in buying behaviors for
organic products
Received (in revised form): 2 nd December 2010
Jos Bartels
obtained his PhD and is employed as a Senior Researcher in the eld of Consumer Behaviour at the Agricultural
Economics Research Institute, Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Hague, the Netherlands. His current
projects focus on the role of social identication and consumer innovative behavior in an international food context. He
has published in several academic journals including Journal of Organizational Behavior , British Journal of Management , Journal
of Occupational and Organizational Psychology , Food Quality and Preference and Journal of Business Research .
Karen Hoogendam
obtained her BSc and is researcher in the eld of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at the Agricultural Economics
Research Institute, Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Hague, the Netherlands. Her current projects are
concerned with social aspects of retail marketing, sustainability and healthy food choices. She has a special interest in
topics on specic consumer segments (for example, lower social economic status and young parents).
ABSTRACT Green consumerism and the role of eco-marketing have become increasingly
important for increasing the market share of sustainable (non-) food products. The
current study examines the effect of social identication with certain green consumer
groups on brand knowledge, brand attitude and buying behavior. An online panel study
was conducted among a representative sample of the German population ( N = 961).
For brand knowledge and brand attitude, we presented ve well-known organic brands
in the German market to the respondents. To test the hypothesized model, we used
structural equation analysis in SPSS Amos 16.0. Several competing path models were
tested. One of the main conclusions of the current study is that people who are aware
of their social identity concerning environmentally friendly consumer groups also seem
to feel more attached to consumers who buy organic food products. In addition, brand
knowledge and brand attitudes concerning specic organic brands have an effect on
buying behaviors for organic food products. Moreover, the inuence of brand knowledge
on buying behavior seems to be mediated by brand attitude. The results of the current
study can be used to develop more effective branding strategies in eco-marketing.
Aside from classical strategies, marketers could use social identity theory to create
future market strategies with regard to green consumerism.
Journal of Brand Management (2011) 18, 697 708. doi: 10.1057/bm.2011.3 ;
published online 18 February 2011
Keywords: social identity ; brand knowledge ; brand attitude ; environmental marketing ;
organic food
Bartels and Hoogendam
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708 698
are also concerned with issues related to
health, safety and quality for their food
choices. Furthermore, their preference for
organic products is determined by their
perceptions of taste, nutritional value and
price ( Grunert and Juhl, 1995 ; Browne
et al , 2000 ; Krystallis and Chryssohoidis,
2005 ; Padel and Foster, 2005 ).
Despite the enormous amount of knowl-
edge of organic food consumption (for
example, Davis et al , 1995 ; Latacz-Lohmann
and Foster, 1997 ; Thompson, 1998 ; Browne
et al , 2000 ; Wier and Calverley, 2002 ), the
market share of organic food products is
still low, as compared to regular food prod-
ucts ( Von Borella and S rensen, 2004 ;
FAO, 2009 ). Therefore, one could argue
that more insight into organic food con-
sumption is still needed. A recent study by
Bartels and Reinders (2010) has shown that
the individual s relationship to social net-
works is important in explaining buying
behavior for organic food products. They
argued that social identity theory (SIT) is a
strong concept for explaining this relation-
ship between an individual and his / her
social environment ( Tajfel, 1978 ; Tajfel and
Turner, 1979 ). As such, in the current
study, earlier insights from SIT will be used
in this context.
To our knowledge, no research has
focused on both the social environment
and the use of sustainability brands in eco-
marketing. Therefore, in this study, we
seek to compare the roles of social identi-
cation, brand knowledge and brand atti-
tudes in buying behaviors for organic food
products.
MODEL AND HYPOTHESES
People often dene themselves in terms of
certain group memberships. These social
identities are common in current life.
People see themselves as being part of a
country, gender, race, political movement,
sports team, consumer group or organiza-
tion. In turn, these groups depend on their
INTRODUCTION
Over the last decades, the marketing
literature on green consumerism has
shown enormous growth (for example,
Menon and Menon, 1997 ; Gupta and
Ogden, 2009 ; Sharma et al , 2010 ). People
have become increasingly aware of the
relevance of environmental issues in cur-
rent life ( Roberts, 1996 ; Tanner, 1999 ;
Diamantopoulos et al, 2003 ). As a result,
it seems to be important for organizations
to gain insight into the role of eco-mar-
keting in consumer behavior. In addition
to classical marketing, which is concerned
with advertising strategies, pricing and
channel strategies, branding seems to
become increasingly important in increasing
organizations visibility in (eco-) marketing
(for example, Fournier, 1998 ; Punj and
Hillyer, 2004 ). Eco-marketing strategies
should thus be concerned with the use of
labels or sustainability brands to create
greater consumer awareness of an organi-
zation s environmental concerns.
From the perspective of the consumer,
environmentally conscious behavior relates
to the purchasing and consumption of both
sustainable non-food products ( Th gersen
and lander, 2003 ) and organic food prod-
ucts ( Krystallis and Chryssohoidis, 2005 ).
Environmentally conscious consumers moti-
ves are concerned with a number of domains,
such as energy saving, transportation, waste
management and purchasing behavior
( Kurani et al , 1996 ; Th gersen and lander,
2002 ; Barr and Gilg, 2006 ). However, the
environmentally conscious consumer does
not show all of these kinds of behaviors.
Barr and Gilg (2006) , for example, found
that both committed and mainstream envi-
ronmentalists are more often willing to
engage more in recycling than in sustain-
able consumption (for example, organic
buying behavior). In contrast to environ-
mentally conscious consumers, organic
consumers motives are broader than sus-
tainability. Besides the environment, they
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708
Role of social identity and attitudes toward sustainability brands
699
members to survive ( Fisher and Wakeeld,
1998 ). Tajfel (1972) dened a social iden-
tity as the individual s knowledge that he
(or she) belongs to certain groups together
with some emotional and value signicance
to him (or her) of the group membership
( Tajfel, 1972, p. 31 ). When someone
strongly identies with a group, he / she has
positive attitudes toward that group ( Mael
and Ashforth, 1992 ) and is willing to prop-
agate a positive group image (for example,
Bhattacharya et al , 1995 ). In many studies
in an organizational context ( Mael and
Ashforth, 1992 ; Dutton et al , 1994 ; Hogg
and Terry, 2000 ; Christ et al , 2003 ; Feather
and Rauter, 2004 ; Van Dick et al , 2004 )
and in a marketing context ( Bhattacharya
et al , 1995 ; Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003 ;
Ahearne et al , 2005 ; Homburg et al , 2009 ),
social identication has appeared to be a
strong predictor of positive attitudes,
spending behaviors and the willingness to
propagate a positive group image.
Moreover, in an organizational context,
numerous authors have suggested that people
can identify with different organizational
entities ( Albert and Whetten, 1985 ; Ashforth
and Mael, 1989 ; Rousseau 1998 ; Brickson,
2000 ; Pratt and Foreman, 2000 ; Foreman
and Whetten, 2002 ). Studies have shown
strong positive relationships between social
identication with different identities ( Van
Knippenberg and Van Schie, 2000 ; Baruch
and Winkelmann-Gleed, 2002 ; Bartels
et al , 2007 ). Bartels et al (2007) for example
found that someone who identies with
his / her working group also identies with
his / her department, business unit and
overall organization.
For people to identify with multiple
identities, the information concerning a
specic identity should be accessible or
activated in the consumer s mind ( Reed,
2002 ; Arnett et al , 2003 ). This so-called
identity salience refers to the probability
that an identity will be invoked in a given
situation. Stryker and Burke (2000) argue
that the higher the salience of an identity
is relative to other identities, the greater the
probability of identity-related behavioral
choices is. As explained earlier, environ-
mentally conscious behavior (for example,
recycling, waste management) seems to be
more salient to the general public than
organic consumption behavior ( Th gersen
and lander, 2003, 2006 ). As a conse-
quence, we assume that social identication
with an environmentally conscious con-
sumer will be more important for identi-
cation with the organic consumer than vice
versa. Moreover, we expect that if someone
identies with an organic consumer, he or
she is more likely to buy organic food than
if someone only identies with an environ-
mentally conscious consumer. Therefore, in
line with previous research on social identi-
cation, we suggest the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: A stronger identication
with the environmentally conscious
consumer leads to a stronger identi-
cation with the organic consumer.
Hypothesis 2: A stronger identication
with the organic consumer leads to
higher spending on organic food.
In an organizational context, Lane and
Scott (2007) proposed a model in which
they connect organizational identica-
tion with an organization member s social
knowl edge structure of the self as it relates
to a focal organization. They assumed that
identication and someone s knowledge of
being part of a group are positively linked
to each other. Concerning brand knowl-
edge, Keller (2003) stated that it is impor-
tant to gain an increasing understanding of
multiple dimensions that inuence brand
knowledge and that, at the same time, each
entity may affect brand knowledge. He
argued that relating the brand to some other
person, place and thing affects brand knowl-
edge by creating new brand knowledge or
Bartels and Hoogendam
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708 700
brand and that a brand s image was a direct
determinant of consumer purchases. This
nding is consistent with Laroche et al
(1996) , who found that the inuence of
familiarity on buying intentions toward a
brand is mediated by the attitude toward
that specic brand. Moreover, several studies
have found a positive effect of (global)
attitude toward a brand on purchase inten-
tion ( Gresham et al , 1984 ; Montoro-Rios
et al , 2006, 2008 ; Teng and Laroche, 2007 ;
Curr s-P rez et al , 2009 ). Consistent with
previous research results, we therefore
present the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5: The inuence of brand
knowledge of a specic eco-brand
on spending on organic food is medi-
ated by the brand attitude toward this
eco-brand.
Figure 1 shows the hypothesized model .
METHOD
Context of the study
In this study, we used a broad variety of
organic brands containing different product
categories, from store brands and national
brands (see Raju et al , 1995 ), with different
market shares. Below, we will briey elab-
orate on the following ve brands: Alnatura,
Demeter, Edeka Bio Wertkost, F llhorn
and Rapunzel.
Alnatura was founded in 1984 and sells
a large share of their product under the
affecting existing brand knowledge. In
the current study, we assume that social
identication is an important part of the
multiple dimensions that inuence brand
knowledge. Therefore, we hypothesize that
the following occurs:
Hypothesis 3: A stronger identication
with the organic consumer leads to
more brand knowledge about a spe-
cic eco-brand.
Madrigal (2001) studied the effects of social
identity on the belief-attitude-intention
hierarchy. He found that the inuence of
social identication on purchase intentions
is mediated by an individual s attitudes and
beliefs. More recently, Curr s-P rez
et al (2009) focused on consumer identica-
tion with socially responsible companies.
They found that attitudes formed as a result
of consumer-company identication have
a direct positive effect on an individual s
attitude about the brand (and purchase
intention). We therefore hypothesize the
following:
Hypothesis 4: A stronger identication
with the organic consumer leads to a
more positive brand attitude toward a
specic eco-brand.
Esch et al (2006) studied the interaction
between brand knowledge, brand relation-
ship and consumer behavior. They found
that brand awareness affects the image of a
Social Identification
Environment (SI
e
)
Knowledge of a
specific organic
brand (BK)
Buying
Behavior for
organic food (BB)
Attitude toward a
specific organic
brand (BA)
Social Identification
Organic (SI
0
)
H1
H5 H5
H4 H3
H2
Figure 1 : Hypothesized model.
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708
Role of social identity and attitudes toward sustainability brands
701
brand name of Alnatura. They sell their
products in 2900 branch-stores. These are
Alnatura specialty shops (approximately 60
stores), grocery stores and drug stores in
Germany. In 1928 the national brand
Demeter was introduced into the market. As
an international organic brand, Demeter
offers products in 38 countries world-wide;
the average turnover is approximately
220 million euros. Edeka Bio Wertkost is an
organic store brand of Edeka. Edeka is
market leader in Germany and holds 12 000
branch stores with a turnover of approxi-
mately 42 billion euros in 2009. The store
brand F llhorn was founded in 1982 as one
organic store with 30 square meters. Cur-
rently, the F llhorn group has nine stores
and 300 employees across Germany. Finally,
Rapunzel was founded in Germany in 1974
and is now available in over 30 countries.
Currently, the national brand Rapunzel
Germany is sold in 6000 specialty shops and
health food shops. Rapunzel has 300
employees and an annual turnover of
approximately 100 million euros.
Participants and study design
To test the hypotheses, an online panel
study was conducted among a representa-
tive sample of the German population
( N = 961). We used a German-based organ-
ization (eResult GmbH) to gather the data.
The English questionnaire was translated
into German. Native-speaking Germans
working for the research company per-
formed a nal language check.
Measures
Apart from questions about the respondents
demographic backgrounds (for example,
gender, age, education and income), the
questionnaire covered the following topics:
(1) social identication with the environmen-
tally conscious consumer, (2) social identi-
cation with the organic consumer, (3) brand
knowledge, (4) brand attitude and (5) buying
behavior for organic food products.
Social identication with the environ-
mentally conscious consumer (SI
Env
) and
with the organic consumer (SI
Org
) was
measured using a visual and verbal scale for
cognitive identication based on Bergami
and Bagozzi (2000) . The Bergami and
Bagozzi (2000) scale has successfully been
used by several other researchers in dif-
ferent contexts ( Tropp and Wright, 1999 ;
Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001 ; Ahearne et al ,
2005 ; Bartels and Reinders, 2010 ; ). The
following verbal item was used: Please
indicate to what degree your self-image
overlaps with X . For the visual scale,
see the Appendix. Cronbach s alpha was
reasonably good for both SI
Env
(0.71) and
SI
Org
(0.86).
For brand knowledge and brand attitude,
we presented the respondents with the ve
organic brands. First, respondents were
asked to indicate whether they knew the
specic brand. Brand knowledge for the
ve brands ranged between 31 per cent (for
Rapunzel) and 58 per cent (for Edeka Bio
Wertkost). Second, for brand attitude, the
respondents were asked to rate the brand
on a scale from 1 (do not value at all) to 5
(value very much).
Organic buying behavior was measured
using the following item: How much
money do you spend each month on
organic food? The division of the scale was
based on average spending on organic food
in euros per month. Although buying
behavior for organic foods is a broader con-
cept than spending, we followed the same
procedure as Bergkvist and Rossiter (2007)
did, who argue that a single-item measure
often has the same predictive value as a
multiple-item measure.
Data analysis
The hypothesized model was tested through
structural equation analysis using SPSS
Amos 16.0. First, we used the following t
index, the ratio between chi-square and
degrees of freedom. This index is still the
Bartels and Hoogendam
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708 702
identify strongly with the environmentally
conscious consumer ( M = 3.01) or with the
organic consumer ( M = 2.59). Furthermore,
they did not spend a lot of money on
organic food products ( M = 2.45). There
were strong correlations between social
identication and buying behavior for
organic food products ( r
Env
= 0.45;
r
Org
= 0.69). Overall, attitudes toward the
ve organic brands were positive ( M
between 3.23 and 3.42). Brand attitude was
somewhat more strongly correlated than
brand knowledge with buying behavior,
except in the case of Rapunzel.
Finally, there were strong positive cor-
relations between brand attitudes among the
ve organic brands ( r between 0.37 0.66).
Model testing
Structural equation modeling was used
to test Hypotheses 1 5. In Amos, a path
analysis was carried out to chart the exp-
ected indirect and direct effects. Table 2
shows the t indices and hypothesized path
most commonly used means by which to
make comparisons across models ( Holbert
and Stephenson, 2002 ). Bentler (1989) has
stated that the ratio between chi-square and
the degrees of freedom should not exceed
ve for models with a good t. Addition-
ally, we used the Goodness-of-Fit Index
( Tanaka and Huba, 1984 ), the Tucker-
Lewis index (TLI) and the root mean
squared error of approximation (RMSEA)
( Browne and Cudeck, 1993 ) as incremental
indices. Several authors recommend using
a value close to 0.95 for GFI and TLI in
combination, to evaluate the model t (for
example, Hu and Bentler, 1999 ). RMSEA
should be close to 0.06 or less to indicate
a good t.
RESULTS
Descriptive statistics
Table 1 shows the means, standard devia-
tions and correlations among the study
variables. In general, respondents did not
Table 1 : Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among study variables ( N =961)
M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
1. Buying behavior 2.45 1.39
2. SI
Env
3.01 0.81 0.45** (0.71)
3. SI
Org
2.59 1.00 0.69** 0.59** (0.86)

Brand knowledge
a

4. Alnatura 0.26** 0.18** 0.28**
5. Demeter 0.32** 0.25** 0.32** 0.39**
6. Edeka bio
wertkost
0.18** 0.16** 0.17** 0.10** 0.02
7. F llhorn 0.21** 0.18** 0.20** 0.28** 0.36** 0.17**
8. Rapunzel 0.34** 0.24** 0.32** 0.31** 0.38** 0.16** 0.32**

Brand attitude
b

9. Alnatura 3.42 1.20 0.28** 0.29** 0.38** 0.48** 0.32** 0.01 0.24** 0.23**
10. Demeter 3.38 1.21 0.41** 0.33** 0.40** 0.31** 0.53** 0.03 0.27** 0.29**
11. Edeka Bio
Wertkost
3.41 1.02 0.28** 0.29** 0.33** 0.11** 0.06 0.35** 0.07 0.09*
12. F llhorn 3.23 1.08 0.25** 0.25** 0.27** 0.21** 0.21** 0.09* 0.40** 0.18**
13. Rapunzel 3.26 1.11 0.29** 0.29** 0.32** 0.29** 0.29** 0.00 0.26** 0.44**

a
No means are reported, answer category was 0 (=unknown) and 1 (=known).

b
Alnatura ( N =488), Demeter ( N =441), Edeka Bio Wertkost ( N =602), F llhorn ( N =499), Rapunzel ( N =413).
Note : * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01; Cronbachs alphas are reported within brackets.
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708
Role of social identity and attitudes toward sustainability brands
703
models for the ve organic brands. All of
the brands showed an acceptable-to-good
model t.
Because a more salient criterion for con-
clusions is comparing several models to
a hypothesized model, we nally tested
the t of alternative (competing) models.
Table 3 shows the alternative models. We
only report the t statistics for the F llhorn
models, as not all the hypotheses were con-
rmed for this brand. The t statistics for
the other brands showed the same trend.
As described, Ashforth and Johnson (2001)
proposed nested and cross-cutting identi-
ties, where low-order identities inuence
higher-order identities. Therefore, Alterna-
tive model I investigated whether social
iden tication with the environmentally
conscious consumer is inuenced by social
identication with the organic consumer,
and as a consequence inuences brand
knowledge, brand attitude and buying
behavior for organic food products. The
models for all ve brands showed poor
model t (see Table 3 ).
Because Hypotheses 2 and 5 were not
accepted for two of the ve brands, several
other models were tested. We used x
2
dif-
ference tests to investigate whether the
competing models had better ts than the
hypothesized model. In Alternative model II ,
we removed the direct effect of SI
Org
on
BK. The models for the ve brands did not
show signicantly better t indices than the
hypothesized model. In Alternative models
III and IV , we tested whether the hypoth-
esized mediation of brand attitude between
brand knowledge and buying behavior was
reasonable. Again, the models for the ve
brands did not show signicantly better t
indices than the hypothesized model (see
Table 3 ).
After testing the alternative models for
the ve organic brands, we concluded that
the proposed model holds. Hypotheses 1,
3 and 4 were conrmed, whereas Hypoth-
eses 2 and 5 were only partly conrmed. T
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Bartels and Hoogendam
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708 704
in agreement with Th gersen and lander,
(2003) , who found modest but signicant
relations between different kinds of envi-
ronmentally friendly behaviors.
In addition to the strong inuence of
identication on behavior, brand knowl-
edge and brand attitudes about specic
organic brands seem to have an effect on
green consumption behavior in general.
The results of our study agree with previous
research (for example, Laroche et al , 1996 ;
Esch et al , 2006 ) that has found that the
inuence of brand knowledge on brand
purchase intention was mediated by con-
sumers attitudes toward a brand. In addi-
tion to earlier studies on branding, the
current study provides evidence that
the role of social identication in brand
knowledge and brand attitude is crucial
in explaining why people buy organic
products. People who identify with the
organic consumer also seem to have
positive associations with organic brands
rather than only with organic food con-
sumption.
Marketing implications
The results from the current study have
several implications for eco-marketing.
Firstly, product branding could be an impor-
tant strategy for increasing the market share
of sustainable products. However, to develop
more effective branding strategies in the
context of green consumerism, insight into
the consumers social context seems to be
crucial. Being identied with organic con-
sumers seems to be a winning proposition
for all of the ve organic brands.
DISCUSSION
Conclusions
One of the main conclusions of the current
study is that consumers awareness of a
social environment plays an important role
in green consumerism. Social identication
with the environmentally conscious con-
sumer had an indirect effect on buying
behavior for organic food products, whereas
identication with the organic consumer
had strong direct and indirect effects on
consumers buying behaviors. The direct
effect of identication on behavior con-
rms earlier studies of organizational and
consumer-company contexts that nd a
strong positive inuence of social identi-
cation on attitudes and group behavior (for
example, Van Knippenberg and Van Schie,
2000 ; Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003 ).
As expected, identication with the
environmentally conscious consumer had a
strong and direct inuence on an individual s
identication with the organic consumer.
These so-called spillover effects only seemed
to be apparent in one direction. People
who are concerned with the environment
also seem to feel more attached to a specic
environmentally friendly beha vior, organic
food consumption. The results of the cur-
rent study are in line with the notion that
people can identify with multiple identities
( Tajfel and Turner, 1979 ). Apparently,
when the perspective is the general con-
sumer, there seems to be some kind of
spillover effect of a broader conceptualiza-
tion of environmentally friendly behavior
on organic consumption behavior. This is
Table 3 : Fit indices of alternative models
H1 Alternative model I: (with SI
o
; SI
e
) For example, F llhorn: x
2
(4)=213.17; x
2
/ df=53.29;
GFI=0.886; TLI=0.269; RMSEA=0.345
H2a Alternative model II: (without SI
o
; BK) For example, F llhorn: x
2

diff
=0.35; df
diff
=1; P =NS
H3 Alternative model III: (without BA ; BB) For example, F llhorn: x
2

diff
=0; df
diff
=1; P =NS
Alternative model V: (with BK ; BB) For example, F llhorn: x
2

diff
=4.65; df
diff
=2; P =NS
2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1350-23IX Journal of Brand Management Vol. 18, 9, 697708
Role of social identity and attitudes toward sustainability brands
705
Marketers could use insights from SIT
to create future market strategies for green
consumerism. For example, marketers can
create lower boundaries for consumers who
currently hardly buy any organic food pro-
ducts (the so-called out-group ), which could
lead to feelings of higher social mobility
toward the organic consumer groups (the
so-called in-group ). The strategy of cre-
ating higher in-group boundaries by
developing specialty shops for specic con-
sumer groups has not seemed to work for
the general public so far. As a consequence,
market share for organic products is still
low. An example of lowering boundaries
for non-organic consumers could be the
use of characteristics of large retail chains
(for example, Edeka in Germany, WalMart
in the United Kingdom or Albert Hein in
the Netherlands). These large retail chains
are more accessible to mainstream con-
sumers. This higher accessibility could
eventually lead to an increased market share
of eco-products. In addition to classical
strategies for food marketing (for example,
pricing and distribution strategies), creating
a certain sense of belonging through com-
munication messages could positively affect
consumers commitments to green brands.
Depending on the target market strategy,
marketers should be aware of the fact that
an organic consumer is more likely to be
an environmentally conscious consumer
as well. Although environmental behavior
is a much broader concept than organic
consumption behavior, there seems to be
some overlap. Positive associations with
environmentally friendly behaviors in gen-
eral could lead to more positive associations
with organic behaviors. This possible
overlap in association could also lower the
boundaries for environmentally conscious
consumers who do not buy organic. In
sum, creating branding strategies that deal
with the social environmental context
could be useful for effective eco-marketing
initiatives.
Limitations and future research
directions
Although we found support for most of our
hypotheses, the current study has some
limitations. We only used organic brands
in a specic country, in which organic food
consumption has already evolved. Because
a fuller understanding of consumer behavior
requires validation in different countries
( Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1998 ), future
research could focus on the knowledge
of and attitudes toward organic brands in
countries that are in different stages of
adopting these organic products.
Furthermore, green consumerism is
broader than organic food consumption.
For example, Th gersen and lander
(2003) suggested that environmental con-
sciousness includes several behavioral cate-
gories (for example, buying green non-food
products, transportation, conservation and
recycling). Although our aim was to gain
more insight into the buying behaviors
concerning organic food, future research
could include more brand-specic variables
in explaining other types of green con-
sumer behaviorism (for example, the buying
behavior in relation to certain green brands)
and focus more on possible spillover effects
of different kinds of green consumerism in
other product categories.
In the current study, the results on brand
knowledge were ambiguous for the dif-
ferent organic brands. Although competing
models did not show a better model, future
research on the inuence of social identi-
cation on branding could focus more on
the multidimensionality of brand knowl-
edge and brand attitudes. In this study, we
only measured cognitive identication.
Although we expected identication to
have a stronger effect on knowledge than
on attitude, the results show the opposite
effect. Future research could therefore
include cognitive, affective and evaluative
aspects of social identication (for example,
Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006 ) to yield a
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APPENDIX
Cognitive visual scale of social
identication
We sometimes strongly identify with a
social group. This occurs when we perceive
a large amount of overlap between our
ideas about who we are as a person and
what we stand for (that is, our self-image)
and our ideas about who this group is and
what it stands for (that is, the consumer
group image). Imagine that the circle at the
left in each row represents your own per-
sonal identity and that the other circle, at
the right, represents the organic food con-
sumer identity. Please indicate which case
(A, B, C, D or E) best describes the level
of overlap between your identity and this
consumer group identity (circle the appro-
priate letter).
Organic food/Environmentally
conscious
My self
A
B
C
D
E
Far apart
Small overlap
Moderate overlap
Large overlap
Complete overlap
Consumer

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