Research of Mass-Media Activity for the Development of Consumers Segment Sensitive to Ecological Attributes of Goods and Services in Russia

Abstract

Nowadays, we can conclude that Russian mass-media are so active in informing customers about ecology and ecological problems. The environmental concern grows simultaneously with active discussion of it in Russian mass media, and this trend will spread in the future. Mass media activities are consequences of environmental concern urgency for Russian citizens now. Furthermore, they take a significant part in the promotion of it. This paper investigates how the environmental impacts change the Russian society, the role and contribution of Russian mass-media in this process, and how marketing practitioners might take an advantage created by these changes. The author earlier research made it possible to determine the group of environmentally-engaged people. They are the group of Russian population with high purchasing power. People aged from 36 to 54 years with a higher education, with high and average level of the income, inhabitants of large cities including Moscow. Unfortunately, it does not allow to say with confidence, that the stated concern is in the “active” form and will influence consumer behaviour. Therefore the author suggests to use mass-media as the indicator of the attitudes to the environment in Russian society. At the first phase of investigation the author determined key word-combinations to identify mentions of environmental problems in archives of mass-media. To did this, the method of “in-depth interviews” was used. The following key word-combinations were recognized: “global warming”, “global cold snap”, “greenhouse gases” and “ecological catastrophe”. At the second phase of investigation the most powerful Russian television channels and press (newspapers, magazines) were chosen. As criteria of a choice were the AIR (size of the mass media audience) and presence of electronic archive. The secondary data of electronic archives of the selected mass-media were explored from 01.01.2000 till 31.07.2010. The author set search by key word-combinations and the results of search were processed and analysed. Thereupon the Internet search engines Google, Rambler and Yandex were explored to research deeply the environmental concern of Russian citizens. The research results have demonstrated an increase in mentions for last 10 years. The mass-media activity has recently increased dozens and hundreds times. The most significant growth has been observed in television and magazines. The most considerable changes and increase have been detected for such word-combinations as “global warming” and “greenhouse gases”. The rate of mention was 71 times more in 2009 than in 2000. These two word-combinations have given more than 70 % of all key word-combinations mentions. Therefore the government decisions, goods and services that will able to improve the situation with these environmental problems will meet response in Russian society, and will be in demand. The Google and two Russian Internet search engines Rambler and Yandex were explored. Rambler and Yandex are the most popular search engines in Russia. Research limitations were only Russia, time period from 01.01.2000 till 31.07.2010. The significant increase of mentions have been observed. Both search engines Rambler and Yandex have given the same data. There were hundreds in 2000, but hundreds of thousands in 2010. We have checked in 1,8 times more mentions in the first seven months of 2010 than in the whole 2009. The mentions of key word- combinations in Russian segment of Google were not so revealing than ones in Rambler and Yandex. The research results do allow us to make conclusion, that there are gender differences in environmental concern. Women are more sensitive to environmental impacts than men. Furthermore, women face inexorable pressure of the mass media. The mentions of the key word-combinations are found about two times more often in women’s magazines than in men’s ones. Some key word-combinations have been detected in 5 to 6 times often in magazines with female dominance in AIR than in ones with male dominance in AIR. This fact creates a new opportunity to develop marketing strategy and to offer the goods and services for women. We can suggest that women will be able to be the first consumers of ecological or green products, and the opinion leaders who will offer advice or information about the environmentally friendly products. The trends that have been observed in Russia open the new opportunities for differentiation. They are the first step of consumers to take into account the ecological attributes in their purchase decisions