Who should Communicate to Make the World a Greener Place? Car Brand Loyalty as an Essential Attribute of Pro-Environmental Education

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the socio-economic nature of car brand loyalty. The hypothesis is that brand loyalty is a complex structure with a complicated socio-economic background. Nowadays, massive research is focused mainly on the psychographic background of the brand loyalty phenomenon. However, a socio-economic aspect of consumers is also entering into brand loyalty creation. It is supposed that brands with loyal consumers have more educative strength than brands where brand loyalty is missing. As it is challenging to identify consumers with a psychographic profile suitable for loyal brands, the changes in consumer behaviour are hard to reach. However, if the socio-economic profile of loyal consumers is detected, environmental education can be focused precisely and with higher effectiveness. Some preliminary data have been collected in Slovakia to investigate the socio-economic background of car brand loyalty. To collect these data, a questionnaire survey has been used. It was realised in the last quarter of the year 2021 on the sample of 2035 Slovak inhabitants older than 15 years. Statistical analysis has been provided via a decision tree approach. It has been found that two relevant factors significantly influence brand loyalty-respondents' age and income. Based on these findings, it can be stated that, in general, brands with the higher pro-environmental communication potential in the case of the Slovak Republic are Škoda, Audi and BMW. An approach that includes the strength of pro-environmental orientation of consumers (focusing on age categories) confirms this order. However, in the case of the income perspective, Peugeot's list of car brands should be extended, which has been surprisingly identified as a car brand with the potential to be used widely in the scope of pro-environmental education in specific area’s conditions in the Slovak Republic.