Green Marketing Impact on New Customers: Unilever Dissertation

This dissertation investigates the impact of green marketing on acquiring new customers, focusing on Unilever as a case study. It explores the benefits of green marketing, its impact on the consumer goods industry, and how Unilever can implement green marketing strategies to attract new customers. The research employs a quantitative approach, utilizing a questionnaire and frequency distribution analysis to assess consumer perceptions and the effectiveness of Unilever's green marketing efforts. The study concludes with recommendations for Unilever to enhance its green marketing strategies and further improve customer acquisition, emphasizing the importance of sustainability in modern business practices. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments.

Business Management (Top-up)
DISSERTATION
An investigation of the impact of green marketing on
acquiring new customers: A study on Unilever.

Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................3
Background to Research Topic....................................................................................................3
Background to Research Organisation.........................................................................................3
Research Rationale.......................................................................................................................4
Research Questions......................................................................................................................4
Research Aims and Objectives....................................................................................................5
Research Aim: .........................................................................................................................5
Research Objectives: ...............................................................................................................5
Structure of the dissertation.........................................................................................................5
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................7
What are the benefits of green marketing?..................................................................................7
What is the impact of green marketing in the consumer goods industry?...................................8
Increase number of customers by providing and satisfying with green marketing strategies.....9
How can Unilever implement green marketing strategies to acquire new customers?.............11
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................13
DATA ANALYSIS........................................................................................................................17
Frequency Distribution Table....................................................................................................17
Data interpretation.....................................................................................................................19
DISCUSSION................................................................................................................................28
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .........................................................................31
Recommendation.......................................................................................................................31
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................31
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................33
APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................................35
QUESTIONNAIRE...................................................................................................................35

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Background to Research Topic
Green marketing introduces to the practices of creating and advertising products that are
based on their actual environmental sustainability. There are certain examples of green
marketing such as advertising the reduced emissions related with a manufacturing process of
products and the use of post-consumer reprocessed materials for a packaging of products. It is
one element of a wider movement towards environmentally and socially (Chin, Chin and Wong,
2018). Therefore, green marketing is the marketing philosophy, which encourages production
and selling of eco-friendly products or services with proper protection of ecological balance. It is
also known as sustainable marketing and environmental marketing. Along with this, there are
various benefits of having green marketing in business practices that are more profits,
competitive advantages, increased market share, personal rewards and many more (Sharma,
2021). According to the American marketing, green marketing refers to the product’s marketing
that are supposed to be environmentally safe. There are various features of green products such
as originally grown, products are reusable, recyclable and biodegradable, do not harm and
pollute the environment etc.
Background to Research Organisation
Unilever is a selected organisation within a dissertation. It is a British multinational
consumer goods company (Groening, Sarkis and Zhu, 2018). This was founded in 1929 by Lever
Brothers branch: William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme James Darcy Lever Margarine Unie
line: Samuel van den Bergh Johann Schicht. Company is headquartered in London, England etc.
Unilever is specialising in selling and producing food, ice cream, wellbeing vitamins,
condiments, minerals and supplements, tea, coffee, cleaning agents, water and air purifiers,
beauty products, breakfast cereal, pet food, toothpaste and personal care.

Unilever has green marketing for promoting their products to the customers. Unilever uses
competitive pricing strategy with purpose to determine the most appropriate prices of the
products or services. In contrast, the premium pricing strategy includes prices which are higher
them competitions. The Unilever has said that all its United Kingdom operations or production
will be given by 100% renewable energy once signing a deal with Eneco United Kingdom to
develop an innovative wind farm within the Scottish Highlands (Unilever’s going green for the
planet and for its business model, 2017). This goes green to save money as well as appeal to
consumers. Therefore, green marketing is important for FMCG sectors in attracting larger base
of customers within minimum period of time. This turn to helps Unilever by increasing its
profitability and also assist in attainment of competitive advantages in successful manner.
Research Rationale
Main rationale behind conducting this research is to investigate the impact of green
marketing on acquiring new customers in the context of Unilever. This research is important for
several stakeholders that are Unilever, retail industry, students and researcher (Hossain and
Khan, 2018). For retail industry, current research facilitates them in increasing number of
organisations within United Kingdom. For researcher, this research is beneficial for them by
improving their research skills, which are data collection, presentation, decision making and
many more. For students, present study helps them by enhancing their understanding about the
effectiveness of green marketing in acquiring new customers towards specific brand. For
Unilever, this investigation is essential for them by improving their knowledge as green
marketing assist them in increasing number of customers within less time period.
Research Questions
 What are the benefits of green marketing?

 What is the impact of green marketing in the consumer goods industry?
 How can Unilever implement green marketing strategies to acquire new customers?
Research Aims and Objectives
Research Aim:
Main aim of the current dissertation is to investigate the impact of green marketing on
acquiring new customers in the context of Unilever.
Research Objectives:
 To determine the benefits of green marketing strategies
 To identify the impact of green marketing in the consumer goods industry
 To learn how to increase number customers by providing and satisfying with green
marketing strategies
 To assess the ways Unilever can make the green marketing strategies more effective to
acquire new customers.
Structure of the dissertation
There are several factors that will helps in completing full dissertation systematically.
These chapters are described as below;
Chapter 1: Introduction: - This is a first chapter that includes different information such as
overview of the topic, research aim, objectives, questions, rationale and many others. All this
information facilitates in doing next activities that are literature review, methodology etc.
Chapter 2: Literature Review: - This is second chapter that assist in gathering secondary data
from various sources including books, articles, journals and many more (Jia and Wang, 2019).
Main purpose of literature review is to discern the research gap in current study.
Chapter 3: Methodology: - This chapter is effective in gathering data from different types of
methodologies. These are quantitative research, questionnaire, deductive approach,
interpretivisim philosophy etc. All these are effective methods that will help investigator in
achieving research aim and objectives.
Chapter 4: Data analysis: - This is the process of evaluating gathered data from research
analytical tool i.e. frequency distribution analysis (Nedumaran, 2020). This is going to selecting

by researcher for analysing quantitative data. Therefore, this is an essential tool within a
dissertation.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations: - This is a last chapter that assist in concluding
information about all chapters in clear and concise way. In recommendations, some suggestions
are given for enhancing the requirements of topic.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review is defined as the chapter that provides an overview of the published
work in prior times on some specific topic. The term defines to a whole scholarly paper of a
scholarly work like articles and books. Basically, this is the chapter that gathers secondary
information which clearly means piece of information that is being already published by
someone else. This section considers different types of secondary sources such as articles,
magazines, newspapers, journals, books, publications etc. In the dissertation, literature review
holds major importance because it has great piece of information required for attaining
objectives.
What are the benefits of green marketing?
According to Chin, Chin and Wong, (2018), green marketing is referred as a category of
marketing where services and products are promoted according to the different environmental
benefits. In simpler words, it is described as the marketing of eco-friendly goods that are not
harmful for the environment. The green marketing strategies help in producing products by
considering eco-friendly production procedure. Some of the green marketing strategies include:
green pricing, sustainable packaging, sustainable design etc. Some of the benefits of green
marketing strategies include:
Improves credibility: Increased and improved credibility is one of the benefits that is
gained by an organisation. An organisation always requires have an excellent image for drawing
profits for the longer time duration. Unilever has positive vision in the market as it facilitates in
attracting more number of consumers but also attracts more number of business partners who
give value to credibility. The green marketing strategies help in improving the credibility for
organisation and they are the best option to create credibility among customers as well as
business partners.
Long-term growth: Adopting various eco-friendly methods and procedures are very
expensive in the initial days but it is very useful and worth for the long term growth of company.
The strategies of green marketing are quite good for the long term success of Unilever. In the
current times, more and more number of people consider products that are eco-friendly. The
biggest benefits for the company through green marketing strategies is the increase in number of
customers.

More chances for innovation: When Unilever has chosen to adopt green marketing
strategies then company is trying to recreate production procedure and changing raw materials
with eco-friendly materials. This ultimately offers company an opportunity and a chance to
innovate their products. Along with delivering environmental benefits, company could also offer
various benefits to the customers.
More profit: The methods of eco-friendly are quite expensive and hence it is common to
increase the price of products. The customers of Unilever are always ready to pay little extra so
that they can get appropriate quality of product. This also assists in increasing the satisfaction
level of consumers as they are performing their role appropriately in protecting the environment.
Even Unilever has recorded that the initial costs of adopting green marketing methods could be
easily recovered in initial years only.
Offers competitive edge and good for the environment: Every organisation is not an
easy task to turn into eco-friendly company and change their procedures into eco-friendly
procedures. The organisation is able to gain competitive advantages over all those companies if
they opt for the procedures and methods. The last benefit related to the green marketing strategy
is that it gives satisfaction to the customers as well as company. The company is able to leave a
better place for upcoming generations.
What is the impact of green marketing in the consumer goods industry?
According to Gustavo Jr and et. al., (2021), significance of green marketing is that
becoming the world's most environmentally sensitive organisation do not help brand if people
are not aware about it. For gaining benefits of eco-friendly policies or products, there is
requirement for company to market the activities company is operating to the targeted
demographic. It has been identified that green marketing helps Unilever to adopt procedures that
help in advertising and selling of products that are not are not harmful for the environment. The
decision of adopting green marketing strategies are very beneficial for the company especially in
the consumer goods industry because it is direct connected to the customers.
There is positive impact of green marketing in the consumer good industry because it
assists in addressing environmental issues and problems. It also promotes the goods and products
of the organisation at the same time. The green marketing strategy help consumer’s goods
industry to incorporate green marketing in the initiative of corporate social responsibility. The

green marketing has helped consumer good industry to realise the requirement to behave in an
eco-friendlier fashion.
The green marketing helps consumer goods industry to attract large number of customers
towards the company because in this modern time every person wants products from those
company who are taking initiatives for protecting the environment. Everyone in this modern time
is trying to contribute directly or indirectly in saving the environment. So, when consumer goods
industry uses green marketing such as sustainable packaging they contribute in reducing the
usage of plastics. Consumers have also become more aware about decreasing the usage of plastic
packaging so they purchase their goods from those brands only who are avoiding plastic
packaging.
Another positive impact of green marketing in consumer goods industry is that they offer
a particular degree of competitive advantages to businesses. This helps in ranking products and
goods favourably among the consumers. This also aims at selling products and goods at a higher
price than the industrial norms as the customers are willing to pay more for the green products.
The increasing customer concern towards green marketing strategies makes them a very
attractive opportunity for the businesses. The industry could also design new goods and products
for capitalising consumer conscience.
The other biggest positive impact of green marketing on consumer good industry is
reducing harmful wastes. When wastes are reduced it ultimately leads to substantial cost savings.
Sometimes many companies develop symbiotic relationships where by generation of wastes by
one firm is used as cost-effective raw material by other companies. Certain companies use
different green marketing strategies for addressing costs and profits related problems and issues.
Increase number of customers by providing and satisfying with green marketing strategies
According to Harini and et. al., (2020), green marketing mean producing and selling
environment friendly goods and services in order to increase the growth and profitability of
business. Green marketing is important as society is facing lot of threats among food waste,
deforestation, plastic pollution and air pollution. It has a positive impact on the health of people
and cleanliness of environment. Green marketing helps in increasing the number of customer by
reducing negative impact of production on environment and eliminates the use of carbon
footprint. There are few green marketing strategies that must be implemented by organisation in
order to attract more and more customer towards the brand such as sustainable design, green

pricing, sustainable packaging and social responsibility. Company can attract customer by
communicating green message through advertising, promote green aspects of company, initiate
market research, focus on green production and support eco-friendly programs.
Use recycled materials is one of the way through which organisation can maximise the
customer by implementing green marketing strategies. Company must focus on using recycled
materials and reduce the consumption of virgin products. It firm uses recycled materials it
reduces processing and refining of raw materials that creates air and water pollution. The
recycled material also saves energy and minimise the greenhouse gas emissions.
Highlight Eco-Friendly practices is another method through which business can attract
more customer towards the company. If organisation implements eco-friendly practices they
usually use energy efficient office equipment’s, develop in house recycling program and
collaborates with vendors that prioritise sustainability. Customers generally prefer green
products so company must provide relevant information to audience related to practices. The
Eco-friendly products helps in giving wider choice of products and opportunity to select the best
item.
Support environmental initiatives is also a way that helps in increasing the number of
customer. Unilever must also support environmental initiative by creating some special
foundations and charities. They must support environmental initiatives by donating the funds, it
also helps in gaining trust and credibility.
Offer sustainable packaging and pipelines is other method that helps in improving the
customer base. Unilever must choose sustainable packaging in order to attract and retain people
as they prefer plastic free packaging. Organisation must focus on choosing paper packaging
made by recycled materials, consider no packaging, avoid all forms of packaging and form a
partnership with company that helps in sharing the sustainability outlook. The green marketing
strategy helps in switching single use of plastic packaging to more sustainable materials.
Develop green campaign awareness is a green marketing strategy that helps in
increasing the number of customer. Unilever must promote their company based in green efforts
by collaborating with other companies, avoiding all forms of print based marketing, social media
promotions for green awareness and press releases for supporting green causes. Through green
campaign awareness customer can get aware about their green marketing practices which also
improves the sale and profitability of business.

How can Unilever implement green marketing strategies to acquire new customers?
According to Hossain and Khan, (2018), today many businesses are switching towards
green marketing approach with the motive of minimising the carbon footprint. In this modern
time, people are interested towards buying products that are sustainable in nature. So, Unilever
has also focused on adopting different green marketing strategies such as targeting eco-friendly
suppliers, producing with sustainability in mind, using renewable resources and materials. The
best eco-friendly ways to promote and market businesses is by initiating from the roots. Unilever
adapt simple eco-friendly procedures and methods and company makes sure to inform about
their existing as well as new customers. Some of the ways to implement green marketing
strategies to acquire new customers are:
Make sure it is appropriate or right: One of the first steps included in the ways of green
marketing strategy is making sure it is right for the company or not. While forming different
green marketing strategies Unilever has to evaluate whether going green is right for their success
of business or not. If Unilever is adopting green marketing just to become part of it then they
would not be able to reap the rewards from this method. Unilever can adopt green marketing
after reflecting the pros and cons for making sure it aligns with their products and goods.
Promoting transparency internally: Green marketing initiates within the organisation.
Before convincing the world how green the Unilever is, the company has to prove it to staff,
community and suppliers. Unilever has to be transparent with itself as well as with the staff
related to workforces, supplies and materials are coming from.
Green marketing by eco-friendly events: While promoting events of Unilever, the company
makes sure that to eliminate single-use of plastics. There are organisations such as International
Standards Organisation which have implemented ISO 20121 ACT that needs organisers for
reducing its environmental effect during events.
Creating eco-friendly green marketing campaign: In this modern world, creating and
developing campaigns are very easier. Social media trends help Unilever in showcasing their
products on different platforms of social media with the information of raw materials used.
These ways are very effective in acquiring larger number of customers for the company
as they help in promoting green marketing strategies. Green marketing strategies in this modern
time holds greater importance because it facilitates in protecting environment. This ultimately
has positive effect on the satisfaction of customers because now people are concerned about the

protection of environment. All these ways attract customers to buy products from the Unilever
because they are constantly working to protect environment.