The Effect of Green Marketing on Purchase Intention of Customers to Sports Products with Mediating Role of Brand Image

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of green marketing activities on the purchase intention of customers through brand image. This study was applied in terms of purpose and correlational in terms of strategy. The statistical population consisted of all customers of Majid sports store in Tehran. 172 customers of these stores were selected by simple random sampling. Data were collected using green marketing (with α=0.75, CR=0.83) and the brand image (with α=0.83, CR=0.88) questionnaires of Juwaheer, Pudaruth & Noyaux (2012) and the purchase intention questionnaire (with α=0.83, CR=0.90) of Ko, Hwang and Kim (2013). The content validity, convergent, and divergent of the questionnaires were also confirmed by the experts, the calculation of the mean extracted variance and the cross-factor loadings, respectively. The structural equation modeling was performed using partial least squares method and Smart PLS software. The results showed that green marketing has a positive and significant effect on brand image and purchase intention of customers. Also, brand image significantly affects purchase intention of customers. Furthermore, brand image plays a significant mediator role in the relationship between green marketing and purchase intention of customers. Finally, the calculated indices showed the goodness of fit of the model. In general, it can be concluded that green marketing due to environmentally-friendly activities, can create a positive image of the corporate and its products in the minds of customers and persuade them to purchase.