Implications
This study has shown that ecologically oriented
consumers are more likely to form intentions to
consume organic food, thus making them a
natural target for organic food marketers.
Consumers who are concerned with fair trade
and human rights may be another important
segment.
The results suggest that marketers of organic
products may appeal to two levels in the belief
hierarchy in their communications: the ethical
belief level or the attitude level (based on
product attributes). This means that the
demand of organic products may be enhanced
either by appealing to general ethical and
ecological beliefs or by appealing to the
attitudinal beliefs based on the attributes of
organic products. Also, one could appeal to the
potential advantages of consuming organic
products. Global values, which were not
measured in our model, may be an additional
level in the belief hierarchy that can be
appealed to in marketing (Vinson et al.,
1977). Dreezens et al. (2005) found that
universalism values had an impact on attitudes