Eco Innovations in Slovakia and Their Marketing Communication

Abstract

The paper deals with measuring eco innovations and their communication from two main viewpoints. The first one refers to the standpoint of Slovak businesses towards the implemented eco innovations of their products while the second one describes the impact of product innovations on consumers purchasing behaviour. The first research we carried out by way of the questionnaire in course of three years (2012 to 2014) helped us to find out that all businesses having implemented their ecological innovations behave in a sustainable manner. When promoting eco innovations, they mainly make use of on-line communication, direct marketing or public relations while emphasizing environmental labelling of their eco-products. It is worth noting that they use only one communication tool, which may be considered as a gap and therefore, we assume businesses should pay more attention to implementing a larger set of tools. In the second research, which we carried out in the year 2014, we used the questionnaire to reveal what is the influence of eco innovations of products on purchasing behaviour of customers. When evaluating the results, we discovered that Slovak respondents were aware of the products with environmental labelling. However, they show objections regarding their labelling on a product package. They also stated a low level of information, insufficient communication in the media, print or on-line communication channels. One of the solutions may be combining classic forms of marketing communication with the digital ones which are considered as more ecological and environmentally-friendly. Index Terms eco innovations, environmental labelling of products, marketing communication, business, consumer