Green brand equity becomes increasingly important in green marketing. Increased green brand equity may promote customer's purchasing behavior. This paper investigates the relationship between green brand equity and its driving forces, namely, green trust, green brand image and green satisfaction. The study uses a questionnaire-based survey to obtain data from university students who had some experience of purchasing green items in Ho Chi Minh City. A structural equation modeling approach is used to confirm the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that green trust and green brand image positively affected green brand equity. Moreover, the association between green brand equity and green brand image is partially mediated by green trust. It is also found that the association between green brand equity and green satisfaction was partially mediated by green trust. Thus, activities to promote green trust, green satisfaction, and green brand image are useful in improving green brand equity.

A compelling question that constantly arises in our society today is “How do we build a healthy brand that is closely associated with environmental activities?” Enhancing green brand equity is among the answers. This article integrates consumer environmental values with brand knowledge and brand relationships to arrive at an integrated view of how green brand equity can be maximized. Our research employs a questionnaire-based survey to collect data from consumers of electronics products in Ho Chi Minh City using a cluster sampling method. A structural equation modeling method was used to validate the hypothetical relationships. Our analysis suggests that (a) attitudes toward green products and the environmental concern affect consumer’s associations with the green brand, followed by green brand equity and (b) an eco-friendly image and trust in the brand’s green commitments drive a competent green brand. Our article broadens the current understanding of green consumers’ behavior by providing a theoretical model that investigates the associations between brand relationships and consumers’ personal motives which are closely connected with green brand management. Altogether, this study presents a broad picture of green branding mechanisms.

This work examines the impact of greenwash on green brand equity and analyses the mediation effects of green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust as well as the moderating effect of information and knowledge based on the legitimacy theory and signalling theory. This study adopts a questionnaire-based survey design to gather data from 445 respondents using a cluster random sampling technique. Data collection focuses on Vietnamese consumers who had purchased electronic products in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The findings show that although greenwash is not significantly related to green brand equity possibly due to the halo effect, greenwash is adversely related to green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust, which would positively influence green brand equity. In other words, green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust play a full mediation role in the relationship between greenwash and green brand equity. In addition, information and knowledge actually moderate the relationship between greenwash and green brand equity, and it strengthens the adverse relationship between greenwash and green brand equity. This research is the first to combine green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust as mediators to shed light on the understanding of different impact mechanisms in the greenwash-green brand equity relationship. Furthermore, this research is also the first to study information and knowledge as a moderator in the greenwash-green brand equity relationship. This provides a better insight into the process and context by which greenwash affects green brand equity. Taken together, the findings of this study extend and advance the understanding regarding the different mechanisms and the dynamics in which green brand image, green satisfaction, green trust as mediators and information and knowledge as a moderator can play in the emerging market context of consumers of electronic products in Vietnam. The findings enrich the growing body of green marketing literature and contribute significantly towards a unified theory of brand equity.

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