TYPES OF CONSUMERS ACCORDING TO THEIR PERCEPTIONS OF BRANDS’ ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS IN BRAND COMMUNICATIONS

The article presents the results of the research on the peculiarities of Ukrainian consumers' perception of brands' environmental friendliness in brand communications. Brand communications are a set of specific actions in social interaction process (interpersonal, intergroup, mass-scale) that affect the opinions, motives, attitudes and behaviour of consumers towards certain companies, their products and (or) services. The result of brand communications is the image of a brand as a social object. The effectiveness of brand communications results in the formation of consumers' loyalty as an attitude, which is developed dynamically and motivates individuals to buy and consume a certain product (service). There have been presented the results of empirical research that outline the types of consumers according to their perception of brands' environmental friendliness in brand communications. Besides, there have been identified statistically significant differences in categorization of consumer types, depending on a number of socio-demographic and professional factors; the impact of brand equity on loyalty as a socio-psychological mechanism of effective brand communication for food products. The prospects of further studies involve the determination of psychosocial mechanisms and factors of effective brand communications, theoretical justification, development and testing of social and psychological training programs for future managers, marketing specialists, advertising sector employees aimed at developing brand communications skills.