The Effect of Renewable Energy Marketing Techniques on Different Age Brackets

Abstract

Renewable energy technologies are often seen as one of the most useful solution to the issue of climate change. Hamilton, Hartter, and Bell (2019) conducted a study where participants of various ages were surveyed about their opinions and attitudes towards renewable energy. They found that there was a difference between how younger and older people perceived renewable energy and other related technologies. There is also extensive research into how different appeals people’s perception of a product in advertising. This study combines the two to investigate how age impacted the effectiveness of various commercial types regarding renewable energy. A Posttest-only control group, experimental design was used to conduct this study. A survey was modeled from various related experiments and given to participants from five different age groups. A one-way ANOVA test was run for the numerical results of each of the age groups in the survey. The p-Value for age group one was determined to be statistically significant at p<0.05 and a null hypothesis was rejected. This, along with anecdotal responses from participants, was used to draw three conclusions. People in the first age group are concerned with the environmental benefits of renewable energy technologies, but are more concerned with their implementation into society. Participants across most of the age groups are concerned with the cost of renewable energy technologies. Finally, the participants believed that the individual situation of the installer should determine if they should invest in renewable energy technologies.

            Keywords: renewable energy, marketing, advertising, age groups, perception