Fuzzy Similarity Used by Micro-Enterprises in Marketing Communication for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present fuzzy reasoning as a formal tool for determining the differences in perception of individual communication channels by customers. These differences in customer perception are important for micro-enterprises to develop an effective green advertising campaign. These kinds of enterprises are not able to conduct their own extensive marketing research or use the service of marketing agencies. Micro-enterprises are the cornerstone for sustainable local economic growth where the community plays an irreplaceable role for sustainable development. Marketing communication is unique and complex because it focuses on feelings, moods, and personal preferences. The main problem is the uncertainty of this input data which makes it difficult to develop effective green advertising campaigns. Fuzzy sets and fuzzy reasoning are used to make verbal descriptions suitable for computer applications. A fuzzy pairwise similarity is used in this paper. The case study has eight relevant variables/marketing communication media, e.g., e-mailing, social networks, web pages, text messaging, newspapers, phone calls, posters and radio, and five segments of respondents selected by age. Each segment is presented as a fuzzy conditional statement. A set of fuzzy pairwise similarities is generated.