PRICE AS AN INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION TOOL IN PROMOTING THE CONSUMPTION OF SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS

There are favourable conditions for the development of sustainable marketing in Latvia. In order to take advantage of this, businesses need to conduct market research on the need and demand for sustainable products and draw up a marketing strategy encompassing all the marketing mix elements serving the People, Planet, and Profit. Businesses need to create a well-thought approach, a sustainable product assortment and promotion and selling activities in line with sustainability conditions. The consumers of nowadays are very sensitive to any price changes, and businesses may use price changes as an IMC (integrated marketing communication) tool in communication with their consumers to help not only sell or promote new products, but also boost the sales of healthy, ecological, domestic manufactured products. The goal of the research is to study and assess the role of price as an integrated marketing communication tool for sustainability in the context of demand. The subject of the research is price as a set of IMC tools, and the object of research are the price tools for the sustainable development of food retail chains. In order to accomplish the goal and objectives of the research, the author used the results of previous studies and the following quantitative and qualitative methods of economic research: survey, comparison, and grouping. The research is based on scientific papers published by Latvian and foreign scholars, general and scientific literature, and periodicals. Within the research there an assessment was conducted, a market investigation, a comparative analysis, as well as a survey of leading specialists from Latvian food retail chains, with the MS Excel software used for data processing and analysis. The research confirmed the hypothesis that price changes as an IMC tool and the use therefore may positively affect the buyer's market behaviour and foster the consumption of sustainable, ecological, domestic manufactured products. The results of the research are of both theoretical and practical value.