HORTSCIENCE 45(8):1226–1231. 2010.Branding Awareness andWillingness-to-pay Associatedwith the Texas Superstaräand Earth-Kindä Brandsin TexasAlba J. Collart1,3Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, 458BBlocker Building, College Station, TX 77843-2124Marco A. PalmaDepartment of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, 458 BlockerBuilding, 2124 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843-2124Charles R. Hall2Department of Horticultural Sciences and Holder of the Ellison Chair inInternational Floriculture, 2133 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-2133Additional index words. brand recognition, price premium, consumer preferences, greenindustry, ornamentalsAbstract. The environmental horticulture industry, also known as the Green Industry, isthe second most important sector in the U.S. agricultural economy in terms of economicoutput and one of the fastest growing segments of agriculture; however, it has shiftedfrom an average annual growth of 13.6% in the 1970s to an annual growth of less than3% in the 2000s, which suggests the industry is facing a maturing marketplace. As aneffort to help the industry stimulate demand, Texas A&M AgriLife developed the TexasSuperstarä and Earth-Kindä brands. The aims of these plant promotion programs areto increase the demand for selected horticultural products, raise awareness amongconsumers of Texas-grown plant material, promote environmental responsibility, andincrease producers’ profitability by providing branding price premiums. Despite theconsiderable investments on research and marketing done thus far, no research hasinvestigated the effectiveness of these branding efforts in terms of consumer behavior.This article evaluates brand awareness and willingness-to-pay for these two brands inTexas. The discrete choice models used were the Logit and Probit models on brandawareness and the Tobit model on the conditional willingness-to-pay. Results from thisstudy show that consumer awareness of Texas Superstarä and Earth-Kindä in Texas islow, but the level of satisfaction among consumers is high. Furthermore, profiles of theconsumers’ behavioral and demographic characteristics that are more likely to influencebrand awareness and willingness-to-pay were identified. The findings suggest thatconsumers who shop weekly or monthly for ornamental plants are more likely to beaware of programs such as Texas Superstarä and Earth-Kindä. Also, those who live inSouth Texas were more likely to exhibit awareness of Earth-Kindä. Consumers whoshopped for self-consumption purposes were willing to pay a discounted price for TexasSuperstarä and Earth-Kindä plants compared with unbranded plants and those whowere previously aware of the brands were willing to pay more. The two brands wereeffective in differentiating their products and thus creating price premiums. It wasestimated that the willingness-to-pay for Earth-Kindä and Texas Superstarä for theaverage respondent was 10% higher than the willingness-to-pay for an unbranded plant.The U.S. green industry produced aneconomic impact of $147.8 billion in output,$95.1 billion in value-added, $64.3 billion inlabor income and generated 1.9 million jobsin 2002 (Hall et al., 2006). The impact of thisindustry in the U.S. economy is substantial asreflected on these economic indicators aswell as on positive growth rates even duringrecessionary periods, yet it has experienceda gradual slowdown in growth in the pastyears (Hall et al., 2006). Floriculture andnursery crops average annual growth ratedecreased from 13.6% in the 1970s to anaverage growth of 9.9% per year in the 1980sto 2.9% in the 2000s, which may suggestthat the market is maturing with an annualgrowth of less than 5% annually (Hall, 2008).As markets mature, consumers are moredemanding and competition is more intense.To remain competitive, producers need tobecome low-cost operators, increase customervalue, or to differentiate in some way. In re-cent years, several brands have been estab-lished in the green industry (e.g., Sygentaflowers, Proven Winnersä, Novalisä Plantsthat Workä, Garden Splendorä), and severalstates have developed state-sponsored brands(e.g., Oklahoma Proven, Louisiana Select,Oregon Grown, Florida Plants of the Year)as a strategy to stimulate a saturated demandand increase profit margins.The Texas green industry ranks third na-tionally in terms of output, value-added, andemployment economic impacts. Palma andHall (2009) estimated that in 2007, Texasproduced $13.5 billion in output, $7.6 billionin value-added, and 157,990 jobs. Given theeconomic impacts of Texas’ green industry inthe U.S. economy and to support Texas pro-ducers’ competitiveness, the Texas A&MUniversity Agricultural Program in conjunc-tion with other state and private collaboratorsstarted developing in 1989 the Texas Super-starä program and in 1996 the Earth-Kindärose program. Both of these promotional andeducational programs have been in the mar-ket for years now, and although substantialinvestments in research and marketing stillneed to be done by horticultural scientists,producers, sellers, and other partners to iden-tify promising plant material, overcome pro-duction problems, and maintain credibility inthe marketplace, no research has focused onanalyzing consumer response with respect tothese promotional/educational programs. Se-lected indicators of consumer awareness (i.e.,sales statistics) have been recorded, but noemphasis has been given to consumers’ brandawareness determinants and the consumers’willingness-to-pay (WTP) for Texas Super-starä and Earth-Kindä plant materials.Research regarding the effects of brandawareness on consumer choice has shownthat brand awareness precedes the develop-ment of concepts such as brand preference(Alreck and Settle, 1999), brand equity (Aaker,1996), and brand attitude (Rossiter and Percy,1987). Govindasamy et al. (1998) used a dis-crete choice model to measure the successof the Jersey Fresh Program (JFP), a state-sponsored marketing program in New Jersey,in terms of the program’s awareness.As a resultof the econometric analysis, the authors wereable to provide a comprehensive study of theconsumers’ behavioral attitudes and demo-graphic profiles. The results of this studyshowed the program was highly effective withawareness levels of 77%, and contrary toexpectations, they found a significant negativerelationship between older age groups andawareness of the JFP, which suggested theprogram was