Exploring the Role of Advertising Types on Improving the Water Consumption Behavior: An Application of Integrated Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy VIKOR Method

In recent years, many cities have suffered from a shortage of drinking water, mainly due to population growth. Hence, the desire to curb undue water consumption through the identification of the main factors affecting consumer behavior has become very important in managing drinking water supplies. Modifying the consumption pattern means institutionalizing of a sustainable culture in water consumption among consumers and the identification of the main criteria affecting their behavior. In 2018, a survey was applied to examine the role of mass media advertising in modifying the water consumption pattern in Iran. An integration of fuzzy AHP and fuzzy VIKOR was proposed based on group decision making, and fuzzy trapezoidal sets used to model linguistic variables and to deal with uncertainty in opinions. We devised and conducted a questionnaire with 24 main criteria and 8 sub-criteria to measure the impact of advertising on water consumption. The case study population in this study included all urban households over 15 cities of Iran. A total of 5630 questionnaires were distributed among the various populations with cluster method. Then, by analyzing the results, advertisements using animation had the highest impact on consumer behavior, among the available alternatives, and could play a significant role in modifying the water consumption pattern. Additionally, a fuzzy evaluation technique is performed to validate the result of the applied method. Subsequently, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to validate the stability of the final ranking. Finally, the prioritization results of the types of advertising by the proposed method were compared with the results of the fuzzy AHP method.