Fashion trends arise and die, making society value sustainable advertisements. Indeed, the advertisements make the society gain characteristic beliefs and cultures that have evolved to fit in new trends. The nature of changes in the fashion industry cannot be projected with ambitions because they are evocatively designed to fit in the refreshing concepts upheld by society to appreciate intuitiveness. To most people, changing a fashion reduces dissonance and adds on a better expression of oneself. Sustainable campaigns can be supported theoretically using social agendas that lure the aesthetic experiences that give rise to changes in fashion all the time. The paper discusses how sustainable campaigns change consumer fashion choices when buying t-shirts based on brand preferences and other shopping behaviors.
Theory
The success of a single fashion trend lies in the transferable aspects of the social stature. The appearance of an individual in a society transmits signals about values and lifestyle. Under this consideration, fashion plays a significant role when projecting images of people’s feelings and emotional experiences (Puzakova & Aggarwal, 2018). As the desire to fit into society is universal, individuals often attempt to demonstrate social belonging through purchasing clothing items that correlate with the latest trends (Puzakova & Aggarwal, 2018). In today’s world, ecologically-friendly fashion is considered highly progressive, and a significant amount of pressure is elicited by the social expectations to preserve natural resources (Jacob et al., 2020). Following this idea, both sustainable campaigns and social attitudes contribute to the individuals’ choices in buying ecologically-responsible clothing items.
Hypothetically, fashion is a social sign of responsibility with the potential to garner positive perceptions. In this view, saving natural resources by acquiring a fashion product produced through sustainable strategies is believed to be a means of discipline (Jacob et al., 2020). However, the quality of the product also occupies a crucial position in the decision-making process, and the customer might decide against sustainable purchasing if the item’s quality is too low (Khare & Kautish, 2020). Thus, the pressure elicited by sustainable marketing strategy and the societal perspective on ecologically-friendly purchases might alter the buyers’ shopping behaviors. In this regard, the first hypothesis for this study is that consumers who had watched the sustainable campaign will shift their perspectives towards purchasing sustainable fashion products, becoming more likely to buy sustainable t-shirts. The second hypothesis suggests that the quality perception will mediate the relationship between the sustainable campaign’s impact and social pressure, mitigating the pressure to buy ecologically-friendly products.
Results
Based on social structures, the arousal and attention of consumers to use a given product serve as a symbolic reality of fascination or appraisal. Precisely, sustainable campaigns are responsible for 76% purchased done by new and existing customers (Bodur et al., 2016). Most people tend to buy branded t-shirts at higher costs than unbranded ones, and a similar tendency can be observed with ecologically-friendly items (Johnson, 2012). Therefore, it is expected that the participants who have been exposed to the sustainable campaign presentation will be more interested in buying ecologically-friendly clothing. Furthermore, it is also anticipated that the marketing strategies will act as a factor that strengthens the pressure to be ecologically responsible, promoting sustainable choice in the respondent. In contrast, individuals who have not observed the campaign are expected to be less interested in sustainable t-shirts. The expected connections between the analyzed phenomena are presented in Figure 1.
The planned analysis for this statistics engages reviews on renowned t-shirt brands like Zara, Mango, and Massimo studied in premeditated events and occasions. The habitual behavior of the consumers can be used to statistically determine why consumers buy more t-shirts even when the prices increase or lower the quality of fabrics used (Meder et al., 2018). As such, the ANOVA statistical test, commonly used in a between-subjects design, will be conducted to explore the differences between the experimental and control groups (White, 2019). This approach focuses on distinguishing the significance between the null and alternate hypotheses, which is highly useful when ascertaining the distinctions between participant groups. Therefore, this method perfectly suits the current study, and the data obtained from the respondents will be used to create an ANOVA model.
Discussion
Reflections on how sustainable campaigns affect customers’ choice of buying t-shirts show that demand arises from the conceptual connection between adverts and personal goals. Ensuring that consumers buy t-shirts from ecologically-friendly companies requires sustainable campaigns aligned with the target customers’ status and reputation (Dhaliwal et al., 2020). In this regard, the expected results of this study might contribute to understanding how sustainable campaigns impact consumers and shift their behavior. Furthermore, these findings might shed light on the relationship between sustainable campaigns and consumer behavior, explaining how these marketing strategies influence the public and creating further theoretical suggestions. If the mediating role of social pressure and the moderating role of items’ quality is proven in this research, it becomes possible to adjust the ecologically-friendly campaigns to better fit the buyers’ expectations.
The null result in this research is that people use t-shirts because they carry a wide range of ideological meanings. Ideally, this factor is relevant to the consumers as it determines their identity and lifestyle choices. However, there are minimal parameters to measure and determine the set standards of each consumer based on unknown values and emotional expectations (Khare & Kautish, 2020). Additionally, there is no defined way experts can statistically calculate the influence of contemporary issues on consumer behaviors (Griskevicius et al., 2010). Future research should focus on determining the influence of social norms, desirability, and identities on habit formation.
References
Bodur, H. O., Tofighi, M., & Grohmann, B. (2016). When should private label brands endorse ethical attributes? Journal of Retailing, 92(2), 204-217.
Dhaliwal, A., Singh, D. P., & Paul, J. (2020). The consumer behavior of luxury goods: A review and research agenda. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 1-27.
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., & Van den Bergh, B. (2010). Going green to be seen: Status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(3), 392–404.
Jacob, I., Khanna, M., & Rai, K. A. (2020). Attribution analysis of luxury brands: An investigation into consumer-brand congruence through conspicuous consumption. Journal of Business Research, 116, 597-607.
Johnson, E. J., Shu, S. B., Dellaert, B. G., Fox, C., Goldstein, D. G., Häubl, G., Larrick, R. P., Payne, J. W., Peters, E., Schkade, D., Wansink, B., & Weber, E. U. (2012). Beyond nudges: Tools of a choice architecture. Marketing Letters, 23(2), 487-504. Web.
Khare, A., & Kautish, P. (2020). Cosmopolitanism, self-identity, online communities, and green apparel perception. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 39(1), 91–108.
Meder, B., Fleischhut, N., & Osman, M. (2018). Beyond the confines of choice architecture: a critical analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 68, 36-44.
Puzakova, M., & Aggarwal, P. (2018). Brands as rivals: Consumer pursuit of distinctiveness and the role of brand anthropomorphism. Journal of Consumer Research, 45(4), 869-888.
White, K., Habib, R., & Hardisty, D. J. (2019). How to SHIFT consumer behaviors to be more sustainable: A literature review and guiding framework. Journal of Marketing, 83(3), 22-49.