Factors influencing fashion in marketing
1)
social-economic class
A wide diffusion of wealth and an increase in family income is one of the factors in speeding
up the changing styles and clothing patterns. Nowadays, there are families who have excess
amount of money needed for the bare necessities of their life. According to the Kiran, Riaz,
and Malik, (2002), another factor which influenced the changing style is when the middle
class always tries to imitate the higher class, which the higher class is always changing their
styles that stand out from the middle class. The survey conducted by researchers indicated
that people believed this factor is responsible for any changes in fashion trends. It shows 88%
of respondents were from the middle class agreed, while the higher income had 10% and only
2% from the lower income. 26% from all respondents said that the major factor is economic
status. Moreover, people can be judges through how they dressing, what kind clothes they
were wearing and how they showing their fashion styles. McDermott et al. (2011) conducted
a study with two female participants. One was wearing a sweatshirt with an Abercrombie &
Fitch logo while the other one was wearing a sweatshirt K-mart logo. Both of them took their
pictures and passed them out to college students. Most students believed that the higher
socio-economic status was the female wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch logo than the female
with the K-mart logo. The research concluded that most people evaluate others by looking
what clothes they wear (McDermott et al., 2011). An individual which is wearing designer
clothes or famous brands will evaluates as a person with higher socio-economic, and vice
versa. Customer preferable on branding product will encourage marketer to focus on the
branding development on a certain product which is more expensive but high in quality.
Nowadays, ordinary people always try to imitate the styles of their favourite figures such as
celebrities and sports star. There are also individual who spend their bills just to look exactly
like their favourite figure.
2)
Celebrities
Nowadays, one of the most influential industries is the world of fashion. If a company wants
to expose the word about new product, they need to try hard to get the product in the hands of
opinion leaders who bring goods to the product by having special knowledge about it. The
role of opinion leaders which can directly affects the innovation spreading by promoting new
product interest as well as trial are important for a marketer. For the fashion industry,
celebrities can be named as opinion leaders, which through them interpersonal
communication about latest fashions are facilitated (Spolter & Thakkar, 2011). Celebrities
showing off their individuality by wearing clothes that reflects their personality and style.
Research conducted by Spolter and Thakkar (2011), their respondent says that celebrities
want to stand out from each other and from the rest of us, thus they do not have to worry
what others will think they are crazy for trying something new. Street wear or luxury fashion,
what are the celebrities wear will always praised and greatly appreciated since it could
become the next trend. A lot of styles worn by celebrities have greatly influenced the world
of fashion. Another respondent stated that after watching an award show, she will spent the
next few weeks taking with her friends about what all the celebrities were wearing, and they
will go shopping and try to find similar things for themselves Spolter and Thakkar (2011).
This shows why celebrity clothing has become a trend because clothes look great on them,
and normal person want to look fabulous wearing them. This will have a great impact on the
sales for the designer’s brand the celebrity is wearing. From the designer’s shoes, bags to a
stylish dress people will give their best efforts to have their favorite celebrity’s look. There
are also some people who will go to the extent of copying celebrity looks they saw in
magazines, which is now very popular among ordinary people.
3)
Cultures
Each country has its own culture. Culture is the sign of unique of particular ethnicity that can
differentiate their lifestyles with others. According to John Storey (1997), culture can be
defined as “how we live nature and it is the shared meanings we make and encounter in our
lives.” Culture also can be defined as the system include beliefs, performance, rituals,
lifestyle patterns, art forms, symbols, language, clothing, music, dance and other mode of
human expressive, intellectual and communicative behaviour that is associated with a society
during a particular time period (Danasi, 2008). Trends and lifestyle are strongly influenced by
social-cultural changes. We believed that the cultures from all around the world are
associated with fashion and individual lifestyle. People now easily affected by new comer,
which is they want to try something new in their life especially the teenagers. Generally,
people are interested to the particular culture which they seen it specialize on their eyes. They
will try to develop or imitate the culture on themselves. So, trend analysis will look through
the customer lifestyles and culture as the framework in understanding and interpreting the
fashion changes. One of the main sources of culture affecting the fashion trend is popular or
pop culture. Pop culture defined as mass culture (Storey 1997). Pop culture has strong
influence which is they can be easily accepted, followed and appreciated by a huge amount of
audience. According to Francesca, Tsz Yankong (2013), fashion was becoming more popular
in 1970. The western popular culture influenced the local pop star in Hong Kong in terms of
dressing such as the local pop star like Sam Hui, who was dressing like Beatles. One of the
big influence culture in the world is Korean popular culture. It accepted by many countries
such as Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam, and Philiphines. For example, demand of Korean product
such as fashion is growing in Vietnam (West, 2008).
4)
Media
Media also one of the most influencing factor in fashion marketing. Media is a powerful tool
in which can be used to spread information faster and efficiently. In order to gain new
information from variety of resources people will try their hard to be alert with their
surroundings at all cost. In the fashion world, media will be the best platform for designers
and marketers to approach their target customer to purchase their brand. The marketer often
using the media in advertising their products, hoping that their target customer will aware of
the existence of their product in the marketing world. Many fashion designers fighting for
pages in famous magazine and runway space for fashion across the world. Models whose
figure the designer clothes in magazine will be seen by readers, this will give a great impact
towards the brand development. And designers who love creating couture designs for their
celebrity friends, it is vice versa celebrities’ dawn the newest creations and push the sales for
designers too. Especially, their celebrity friends appear in an award show on television which
watched by thousand or more viewers. According to Francesca and Yan (2011), television is
the most popular and influential medium in the world since 1980s. Nowadays, almost every
household across the world own television, a person can easily watch fashion related show on
TV at home and will absolutely carefully watched their favorite celebrity newest style. Seeing
their favorite celebrity styles on television might influence one’s decision in purchasing
certain brands product. Nevertheless, social media also useful in fashion industry. The social
media slowly becomes the primary platform in marketing strategies. Internet user in the
world has reached 2.27 billion in 2012, increasing more than 200 percent since 2000 (Internet
World Status, 2012). Social media such as blogs, pins and boards, networking sites and
traditional advertising have cause the businesses to change their marketing strategies. Social
media has opened access to new potential buyers, expanded access to information about
fashion and provided numerous new outlets for advertising.