Fashion Branding

The objective of this research is to gain better understanding on the role of the concept stores as a strategic brand management instrument of the luxury and premium fashion firms in the European context. The research objective is approached first from a theoretical perspective by reviewing the existing academic literature on the subject. The empirical primary data was mainly collected through interviewing the key informants on the case study of Hanna Sarèn/Ultimate Design Oy. The analysis unit is the company-owned, European mono brand store.
The research findings confirm that the concept store of the luxury fashion firm has a powerful role as an enhancer of the brand image by building credibility and prestige to the brand. The use of the concept stores for regulating the cash flows and gaining better margins in relation to the other distribution channels is not acknowledged on the current academic literature on subject, while this was the case in regard to the case brand. Furthermore, the research aims to explain the use of the concept store as developing the brand experience. In addition, the research aim to contribute to the conceptualisation of the luxury and the luxury fashion brands.

Sur la base des théories de la sociologie de consommation, cet article vise à conceptualiser la construction de
l'image de marque dans l'industrie de la mode et du luxe, un domaine qui a considérablement augmenté, en tant
qu’un transfert de la signification culturelle. Une analyse de contenu est basée sur les informations sélectionnées
liées à ce sujet de la part de différentes ressources. En regardant la façon dont les marques sont représentées
dans la littérature publicitaire et comment les significations culturelles se déplacent à travers la communication,
l'article tente de répondre aux questions suivantes: Pourquoi et comment un branding est efficace. Enfin, il est
expliqué qu’à travers des moyens directe (publicité) et indirecte (système de la mode), une marque réussi à
construire sa signification culturelle et traduire le sens de la culture de consommation à sa propre image avec
l’identité et la personnalité. Par la suite, les consommateurs finissent le transfert par différents rituels dans leur
pratique d’achat.
Cet article concerne le cadre de la sociologie et complète la recherche auparavant. Pour la réalité commerciale,
cela pourrait propose quelques idées de l'innovation dans l'industrie de la mode et du luxe.

On the basis of the theories of consumer sociology, this article aims to conceptualize branding in the fashion and
luxury industry, a domain that has grown substantially, as a movement of cultural meaning. A content analysis is
based on the selected information related to this issue from different resources. Looking into how brands have
become depicted in the branding literature and how cultural meanings move through the narrative mode of
communication, the article is trying to answer the following questions: Why a branding is effective and how does
it make itself effective. Finally it is explained that through the direct (Advertising) and the indirect (System of
fashion) ways, a brand manage to construct its cultural meaning and translate the meaning of consumer culture
to its own brand image with singularity and uniqueness. Thereafter, consumers finish the movement of meaning
through different rituals in their practice.
This article applies the framework of sociology and complements the actual research. For the reality of business,
this might offers some ideas of innovation in the fashion and luxury industry.

The international fashion consumer increasingly seeks the tangible and intangible benefits of a wide variety of local and international fashion brands. Fashion brands and their associated marketing communications have now reached revered status throughout the global economy. The design, development, marketing and retailing (DDMR) of fashion brands have now become an increasingly important and integrated part of many fashion businesses. A case study based on analysing Louis Vuitton will investigate and examine all aspects of international fashion brand marketing, sustainable branding and look at its significant modern growth from both a European and global perspective.
This case study analysis provide an opportunity to conduct an in-depth investigation of the branding and positioning strategies used by Louis Vuitton and allow to make recommendations for a possible brand extension or collaboration.

Fashion brands are strictly homogenized when it comes to advertising. Either products, models or setting are used to express brand identity. With Japan-based luxury fashion brand Comme des Garçons, however, such practices are found very rarely, but instead the brand offers a broad experience of its personality by usage of graphics which at first glance seem inadequate to do so. Brand identity is indicated by a soft-sell approach, typical of Japanese advertising style. Also, Japanese aesthetic elements have influenced the brand’s ad design, whether this was planned or not. This study’s aim is to find patterns of Japanese influence on Comme des Garçons communication style by using a content analysis method for the overview of the brand’s print ads from 1980 to 2012.

Abstract
Brands are, more and more, an important part of social expression and affirmation. In the fashion industry, particularly, brands acquired major relevance in the market, being the most important asset of leading companies in this field.
Being used as identity badges, brands need, necessarily, to know their audience, in order to meet their expectations about their products and messages delivered.
The Fashion Branding study and development relates to, consequently, the study of the target audience. The exploration of their preferences and the understanding of the context that surrounds it, is a paramount procedure, regarding to the design and development of fashion brands. Considering this Branding complexity, it becomes necessary to find new methods that allow to understand the consumer, in a more concrete and qualitative way.
The use of Trends Studies to define the target audience reveals itself useful to understand and segment the brand’s focus, allowing it to obtain a clear vision of the public’s preferences and contexts, which leads to a brand adapted to it’s final consumer.
This project is, then, called “Trends Studies’ Contributions to Create a Fashion Brand’s Visual Identity”, and it approaches, beyond the referred themes, the design of a brand’s visual identity system, after picking and selecting consumer related information, through Trends Studies.
Keywords
Branding; Fashion; Trends; Consumer; Identity

This study investigates the development of a niche luxury fashion brand proposition. A qualitative case study approach was used. Interview, observation and document-based data provide insight into the brand building perspectives, strategies and techniques of a small Australian luxury fashion firm. The common threads of the niche luxury fashion brand experience are quality, exclusivity and self-expression. Social and environmental performance is a positive unintended consequence of a commitment to high quality and exclusivity. Three principles intended to advance theory and guide practice in luxury fashion branding are developed from the literature and findings.

Objetivo: El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar la influencia de la marca y su representación gráfica sobre el producto en el consumo femenino de moda. El estudio aborda el valor de marca como ventaja competitiva.

Diseño/metodología/enfoque: Para ello se analiza la literatura previa y se desarrolla una investigación estadística de seguimiento. Se efectúa un cuestionario estructurado en dos fases, con un intervalo de separación de cuatro años, a una muestra de 469 y 230 mujeres, respectivamente.

Resultados: Más del 85 % de las mujeres analizadas reconoce que la marca influye en su decisión de compra, y un tercio muestra una amplia predisposición a la firma. En menor medida, dicho interés se traslada al logo como elemento visible en las prendas y accesorios. Se confirma que la logomanía es un fenómeno vigente en la actualidad y una estrategia eficiente para el mercado de la moda.

Limitaciones/implicaciones: Estos resultados son de utilidad en la implementación de estra- tegias de branding específicas en el sector de la moda.

Originalidad/contribución: Esta investigación es pionera en analizar la predisposición de la mujer a las marcas y a la presencia de los logos en las prendas y accesorios en su decisión de compra.

In this article we show how fashion brands communicate with their follower on Instagram. We use  a  continuously  update  dataset  of  68  brands,  more  than  300,000  posts  and  more  than 40,000,000 comments. Starting  with  descriptive  statistics,  we  uncover  different  behavior  and  success  of  the  various brands.  It  turns  out  that  there  are  patterns  specific  to  luxury,  mass-market  and  sportswear brands.  Posting  volume  is  extremely  brand  dependent  as  is  the  number  of comments  and  the engagement of the community.Having  understood  the  statistics,  we  turn  to  machine  learning  techniques  to  measure  the response of the community via comments. Topic models help us understand the structure of their respective community and uncover insights regarding the response to campaigns.Having up-to-date content is essential for this kind of analysis, as the market is highly volatile. Furthermore, automatic data analysis is crucial to measure the success of campaigns and adjust them accordingly for maximum effect.

The ever-increasing share of fast fashion consumerism shadowed the profound craftsmanship of local produce in the developing countries. This subsequently created hardship to the local communities and designers across the non-western world which belongs to small and medium scale enterprise sector. Beyond this the fashion commodities saw a substantial fall in design elements which made the products very banal in nature. Consequently, the trade turned towards conscious consumption and here emerged a few sustainable designers and craft-oriented communities which attracted attention in the recent past. Problems of sustainability and consumption are burning issues nowadays, fashion houses and international brands propagandize purchase for better consumer base, whereas originally sustainable local-based craftsmen still stay in the shade. Due to lack of expert management and target allocated branding real sources of national heritage cannot gain fame on the international level.
In this research, we have studied and analyzed the problems faced by hereditary communities and ethnic designers which lie in small and medium scale enterprise sector from two developing economies Ethiopia and Ukraine. The main purpose of the work is to design an effective marketing & management strategy for expansion of local communities and entrepreneurs to the international level. Particular attention is given to communities and designers who promote national heritage and for a part of small and medium scale enterprises which are one of the concerns of economic development of the two countries.

Fatores globais e económicos influenciam no que o mundo consome e veste, e mais do que nunca, as marcas devem considerar o público global. O conhecimento do consumidor em relação a moda e a produção aumentou e o campo de jogo tornou-se mais equilibrado, fazendo com que as marcas precisassem de ser capazes de desenvolver e executar uma oferta ou experiencias única para os seus clientes.
Este trabalho, através da leitura de diversos artigos e temas, tem como objetivo entender a relação entre o sistema da moda, as tendências comportamentais e de consumo e a maneira como as mesmas refletem o que leva o cliente a comprar determinado produto.
Pretende também introduzir o mundo do fashion branding e das tendências nas empresas de pronto a vestir.

Palavras-chave: moda, branding, tendências, marcas, consumidor.

This paper attempts to map an approach towards co-creation between fashion brands and their consumers. Fashion firms opting for such an approach will be able to better guarantee retention and long(er)-term buying relations by appeal to central value connections. Unlike various other branches, the fashion industry has remained largely untapped a field in this regard, mostly relying on traditional marketing means. Instead of push marketing and segmented targeting strategies co-creation means to integrate consumers into the value creation chain. Examples will be provided for how the process of co-creation can be successfully applied to various business sectors. As will be argued, market performance in the fashion industry will become largely dependent on the knowledge base of affiliate consumers who strongly and passionately identify with the firm. As a result, marketers will be faced with a completely different set of challenges in order to position a brand in the market. The central ...

En estos tiempos en que el consumidor cada vez es más exigente y rechaza la comunicación comercial invasiva, las marcas deben apostar por nuevas formas de comunicación, cuyo contenido sea relevante, llame la atención sin saturar, y que logre una verdadera conexión entre la marca y el consumidor. El presente artículo aborda una de las nuevas tendencias de publicidad, el branded content, una fórmula que da un paso más allá del product placement y procura al consumidor un contenido relevante. En concreto, se analiza el caso de los fashion lms, un formato publicitario que ha irrumpido en el sector de la moda y los productos de lujo con mucho éxito, y cuyo fundamento consiste en formular un contenido creado especí camente para determinada marca de moda, con una composición en el que predomina la belleza y la estética, pero que, sobre todo, permite comunicar los valores y personalidad de marca y así conectar con el consumidor.

En estos tiempos en que el consumidor cada vez es más exigente y rechaza la comunicación comercial invasiva, las marcas deben apostar por nuevas formas de comunicación, cuyo contenido sea relevante, llame la atención sin saturar, y que logre una verdadera conexión entre la marca y el consumidor. El presente artículo aborda una de las nuevas tendencias de publicidad, el branded content, una fórmula que da un paso más allá del product placement y procura al consumidor un contenido relevante. En concreto, se analiza el caso de los fashion  lms, un formato publicitario que ha irrumpido en el sector de la moda y los productos de lujo con mucho éxito, y cuyo fundamento consiste en formular un contenido creado especí camente para determinada marca de moda, con una composición en el que predomina la belleza y la estética, pero que, sobre todo, permite comunicar los valores y personalidad de marca y así conectar con el consumidor.

The recent phenomenon of the modest growth in the personal luxury goods market has created an urge to face difficulties through innovative brand and marketing communication strategies. This paper examines the potentialities of strategic associations between luxury fashion brands and furniture design. The research question to be here examined is whether synergies with furniture design can represent possible innovative strategic instruments useful to compete in the global sector of the luxury fashion industry. To do so, this paper firstly examines the congruencies and the existent associations between fashion and design. Secondly, it compares luxury fashion brands with the specific furniture design market in order to verify whether and how such inter-sectoral convergence may effectively produce fluxes of value. Results indicate that the association between luxury fashion brands and collectible furniture design in particular is the most fruitful. The value of luxury brands is enhanced and consumers are provided at the same time with innovative and creative luxury experiences.

ABSTRACT Marketers are increasingly relying on promotional practices (variously labeled as stealth marketing, hybrid messages, covert advertising) based on the diffusion of product information by third parties that appear to be independent of advertisers. In this paper, we examine to what extent the media treat their advertisers favorably, providing these advertisers’ products extra visibility in supposedly neutral editorial content. Empirically, we model the determinant of media coverage of Italian fashion products in an extended dataset of consumer magazines in Italy, France, Germany, UK, and the USA. Research findings show that advertising is an important determinant of product placements in editorial content, and this result is consistent across countries and publishers. Our results imply that resource-rich advertisers engaging in compensatory advertising (that is, advertising investments that compensate poor product quality) might bias media coverage in their favor. Consumers will consequently be exposed twice to favorable messages about those products, in both advertisements and media content, resulting in higher purchases and reduced consumer welfare.

Recent studies have shown that consumers’ product choices are significantly influenced by media coverage and recommendations in various media outlets. Unlike advertising, consumers perceive these sources as neutral and more credible because they usually presume that editorial content and product coverage in newspapers and magazines are independent and free from advertisers’ influence. In this article, the authors show how advertising activities of firms may influence media coverage to the firms’ advantage. They analyze a recent (2002–2003) large data set comprising 291 fashion companies based in Italy and their advertising and product coverage data published in newspapers and magazines of 123 publishers from Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Controlling for firm heterogeneity, endogeneity, and the simultaneity of advertising and coverage, the authors find that, overall, (1) there is evidence of a strong positive influence of advertising on coverage, (2) publishers that depend more on a specific industry for their advertising revenues are prone to a higher degree of influence from their corporate advertisers than others, (3) peer pressures from competing publishers affect coverage decisions, (4) larger and more innovative companies are at an advantage for obtaining coverage for their products, and (5) the effects of corporate advertising influence exist in both Europe and the United States. These findings raise concerns about the independence of editorial content and coverage of magazines.

Purpose – Fashion brand love is a central concept in the consumer-brand relationship domain. Brand
managers tend to create more lovable brands, e.g. McDonald’s “I’m lovin it”. However, the importance
of this concept is not frequently discussed in marketing literature. Furthermore, the impact of brand
personality and brand image on brand love has not been investigated in any empirical research. This
paper aims to address this gap by developing a causal model incorporating brand love, brand
personality, brand image and word of mouth (WOM) to investigate the relationships among them.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using a survey method and usable
questionnaires were completed by 250 undergraduate students. Path analysis was used to test the
hypotheses using AMOS 16.0.
Findings – Results revealed that only brand image is considered as a determinant of brand love that
affects WOM along with brand personality.
Practical implications – Results provide detailed implications and a platform on which future
research can be built.
Originality/value – The extant love research seems to be solely in the US context. To the best of the
author’s knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the concept of brand love outside the USA.
Keywords Brand love, Brand image, Brand personality, Word of mouth, Fashion brands,
Brand identity
Paper type Research paper

Fashion brands are strictly homogenized when it comes to advertising. Either products, models or setting are used to express brand identity. With Japan-based luxury fashion brand Comme des Garçons, however, such practices are found very rarely, but instead the brand offers a broad experience of its personality by usage of graphics which at first glance seem inadequate to do so. Brand identity is indicated by a soft-sell approach, typical of Japanese advertising style. Also, Japanese aesthetic elements have influenced the brand’s ad design, whether this was planned or not. This study’s aim is to find patterns of Japanese influence on Comme des Garçons communication style by using a content analysis method for the overview of the brand’s print ads from 1980 to 2012.

For several years now, academic programmes in Fashion Studies have offered an increasingly diverse variety of teachings on the most abstract and conceptual aspects of fashion. There are courses that dissect its imaginary, analyse its iconography, study the psycho-sociology or semiotics of clothing, or explore the emerging practice of fashion curating to explore the controversial subject of the cultural and industrial death of fashion itself. As though the mere materiality of the garment were no longer a concern for fashion intellectuals today, more and more publications in this field appear to reflect this shift.

A growing trend for ‘Trashion’ means that branded labels from a variety of products
and packaging are finding their way into fashion design, where the visuality
of colours, fonts and textures make labels an attractive ‘fabric’ for fashion creation.
The Starburst Prom Gown is a prime example of branded candy wrapper as fashion
resource, as female teens take the brand out of the marketing context and into
the ‘fashion show’ that is prom night. The prom is an important milestone in the
lives of American teens and how female teens brand themselves for this night can
tell much about the relationship between branding and teen identity formation in
contemporary popular culture. As such, the Starburst gown offers a prime opportunity to study and begin to understand cultural forces in teen brand utilization and the ways in which a mix of fashion/non-fashion brands becomes imbued with
emotional significance during these years.

Teen clothier Abercrombie & Fitch’s mix of shirtless associates, nightclub-like stores and risqué photography by Bruce Weber helped propel the brand into icon status. The brand’s name entered the popular lexicon as a synonym for cool and even received a memorable call out in LFO’s pop song, “Summer Girls.” This paper explores the interplay in aesthetics between A &F Quarterly, the brand’s popular magazine-catalog hybrid, and popular music videos of the time. Specifically, this paper analyzes videos that appeared on MTV’s Total Request Live between September 1999 and April 2001. In total, 42 music videos were found to contain elements of the “Abercrombie” lifestyle, including clothing that was sold by the brand, and props and settings similar to those found in the A & F Quarterly. In sum, this suggests that music videos from the time were instrumental in spreading the brand’s aesthetic, and that the interplay between media popular culture and the aesthetics of fashion brands could yi...

PurposeFashion brand love is a central concept in the consumer‐brand relationship domain. Brand managers tend to create more lovable brands, e.g. McDonald's “I’m lovin it”. However, the importance of this concept is not frequently discussed in marketing literature. Furthermore, the impact of brand personality and brand image on brand love has not been investigated in any empirical research. This paper aims to address this gap by developing a causal model incorporating brand love, brand personality, brand image and word of mouth (WOM) to investigate the relationships among them.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using a survey method and usable questionnaires were completed by 250 undergraduate students. Path analysis was used to test the hypotheses using AMOS 16.0.FindingsResults revealed that only brand image is considered as a determinant of brand love that affects WOM along with brand personality.Practical implicationsResults provide detailed implications and a pl...

ABSTRACT Marketers are increasingly relying on promotional practices (variously labeled as stealth marketing, hybrid messages, covert advertising) based on the diffusion of product information by third parties that appear to be independent of advertisers. In this paper, we examine to what extent the media treat their advertisers favorably, providing these advertisers’ products extra visibility in supposedly neutral editorial content. Empirically, we model the determinant of media coverage of Italian fashion products in an extended dataset of consumer magazines in Italy, France, Germany, UK, and the USA. Research findings show that advertising is an important determinant of product placements in editorial content, and this result is consistent across countries and publishers. Our results imply that resource-rich advertisers engaging in compensatory advertising (that is, advertising investments that compensate poor product quality) might bias media coverage in their favor. Consumers will consequently be exposed twice to favorable messages about those products, in both advertisements and media content, resulting in higher purchases and reduced consumer welfare.

This article seeks to address the branding and marketing of ecofashion or ethical fashion, juxtaposing the experiences of today's, often confused, fashion consumers, against the promotional methodologies used by, sometimes equally confused, fashion brands. Looking at the rise of ethical ...