A smart practice case study on persuasive sustainable fashion communication - Mastering Better World Fashion´s communication challenge

Engelke, Carolin ; Spindelmann, Anika

4. term

Economics and Business Administration (International Marketing), Master

2017

2017-08-07

Purpose - The purpose of this thesis is to strategically enhance the communication of the e-commerce startup Better World Fashion. Therefore, a framework for sustainable fashion communication is created and applied to develop a smart practice guide of persuasive sustainable fashion communication towards the mass market. Design/methodology/approach - Taking a subjectivist, hermeneutic stance, a qualitative multiple case study approach is selected to conduct a smart practice research. The thesis investigates the communication practices of five companies on four units on their corporate websites through a directed content analysis on the three identified communication dimensions of value profile, message mix, and credibility establishment. Findings - The findings reveal that the difficulty of sustainable fashion communication lies in the conflicting natures of both concepts. Fashion is symbolic and hedonic, and relates to implicitly create dreams and emotions. Sustainability, refers to taking responsibility and selfless actions without a direct personal benefit giving it a rational character that requires textual, explicit communication. Smart communication is found to bridge the conflict and activate the mainstream consumer through the creation of emotions. It is smart to centre the consumer by focusing on personal values in the form of a double benefit approach in which fashion values are in the foreground and sustainability values are mentioned secondarily (Fashion-First strategy). The analysis of Better World Fashion shows that the brand suffers from green marketing myopia, and several communication practices stand in sharp contrast to the smart practices. The essence of recommendations lies in a strategic roadmap for BWF´s value profile, message mix and credibility establishment throughout the different website units that focus on taking a more emotional positioning and shifting from high text sustainable information, to a more fashion imagery. This is exemplified by proposing a rebranding of BWF with two possible scenarios based on uniqueness, or country of origin as a core value. Research limitation - Employing a smart practice study, the findings are tailored to BWF and thus delimited from the ability of generalisations. As all observed cases are embedded in a specific context, a replicative transfer of the results to other contexts is limited. Originality/value - The thesis contributes to the literature by developing an integrated framework on sustainable fashion communication which creates a holistic picture of the dimensions and variables in the field of research. Furthermore, it investigates the web-based communication of sustainable fashion brands through content analysis to extract smart practices, a way the issue has not yet been studied. Paper type - Research paper

Sustainable Fashion ; Sustainability Marketing, ; Sustainable fashion communication ; Fashion Communication ; costumer value ; green marketing myopia ; Persuasive communication

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