Purpose

‘Purpose’ is the last of the four pillars of sustainability.  A brands purpose is their reason for their creations beyond for making money.  A purpose for a brand is very important because it shows the buyer the ethics, morals, and reasons behind a brand.  A purpose tells the buyer more about the brands values, for example, if a brands purpose was to help children who are less fortunate and cannot afford to buy clothes, it would show the client the core values of the brand and make people more likely to buy from them.  

Brand philosophy is important for the same reason that a brands purpose is important.  There is Mission, Vision, and Values.  The mission statement tells the customer why a brand exists.  The vision statement tells the customer what the brand wants to accomplish in the future.  This is very important because the buyer will want to know what to expect moving forward from the brand.  Values show what is important to each brand and how they want to work moving forward.  For example, Tess Whitford is a designer who’s brands mission statement says, “strives to create clothing that doesn’t harm people, animals, or the environment while maintaining her signature edgy streetwear style.”  This shows the customers that they can stust her brand to be sustainable while still having an edgy style that is shown in figure 1. “Designers can develop a new garment by reworking existing clothing or working with unwanted stock and/or surplus materials” (Gwilt, 2014). This is something that Tess Whitfort does and that works for many brands.

Tess Whitfort upcycling design, (Gwilt, 2014)

Brands communicate their purpose to Gen Z through their mission, vision, and values statements.  These are usually found on a brands website and they show the customer all about the reasons behind why the brand does what they do.  One way that will really get through to Gen Z is by social media.  With an active instagram account with a good balance of posts and quality content any Gen Z-er will be interested and give the brand a follow.  Tik Tok is also a way to get Gen Z’s attention as the app has 2 billion downloads with over 60% being from Generation Z (Fanbytes, 2022). Brands should post their purpose on their social media bios so that people can see them from their instagram or tik tok because many generation Z citizens do not even know that brands have a purpose statement.  

References:

Fanbytes, 2022 Gen Z Tiktok: What the rise of TikTok says about generation Z (2022) Fanbytes. https://fanbytes.co.uk/gen-z-tiktok 

Gwilt, A. (2014) University of the Arts London weblogin. https://www-bloomsburyfashioncentral-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/encyclopedia-chapter?docid=b-9781350067059&tocid=b-9781350067059-chapter7&pdfid=9781350067059.ch-007.pdf