People
Among the four pillars of sustainability, ‘people’ can be represented as a diversity of customer segments, which can be divided into different groups of people in terms of race, age, gender, hobbies, professions, etc. These categories allow the fashion market to target its own customer segments at the moment. As shown in Figure 1, the different eras can be divided into five categories. It can be seen that Generation X has the largest workforce in the UK, accounting for 35% of the workforce, which shows that the pressure is greater in that era, while in today’s Generation Z, where technology takes over most of people’s lives, it can be seen that they are more dependent on IT and are relatively savvy in their consumption levels, with the brands also over-saturated.
What’s generation Z? How to attract them?
The Z Generation is one of the most iconic and youthful customer segments of today. Warren(2022) mentioned that people born from 1997 to 2012 are considered to be part of Gen Z. That means that the eldest among them will reach a quarter-century of life in 2022.
Consumers of Generation Z want to be at the center of every brand universe and they demand experiences that meet their personal needs at any given moment, which also means that modern brands must offer opportunities for personalization and customization in unique and meaningful ways.(Fromm & Read, P129, 2018) Such as the Glossier brand, who, having learned before setting up their brand that the Generation Z crowd preferred the experience of living in the wild, used a pale pink oasis to fit in with the skincare aesthetic, attracting thousands of young people with a unique interior design that made visiting this shop a mission. Their brand objective is very clear, the touch points are through their Instagram page and blog, the brand theme of letting everyone be who they want to be, which is also very relevant to the idea of young people in the Z Generation. So in order to attract more Generation Z customers, brands need to anticipate the psychology of this generation, their shopping habits and how they can best meet their needs to make them feel happy and satisfied, then spread the benefits of their brand through the social media platforms that this generation loves to stand out.
In a fashion factory, diversity is something that has to be taken into marketing, different brands market this in different ways. Some brands use advertisement to highlight people or groups that may be underestimated in the hope that the target consumers will identify with the brand’s products by understanding these groups, as in this ad for Adidas, which expresses the interplay between creativity and diversity to celebrate the black history month, with the boundaries that gender or race is irrelevant through the video.
https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/best-of/12399/best-ads-that-promote-diversity/play#34560656
References: Refuelagency(no date), 6 Examples of Brands Who Got Multicultural Marketing Right
Available at https://www.refuelagency.com/blog/multicultural/examples-of-brands-who-got-multicultural-marketing-right/ (Accessed 30th October 2022)
2. Fromm J & Read A (2018), Marketing to Gen Z : The Rules for Reaching This Vast–And Very Different–Generation of Influencers, AMACOM pres
3. Refuelagency(no date), 6 Examples of Brands That Got Gen Z Marketing Right Available at https://www.refuelagency.com/blog/teen/gen-z-marketing-examples/ (Accessed 30th October 2022)
4. Priyapatel(2020), How Glossier has Gen Z hooked Available at https://www.priyapatel.net/how-glossier-has-gen-z-hooked/ (Accessed 29th October)