Fashion Marketing

Fashion is everywhere! Fashion transcends domains and applies to almost any kind of product (e.g., apparel, cars, digital devices, food, literature, trips, music, house decoration, personal wellness). Fashion greatly influences public interest, media coverage, and product success. The global fashion apparel industry, for example, is one of the most important in terms of investments, trade, and employment while depending upon unpredictable demand. In the world of fashion, companies face a dilemma: On one hand, they create products with shorter life cycles; on the other hand they expect such products to repeatedly reap large profits. One of the main challenges fashion product managers face is to create and launch fashion products that will continuously meet the same success with customers. For example, will the long skirt have the same success than the skinny jean, or will the high heel prevail over the flats? Moreover, the fashion industry deals with products that greatly impact personal appearance, seduction, thus, relationships with others. Indeed, a fashion dress is more than just a dress, as it can change one’s appearance and reveal the consumer’s identity. Consequently, fashion managers not only are responsible for their product lines, but also for the symbolic image they help customers convey. This book focuses on the fashion apparel and accessories industry. It introduces the concept of fashion equity—the value fashion adds to products—a key concept to explain fashion products attractiveness and success, despite their constant renewal. This book will help managers answer the following questions: Why and how fashion products consistently appeal to consumers despite their renewal? What symbolic and experiential benefits fashion products bring to consumers and how fashion product managers can leverage them better? What marketing strategy and tactics companies should use to increase fashion products success while managing customers’ image? How companies can maintain customers’ loyalty and generate higher profits with fashion products? Based on deep analyses of manufacturers and retailers’ best practices, customers’ and companies’ interviews, and the latest academic research on fashion marketing, this book will assist companies to manage the value fashion adds to products, extract larger profits despite their shorter life cycles, and help them create long-term loyal customers.

Author Biography

Caroline Le Bon, University of Paul Cezanne, Aix, Marseille, France.