In this highly competitive market, fashion brands struggle to distinguish themselves to increasingly apathetic consumers. To become more competitive, fashion retailers employ emotional branding as a way to engage their customers, addressing the growing trend of consumers’ seeking emotional relationships with a brand. Although brand technicalities such as product attributes, features, and facts may be unmemorable, personal feelings and experiences better shape consumers’ evaluations of brands. This study illustrates why emotional branding is essential, especially to fashion brands, when developing brand strategies in a volatile marketplace. Trends that support a need for these strategies include consumers’ desires for positive experiences, expressing authentic self, achieving warm glow from helping others, and co-creating design or ideas with the brand. We propose a model for emotional branding strategies that focuses on sensory branding, storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment. The case studies we provide for each strategy describe how fashion brands can engage customers through emotional branding.
Introduction
In an ever-changing and highly competitive market, fashion brands struggle to distinguish themselves to increasingly apathetic consumers (Clark 2017). As press and department stores no longer dictate fashion sales, e-commerce has democratized fashion industry competition. Even with contemporary strategies, such as employing online platforms like Amazon and social media, fashion brands often suffer from stagnant sales. Moreover, customer loyalty is at its lowest levels due to lack of product diversity and high brand switching (Kusek 2016). In this retail environment, fashion brands need to develop new strategies to grab consumers’ attention by speaking to their hearts.
To address this need, retailers employ emotional branding as a way to engage their customers, appealing to their needs, aspirations, dreams, and ego (Acharya 2018). This branding strategy addresses the growing trend of consumers’ seeking emotional relationships with a brand. Although brand technicalities may be unmemorable, consumers do not forget how a brand makes them feel. As opposed to information such as product attributes, features, and facts, personal feelings and experiences better shape consumers’ evaluations of brands (Jenkins and Molesworth 2017; Schmitt 2009; Zukin and Maguire 2004). Hence, emotional branding seems to be a strategy that creates strong brand attachments between consumers and brands (Akgun et al. 2013).
Emotional branding establishes itself as a critical factor in developing brand loyalty, which has been conceptualized as a long-term, committed, and affect-laden partnership devised to characterize consumer-brand bonds (Fournier 1998). Increased loyalty driven by emotional branding, in turn, leads to higher sales. For example, purchase intentions from television
advertising are three times as likely to result from emotional responses as advertisement content (Hong 2016). Overall, emotionally connected consumers are 52% more valuable to a brand than those who are just satisfied (Otley 2016). Presumably, emotionally attached consumers are a brand’s highly profitable market segment (Rossiter and Bellman 2012). Because fashion has traditionally been associated with experiential, symbolic, or hedonic products (Fiore et al. 2005; Johnson et al. 2014; Noh et al. 2015), emotional branding is likely a vital approach to directly speak to fashion consumers.
To this end, we define emotional branding as a brand’s strategy that stimulates consumers’ affective state, appealing to their feelings with the aim of increasing consumer loyalty toward the brand. Furthermore, we posit emotional branding is an essential strategic practice, especially to fashion brands, in a ruthless retail environment. As Morrison and Frederick (2007) suggested, creating emotional brand experiences and managing emotional branding strategies requires an integrated approach. First, we explore marketplace trends that support emotional branding defined by consumer experiences, authentic self, warm glow, and co-creation. Second, we propose a model for emotional branding strategies relevant to the fashion industry in terms of sensory branding, storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment. It is important to note that one or multiple marketplace trends are reflected in strategies discussed in this study. Hence, we recommend that retailers use any of these strategies, or a combination of them, to improve brand loyalty. Figure 1 illustrates the framework of emotional branding.
Marketplace trends
The benefits consumers seek from buying particular brands or shopping trips have shifted from procuring high-quality products for lower costs to seeking emotional rewards from their experiences as a consumer (Kim et al. 2014). Major trends that support this paradigm shift include desires to have positive consumer experiences, express one’s authentic self, achieve warm glow from helping others, and co-create design or ideas with the brand. While these trends influence consumer behavior and change the way traditional retailers conduct businesses, retailers can adopt non-traditional marketing strategies to a greater extent because there are more ways to touch the consumer in an omni-channel market. Indeed, the prevalence of mobile and web-based technologies has transformed consumer experiences from just browsing and purchasing to creating and sharing content via social media (Kohli et al. 2015).
Consumer experiences
A major factor that explains the importance of emotional branding is related to consumer experience. No longer are consumers focusing on product specifics or service satisfaction; they seek experiences from a brand they like. In experiencing a brand, whether it is a product, service, or a retail store, consumers do not just look for quality or low prices; they want to gain emotional rewards from enticing store atmosphere, superb customer service, and entertaining experiences. They also want to express who they are and the relationships that are important to them through consuming or supporting a specific brand (Kim et al. 2014; Kumar and Kim 2014).
It is important to consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1970) when discussing consumer experiences. In his revised hierarchy, “deficiency needs” that include physiological well-being, safety, belonging, and self-esteem, arise from deprivation and are necessary to avoid
unpleasant consequences. Usually, when consumers’ deficiency needs are fulfilled, they next satisfy growth needs. Growth needs pertain to those at the highest level of the hierarchy and are necessary for self-actualization and peak experiences that include the need for intellectual achievement, creative expression, and aesthetic appreciation. These needs are never truly met because they are continually refined as people experience self-actualization. In most post-industrial societies, growth needs, rather than deficiency needs, dominate consumer motivations. Consumers’ desire to fulfill their growth needs offers retailers increased opportunities to develop emotional strategies that result in noteworthy consumption experiences and value.
Sheth et al. (1991) argue that value results from emotional responses to product-associated experiences. For example, a gift of crafted jewelry may induce romantic or comforting feelings from one’s past. While Sheth et al. describe emotional value as a perceived utility received from a product’s ability to produce affective states, consumption experience can be derived from receiving service or visiting a retail outlet, which provides consumers with immaterial value (Holbrook 1999; Kim et al. 2007). As consumers increasingly desire positive experiences from consuming a brand, the trend of using emotional branding strategies should grow in the foreseeable future.
