The link between consumerism and fashion sense is the focus of a new study conducted by Dr. Yoram Levanon of Bar Ilan University’s School of Marketing. The study reveals it is possible to identify different population groups according to dress and the manner in which they consume. The study focuses on dress style outside of the workplace, as work clothes are often not a personal choice.
Results were presented at a day-long seminar on Tuesday. Levanon’s talk was devoted to the expected influence of fashion on other branches within the consumer market, and which fashion marketing procedures may be applied to other products.
"Once can learn everything about marketing from fashion marketing," says Levanon. "Fashion is the hub around which other consumer campaigns are built, both for men and women."
"Women make over 70% of all shopping decisions. For a large number of women buying fashion is entertainment or mood enhancement. It would be correct, therefore, for other types of stores to integrate themselves into the shopping tour, in order to complete the picture and increase sales."
The study identified four categories of consumers according to fashion sense. It should be noted that the groups are differentiated not only by fashion but other consumer products as well. Each of the four categories was then subdivided into three groups. In all, the study presented 12 different consumer groups.
The four basic categories are:
- Exclusive - Tailored, elegant labels, sport-elegant.
- Functional - Sporty, quality-comfort and casually relaxed.
- Unique - Emphasis on uniqueness, rebellious, ideologically unconcerned.
- Conservative - Secular conventional, religious and ultra-Orthodox.
The study describes ties between dress style and other consumer tendencies. For example, the secular-conventional dressers include many Jerusalem business-people and senior government clerks who tend not to eat in expensive restaurants and do not bring technological innovations into the home right away. The elegant label group buys well-known, highly-regarded brands, but do not want their status symbols to scream out loud. They do not buy accessories, but do buy health foods and services, and reward themselves with travel. This group tends to buy new products and technologies.
One of the study’s overall conclusions is that when determining a shops’ location, the neighboring fashion stores should be taken into account, as they evince consumer type. Expensive jewelry, for example, does not suit Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center but rather the Gan Hair mall.
"New furniture or housewares businesses should set up shop next to a certain consumer style," advises Levanon. "A shopping district must be homogeneous and create a situation where one person can get every kind of product or subject. Divided roughly, Dizengoff is where ordinary people shop, Gan Hair is for the more exclusive, Sheinkin is for the unique and the Ayalon Mall serves the functional group."
"One reason why Dizengoff and Allenby streets are failing as consumer centers is that shop-owners began mixing consumer styles. Brining in low-level shops distances shoppers with higher standards. Mall owners, for example, do not allow in stores that conflict with their concept. Concepts should be defined precisely according to fashion stores."