Fashion Industry: Branding Strategies & Consumer Buying Behavior

This report explores the impact of branding strategies on consumer behavior, particularly within the fashion industry. It begins with an introduction to branding, emphasizing its role in shaping consumer perceptions and influencing buying decisions. The literature review highlights the importance of brand awareness and familiarity in creating brand value. The report identifies a gap in understanding the specific implications of branding strategies on consumer behavior and aims to address this gap through research. The research questions focus on identifying major branding strategies and their impact on customer decisions. Key concepts such as brand positioning, functional and emotional benefits are discussed. The report also examines the elements of branding, including brand name, tagline, and creative aspects like logo and color. The research methodology section details the interpretive research philosophy, inductive approach, and descriptive research design. Primary data collection methods, including questionnaire surveys and interviews, are outlined. Finally, the report emphasizes ethical considerations and the use of graphs and tables for data analysis to ensure the reliability and validity of the research.

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Research proposal: The implications of branding strategies on consumer buying behavior
Introduction
Research background
Branding is a way of identifying and showing the business to the customers that
influence the experience of the target consumer and attract potential customers. Brand reflect
through the customer services style, staff uniforms, business cards and premises that could
influence the buying decisions of the customers. To develop a strong brand value and image,
the organizations from fashion industry needs to conduct in-depth market research to
understand how and why customers can be attracted to products and services that could
enhance the sales of the company (Ahuja, 2015, p. 1-6). The people give preference to leading
clothing brands. Therefore, branding has a significant impact on the behaviour of customers.
Brand awareness is considered as very first gate that open up the path for an organization to
become valuable. Brand awareness is an important aspect of marketing that influence the
value of an organization in industry. Apart from that, the brand familiarity is a higher standard
than awareness as it is a measure of knowledge and understanding a brand customers have.
Why this topic
In the current scenario, the brand value is having a direct impact on buying
decisions of the customer as most of the consumers are giving preference to the big brands and
company that has higher recognition. Therefore, analysis of the implication of branding
strategies that used by fashion organization is essential to understand the approach of
companies and its influence on the decision made by the target consumers.
Previous research
According to analysis, the branding activities of an organization create the
desires, create a sense of belonging and increase the status and prestige of the company in-
front of target customer groups (Pappas, 2016, p. 92-103). However, the people have a certain
image about the brand but the way of presenting the organizational products and services as
well as the uniform approach of staff members could change the mindset of people.
Gaps between topics
There are different strategies have been used by organizations to create and
maintain the brand image which supports the growth of the business by influencing the
behaviour of customers (Dinnie, 2015, p. 11). The research will analyze the different aspects
of branding strategies and its implications on consumer behaviour.
Research objectives
 To analyze the relationship between branding strategies and consumer
behaviour in fashion industry
Research questions
1. What are the major strategies of branding and how they impact the decision of
customers?
Literature review
Purpose of study
The literature review is a critical aspect of research that helps to add knowledge
about the topic considering the findings and outcome of the previous studies on selected
topic. The reviews of literature also help to develop a strong theoretical background to
support the arguments. The current literature will provide information about the strategies
that used by the fashions brands to create positive image that support to influence the
decisions of target customers.
Concept of branding
Branding is an important concept of marketing and encouraging business
functions across the target areas. According to Resnick et al., (2016, p. 155-174), branding
gives greater meaning to the products and services of organizations that could in the form of
emotional appeal and marketing initiatives that done by the company. The branding concept
involves attributes like the position of the brand which refers to the approach of targeting the
customer. The positioning of the brand requires the consideration of the business objectives
and key features of the products and services offered by the company. Apart from that, the
branding concept involves defining the benefits of a brand to the consumers. These benefits
could be functional and emotional. The functional benefits refer to features of products that
can help the customer to solve their problems (Boisen et al., 2018, p. 4-11). The emotional
benefits can be described as how the customer feels after using the products and services of
the company. However, in the current scenario, there are various companies that offering
similar products and services at a low cost that could influence the buying decisions of
customer and affect the brand effectiveness of popular organizations.
Impact of the branding of consumer behaviour
Sasmita, and Mohd Suki, (2015, p. 276-292) have stated that branding is a
combination of unique design, sign, symbol and words that have been used by the
organization to create the image. The effective combination of these attributes could help the
customer to identify the products of a particular brand. Moreover, branding validates self-
esteem and supports the customer decisions to understand the actual needs and benefits
offered by the particular brand. Apart from that, a good understanding of the culture and
values of the customer to develop brand strategy and implementation is also helpful for
enhancing the bond with the customer. Hence, the development of positive brand image is
helpful for an organization to attract the customer and influence their buying behaviour as
they like to stick with the products and services of a company for the long term. However, to
understand the desire and self-esteem of the customer, the organization needs to spend a lot
of funds to conduct market research and gain knowledge related to the approach of
competitors. This kind of operation increases the financial burden on companies.
Elements of branding that influence consumer behaviour
The branding has different elements that require to be considered for developing
an effective branding strategy to influence the target audience. As per the views of Dessart,
Veloutsou, and Morgan-Thomas, (2015, p. 28-42), the branding elements include brand
name, tagline and creative points like the logo, mascot, colour and fonts that used by
organizations for marketing and developing a unique image. The name of the brand offer
information related to the nature of business, aim and objectives of the company by
considering the focus on products and services. The name of the brand needs to be
distinctive, unique and catchy. Additionally, tagline helps to convey the features of products
and services offered by the particular organization. The use of tagline supports to gain the
attention of customers and influence the behaviour by creating a distinct image within the
industry.
Research methodology
Research philosophy
The research philosophies help to develop a ground to handle
the different directions of a research. There are two types of philosophies are
used for managing the research such as interpretive and positivism. The
positivism philosophy is considered as objectives in nature and interpretive
is subjective nature. To conduct the study, the researcher will choose
interpretive research philosophy that will help to collect and analyse the
response of the customers to understand the concept and effectiveness of the
branding. Moreover, interpretive philosophy will also support the researcher
to satisfy the objectives of the research and making emphasis on the actual
issues (Kumar, 2019, p. 13).
Research approach
There are two types of research approaches has been used that
involve inductive and deductive. The inductive approach is used for
developing the theories considering the outcome of the survey and
observation. Apart from that, the deductive approach is used for confirming
the theory on the basis of data analysis and finding of the study. For the
current research, the investigator will use the inductive approach that will
help to maintain control and support to make broad assumptions to collect
the data and make analysis to meet the research objectives related to
branding strategies and its implication on consumer behaviour. This
approach will also help to make an effective conclusion of the study.
Research design
There are two types of research designs considered for
managing the research. Qualitative research refers to primary exploratory
research that aims to gain understanding of reasons, opinion and problems of
the study. Apart from that, the quantitative research refers to quantify the
problem by focusing on the numerical data to identify the relationship
between the variables. The current research will focus on understanding the
impact of branding strategies on consumer behaviour by evaluating
consumer perception. The researcher will use the descriptive research design
for the same. The consideration of the descriptive research design will
collect and analyze the in-depth information related to branding and
consumer behaviour utilizing the qualitative approach (Patten, and Newhart,
2017, p. 12). The current study will be the qualitative type and use of survey
method for understanding the impact of branding on consumer behaviour
will help the researcher to consider the belief, attitude, behaviour and habits
of the target customer group. Moreover, the use of statistical date will
increase validity and effectiveness of research.
Data collection
The researcher will use the primary method for collecting data
focusing on questionnaire survey and interview methods. The sample would
be selected for research using the non-probability method of sampling. The
researcher will develop questions related to branding and consumer
behaviour and distribute among 40 customers through online sources. The
consideration of primary data collection will allow the researcher to resolve
specific issues of research which is the impact of branding on consumer
behaviour (Palinkas et al., 2015, p. 533-544). The collection of data from
different customers will increase knowledge about the critical aspect of
branding and support to provide up-to-date information regarding the
relationship between these two variables.
Ethics and Data analysis
To maintain an ethical approach in the study, the researcher
will take prior consent from the sample population. Moreover, the researcher
will assure that no data has been taken through copy paste from any sources.
The analysis of data will be done using graph and tables to analyze the
impact of branding on consumer behaviour. The consideration of this type of
data analysis approach will increase reliability and validity of research by
presenting the actual outcome of the survey and graphical representation of
feedback offered by the sample (Hox, Moerbeek, and Van de Schoot, 2017,
p. 14).
Conceptual framework
Branding and consumer behaviour are two critical elements that drive the business of the
organization. The research will make emphasis on branding and its impact on consumer
behaviour related to perception, products and service quality, satisfaction and trust in an
organization. In the current scenario, branding and marketing of products and services are one of
the most critical elements that encourage business by creating awareness and gaining the attention
of the target customers (Mackey, and Gass, 2015, p. 8). There are different branding strategies
are used for managing the business and influencing the behaviour of the customer. The research
will analyze the impact of these strategies and relationship with consumer behaviour.
Figure 1: Conceptual framework
References
Ahuja, N., 2015. Effect of Branding On Consumer Buying Behaviour: A Study in Relation to
Fashion Industry. International Journal of Research in Humanities & Social
Science, 3(2), pp.1-6.
Boisen, M., Terlouw, K., Groote, P. and Couwenberg, O., 2018. Reframing place promotion, place
marketing, and place branding-moving beyond conceptual confusion. Cities, 80, pp.4-11.
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C. and Morgan-Thomas, A., 2015. Consumer engagement in online brand
communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand
Management, 24(1), pp.28-42.
Dinnie, K., 2015. Nation branding: Concepts, issues, practice. Routledge.
Hox, J.J., Moerbeek, M. and Van de Schoot, R., 2017. Multilevel analysis: Techniques and
applications. Routledge.
Kumar, R., 2019. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications
Limited.
Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.
Palinkas, L.A., Horwitz, S.M., Green, C.A., Wisdom, J.P., Duan, N. and Hoagwood, K., 2015.
Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method
implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health
Services Research, 42(5), pp.533-544.
Pappas, N., 2016. Marketing strategies, perceived risks, and consumer trust in online buying
behaviour. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 29, pp.92-103.
Patten, M.L. and Newhart, M., 2017. Understanding research methods: An overview of the
essentials. Routledge.
Resnick, S.M., Cheng, R., Simpson, M. and Lourenço, F., 2016. Marketing in SMEs: a “4Ps” self-
branding model. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 22(1),
pp.155-174.
Sasmita, J. and Mohd Suki, N., 2015. Young consumers’ insights on brand equity: Effects of brand
association, brand loyalty, brand awareness, and brand image. International Journal of
Retail & Distribution Management, 43(3), pp.276-292.
Research aim
The aim of the study is to identify the impact of branding strategies on consumer
behaviour.