Marketing and Communications in Fashion: Gen Y Consumer Study

This report delves into the marketing and communication strategies employed in the fashion industry, specifically targeting Generation Y consumers. The analysis centers on Primark, an Irish fashion retailer, examining how the brand interacts with and influences the purchasing behavior of millennials. The report explores consumer generations, demographic attributes, and market segmentation, providing insights into Gen Y's unique characteristics, such as their reliance on social media, collaborative nature, love for travel, and focus on fitness. It further investigates how Primark leverages these traits through various marketing channels, including social media platforms, discounts, and targeted advertising. The study includes illustrations of how millennials use smartphones and are influenced by social media advertisements, ultimately concluding that understanding Gen Y consumer behavior is crucial for fashion companies like Primark to develop effective business strategies.

Marketing and
communications in fashion
gen y

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Consumers Generations...............................................................................................................3
Demographic Attributes of Consumer with Market Segmentation.............................................3
Communication of brand with consumers and influencing their purchase behaviour.................5
Consumer Board..........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is known as the activity or instructions made for the creation, communication
and delivered by values to the customers, clients or partners and different scale. Primark is the
company that has been chosen for this report It is an Irish fashion retailer which operates is
business in UK. In this project analysation of a gender along with this brand will be done.
Consumer behaviour of the selected brand will be done analysing the effect of the generation
over the products of Primark.
MAIN BODY
Consumers Generations
Generations are said to be the range of individuals age between two stated years. These
generations are divided in different segments. The selected generation for this project will be
Gen Y also known as millennials. Generation Y also refereed as millennials are people born
between 1981 and 1996 therefore ageing between 25-40 years old.
Gen Y also known as millennials are people in their 20s and 30s this is the new
upcoming generation. This is the generation who have overcome the economic crisis and are the
majority of the entrepreneurs (Kasasa, 2021) This generation is the most active on social media
and result of which they like spending on the latest trends in fashion. They are considered more
emotional and soft-hearted and care more about their social values rather than economy. People
of gen Y are full of self-confidence and desire correct balance in their work and life. They have
high expectations on themselves, and they are always looking for the next challenge. This age
group are used to doing multiple tasks at once as they belong the generation in which computers,
smart phones and all other kinds of technology. This generation cannot be fooled by tricky ways
of advertisement such as pop-up ads (Naumovska, 2017) This generation holds the power of
uplifting any product as they have strong control over the social media. Primark a fashion
products company has majority of its consumers in the Generation Y.
Demographic Attributes of Consumer with Market Segmentation.
Generation Y are currently 24-40, and they take over the majority population in UK,
Demographical Segmentation of generation y can be done in four different segments (Hwang
and Griffiths, 2017)

Source :Kane, 2019
Age- Millennials are ranged from 24 to 40 years old, this is age difference brings lot of
different changes in their way of living and also their behaviour. Younger part of this generation
have different thing and choices than the bit old section of the generation. Along with age their
interests in products change, and they start prioritizing comfort in their choice of fashion.
Gender- Male and Female consumer both have different requirement of fashion
products. There is almost no similarity between their choices both require their own style of
fashion. The gender ratio to this generation is fairly equal (Yoseph, Malim and AlMalaily, 2019)
Illustration 1: Demographic Segmentation of consumer

Marital Status- Marital status does not make much of a difference for Primark in UK but
still influences the decisions of the consumers little. A person marital status brings forward
changes in their likes and dislikes. For example married couple are seen keen to wear matching
clothes, such kind of clothes which look good together. In most of the cases such people refer to
the celebrities and imitate their style as a married couple
Family life- When generation Y consumers start family they have to buy products for
their children. This gives rise to a new product categories such as fashion clothes for kids and
other accessories.
Income- People of same age groups have different buying capacity according to their
income a company should have products according to buying capacity of different consumers.
Income has straight effect over the purchasing power of an individual. Some companies therefore
provide offers of down payment which gives rise to customers who are initially not capable but
eventually steps into the market.
Communication of brand with consumers and influencing their purchase behaviour.
A brand uses Social communicational platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
and YouTube. This is done by creating a message which are then targeted to the selected
consumers. Choosing an appropriate audience to these messages the company targets the
potential buyers with the help of the study of market and the generations. Generation Y are
influenced by analysing their characteristics which differentiates them from other generations
these characteristics are special ways of connecting to the consumers as it defines their own
behaviour. Millennials have some unique characteristics which are used by Primark for
influencing their purchasing powers.
Believes in Collaboration- In comparison to other generations millennials are considered
more collaborative and those who turn to online websites for guidance to their purchasing
decisions that makes it easy for the Primark to sell its product to a millennial as they already
have full knowledge about the particular fashion. This is said to be the result of comfortability of
them towards technology specially smart phones. According to Nielson (2017) 69% of the
generation Y are open to flexibility in their work time and place showing their flexibility in all
fields (Stone, 2017)
Love for Travelling- Based on their interest in travelling makes millennials are very
different from other generations. According to Nielson 70% of the millennials love to travel and

explore different parts of the world. This love of millennials for travelling affects the market in
many ways. This obviously occurs due to result of free time and savings making them potentials
buyers at that point. A company like Primark can use these phenomena by advertising or
promoting travel which their product of fashion. For this help of blogger can be taken which are
popular on social media and attract Gen Y the most (Shetty, Venkataramaiah and Anand, 2019)
Fitness Focused- Millennials are seen focusing on their fitness with regular exercising.
According to Nielson 60% of them participate in daily workout and 73% are conscious about
their appearance. This effects their spending habits as fitness fashion also opens a door to a new
market option for companies like Primark. According to Goldman Sachs (2019) since 2013 them
purchase of regular footwear dropped and athletic footwear increased (Ajitha and Sivakumar,
2019) This gives Primark an opportunity to promote fitness related products in order to influence
the desires of the particular society.
Prioritizes brand and Discount- Millennials shop digitally therefore have multiple
options for purchasing the product they want. They will choose discounts over cheap and
unbranded product. According to Nielson (2017), 60% of the millennials buy branded products
at discount and 56% will switch to a different brand providing coupons or higher discount.
Company's like Primark provides discounts and coupon to attract this particular base of
customers.
Consumer Board.
Consumer Board means behaviour of the given consumer and how are they effected by
that behaviour for buying products. In this project millennials are the chosen consumers. Their
behaviours while purchasing products is described by the following illustration:
615291558

Source : Kasasa, 2021
The above illustration shows how millennials like to purchase products, they are very
smart, before purchasing they check the products on online websites for guidance to their
purchasing decisions (Gazzola and et.al.,2020) Making it easy for the Primark to sell its product
to a millennial as they already h615291558ave full knowledge about the particular fashion. This
is said to be the result of their comfortability towards technology specially smart phones.
gen y
Illustration 2 Usage of Smartphone for purchasing by
millennials

Source : Whiteman-stone,2017
The above illustration shows how this generation of consumers get affected by the
advertisement on social media which they come across while using the smart phone. Due to the
following advertisement they start exploring different websites for comparing prices available on
them. Websites which provide the best discounts and offers and have wide variety of option are
the ones they usually prefer.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that the consumer behaviour of millennials
effect the business of Primark a fashion company in UK. The behaviour of millennials and their
characteristics which influences companies such as Primark for planning new strategies and
ways of business. With different illustrations it was shown how the consumer of this generation
are using technology to their advantages for making decisions before purchasing a particular
product. Influence of social media over marketing and consumers getting effected due to
discounts and offers available on different online websites. Which influences their decision
before buy any product.
Illustration 4: Example showing how use smart phone for
purchasing

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ajitha, S. and Sivakumar, V.J., 2019. The moderating role of age and gender on the attitude
towards new luxury fashion brands. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management:
An International Journal.
Gazzola and et.al.,2020. Trends in the fashion industry. The perception of sustainability and
circular economy: A gender/generation quantitative approach. Sustainability. 12(7).
p.2809.
Hwang, J. and Griffiths, M.A., 2017. Share more, drive less: Millennials value perception and
behavioral intent in using collaborative consumption services. Journal of Consumer
Marketing.
Lim, L.C., 2019. Purchasing Behaviour of Environmentally Friendly Products Among
Generation Y in Malaysia (Doctoral dissertation, UTAR).
Naumovska, L., 2017. Marketing communication strategies for generation Y–
millennials. Business Management and Strategy. 8(1). pp.123-133.
Shetty, A.S., Venkataramaiah, N.B. and Anand, K., 2019. Brand activism and millennials: an
empirical investigation into the perception of millennials towards brand
activism. Problems and Perspectives in Management. 17(4). p.163.
Stone, A., 2017. Achieving U (X) topia for product design and marketing Generation Z is now--
and publishers and technology providers must deliver new products faster, writes
Anne Stone. Research Information. (90). pp.25-26.
Yoseph, F., Malim, N.H.A.H. and AlMalaily, M., 2019. NEW BEHAVIORAL
SEGMENTATION METHODS TO UNDERSTAND CONSUMERS IN RETAIL
INDUSTRY.
Online
Kane,S., 2019. Common charecteristics of mellenials,[online],Available through:
<https://www.thebalancecareers.com/common-characteristics-of-generation-y-
professionals-2164683>
Kasasa., 2021, Boomers, GenX, GenY,and GenZ Explained,[online]Available through:
<https://www.kasasa.com/articles/generations/gen-x-gen-y-gen-z>
Whiteman-stone.D.,2017, GenZ ,[online]Available through:
<https://fashionunited.uk/news/retail/gen-z-look-to-visual-social-platforms-for-
purchasing/2017030623769>
BCC news, 2017, GenX, GenY,and GenZ Explained,[online]Available through:
<https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-41036361>
Fashion Business, 2017, Fashion trend board,[online]Available through:
<https://thefashionbusinesscoach.com/blog/fashiontrendboard>