Grassi, A orcid.org/0000-0002-7656-0480 (2022) “We Like That It Matters!”: Towards a Socially Sustainable Retail Store Brand Experience. Sustainability, 14 (23). 16310. ISSN 2071-1050
Abstract
Social sustainability is a topic that is gaining increased attention and yet has not been overly discussed, in particular with reference to the fashion industry. There is a shift in consumer demands, where brands are urged to stand for values, affect change in the industry, and have a clear purpose and positive impact over society. At the same time, brands are struggling to provide offers beyond products, or product-related experiences, at the risk of dissatisfying consumers expectations. Part of such dissatisfaction is clearly represented by the lack of footfall in retail stores and the fast-pace abandonment of the high-street by brands that cannot afford empty stores. This paper suggests an opportunity to rethink the retail store functionality as a space for brands to provide consumers with educational initiatives related to important societal issues, hence build their socially responsible profile. A netnographic exploratory analysis of Patagonia platforms was conducted in order to pinpoint potential positive reaction to a purpose-driven brand and its educational initiatives. The brand was chosen due to its value-committed strategy and constant educational effort towards consumers, both offline (product-related) and online (societal-related). This paper suggests that brands such as Patagonia, purpose and value driven in positively impacting society, should bring their activism and educational efforts on the high-street and in the retail spaces. By doing so, brands would concurrently provide consumers with experiences beyond product consumption, could revitalise our high-street, and could reinstate a sense of community belonging while raise their socially sustainable profile. This paper contributes to the existing literature of consumer education in retailing by expanding into the specific domain of fashion, a domain in which many social issues could be successfully addressed through a socially-driven consumer education at the moment still overlooked by researchers and brands.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | social sustainability; consumer education; brand purpose; cognitive engagement; fashion retailing; fashion branding |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Design (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Dec 2022 22:38 |
Last Modified: | 18 Dec 2022 22:38 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su142316310 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/su142316310 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:194239 |