Fashion, Style, Brand and Sustainability Are Today’s Coupling Terms Now for a Growing Number of Consumers…

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist, G&A Institute

We’re all consumers of one type or another.

We buy a variety of food and beverages, the latest electronic products, and an assortment of apparel and footwear products as needed — or desired!. 

So the questions come to mind…

What are you wearing?  Is it fashionable?  Stylish? And sustainable (as a product you want or need)?  Sustainably and responsibly produced?  In a global (mostly invisible) supply chain that you could say with certainty is “well supervised and responsibly managed”?

Do you identify yourself with the brand’s culture, ethos and sustainability and the praiseworthy efforts of the maker or the retailer in their declarations to the marketplace? 

Do you make sustainability a conscious buying decision?

A growing number of apparel & footwear brand producers/marketers are counting on “yes” answers to these questions.

In our monitoring of news and feature content from around the world and many prominent and not-so-prominent sources, we have been seeing a significant amount of content related to “fashion” and “sustainability” being coupled (as it, taken together as a given, like human nature (human + nature – a natural coupling).

The big bold industry and brand marketing names are part of the conversation: Victoria Beckham, Stella McCartney, Tommy Hilfiger, Gucci, and H&M are focused on sustainability and delivering the fashion + sustainability sales message in the coupling efforts (details in our story selections).

We’re presenting our “capture” of fashion and consumer-buying content this week in our Top Stories in the newsletter. 

In our constant monitoring we are seeing the trend in other consumer-facing areas of industry – in autos, toys, and a variety of food products and ingredients (palm oil, coffee beans, seafood/harvests of the seas).

The good news for society is that many more corporate leaders recognize the timely opportunity for their company to demonstrate that their company’s strategies and processes, and products & services offered in both consumer and B-to-B markets are “sustainable & responsible” … as now more frequently explained in the company’s sustainability report, in the 10-k, proxy statement, on its web pages…and on their products’ labeling. 

In this week’s Highlights newsletter we bring you a selection of the many news and feature stories focused on consumer marketing with a sustainability theme.

The range of coupled content (our product + sustainability) is growing by leaps and bounds and we try to select the most topical and informative content for you.

On coupling:  the best-selling author Malcolm Gladwells’s newest book is “Talking to Strangers”, a great read, we recommend. 

He explains why we are so overwhelmingly trusting of others (the strangers) as a basic human default and the concept of “coupling” — certain circumstances that can make certain assumptions, assertions and claims ring true for us.  

This comes to mind the acceptance of apparel, footwear and other brand marketers’ claims about “sustainability” in product and/or production. 

We are eager to invest belief in the claims. But do the facts support the claim?

Gladwell’s insights are terrific to contemplate as we receive the messages about sustainability from some brand marketers.

Top Stories

Fashion Brands Take Sustainability Further for Spring 2020
Source: Forbes 

Exclusive Q&A: Why Retailers Should Embrace Sustainable Supply Chains
Source: Retail Touch Points 

Why Sustainability Should Be Top of Mind for Retailers This Holiday Season
Source: Yahoo

Consumers want to buy sustainably—they just don’t know how
Source: Fast Company 

How Sustainability Became the Future of Retail
Source: Footwear News

Consumers Want to Buy Sustainably, but They Often Don’t
Source: Architectural Digest 

The Best 11 Brands for Sustainable Vegan Sneakers
Source: Love Kindly 

How can shoppers make sense of sustainable fish labels?
Source: The Guardian