The effectiveness of guilt appeal in the fashion business

Résumé du document

Guilt and its mechanisms are a relevant way to understand consumers' behaviour towards fashion luxury purchases. Fashion is a huge industry, which proposes products based on subjective and personal affects. Clothes have to fit, to make people feel comfortable and good looking and not just to be useful. Designers sell dreams to consumers; they create a need which is not just to be dressed but to be well-dressed, fashionable. But at the same time, the fashion industry creates stereotypes and makes pressure on consumers. Then, the main question is to know if guilt is effective in fashion business, in other words if the unconscious mechanism of guilt triggers off in purchases such as luxury clothes or accessories which are well known to be "futile" or unnecessary. But in realty, this apparent "uselessness" is at the heart of this debate because if we refer to the main definition of guilt, we notice that guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something one believes one should not have done.

Extraits

[...] But in realty, this apparent “uselessness” is at the heart of this debate because if we refer to the main definition of guilt, we notice that guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something one believes one should not have done. Freud underlines the importance of internal conflicts: the consumer can feel wrong with himself when he buys fashion luxury items. His attitude can be very different from his behaviour, which leads to this type of internal conflicts. There is a lot of literature dealing with the connection between guilt and the fashion business. [...]

[...] Please really think of yourself in this exact situation and answer by or the following questions: Thank you for your time and patience! Scenario Imagine yourself on the Champs Elysées, it's a very nice day, you have a great weather every conditions are fulfilled to let you enjoy a nice shopping. It's your birthday, you and your best friend went out to day with the only objective to purchase something really nice to please yourself, your friend is here to advice you and to help you in your purchase. [...]

[...] We believe that the time of the day (4pm) was convenient since all our respondents responded at the same time, and we think that scenarios are reliable enough to put our respondents in almost real conditions of experiment, as they would be in a scenario. Applications Our results can have concrete applications. It can be useful for fashion stores because it shows they should create “intimate stores” where consumers feel undisturbed, self-confident and peaceful. On the contrary, when customers feel uneasy and observed, they are reluctant to buy guilt appealing fashion products. [...]

[...] You continue your tour of the shop and you see the new jeans of the season. You notice than some of them are a bit more expensive because it is made out of organic cotton. You continue to walk and you really like the ostentatious wallet exposed in the window. Then the salesperson comes to ask you if you need anything, any help. Your answer is no of course you are just looking, but you end up asking the price for the wallet, it is right in your price range. [...]

[...] The essence of such measurings is hard to capture in a simple questionnaire partly because of unconscious mechanisms which are at stake. Hence, data collection based on a scenario was chosen. Research methods We wanted to lead two different experiments in similar conditions. The informants were in two different Terminale class of 38 students at the Lycée d'Orsay near Paris on Friday the 30th of November at 16:30 pm. No claim of representativeness is made, but the informants had very different social and occupational backgrounds. [...]