Ethnic diversity: impact of choice of fashion models on purchase behaviour

Abstract

Over the last few years, there has been a shift in the conversations around ethnic inclusion. International brands like H&M and Zara, feature models from a diverse ethnic background in their product catalogue. While from the perspective of these global companies, this could be an expression of inclusivity. It could also be a well-researched marketing intervention which enables them to be more favourably viewed in comparison to their competitors. The objective of this research has been to understand if there exists a correlation between a brand that uses ethnically diverse fashion models in their product catalogue and the impact these catalogues can have on the minds of consumers viewing it. To understand the impact and the influence it has on the attitude that a customer develops towards the brand which in turn influences purchase intentions, hypothesis was developed based on secondary research and interviews. Further, an experiment in the form of surveys that included open ended questions to assess attitude and questions to collect demographics data of the survey taker was floated to collect the data to test the hypothesis. The data collected post-experimentation, was analysed using different data analysis techniques like ANOVA, two-sample t-tests and regressions. The study revealed that there is higher likelihood to purchase from brands that represent ethnically diverse fashion models. Mediation analysis led to the rejection of attitude towards the brand as the mediating variable, hence there is a scope of further experimentation to explain why there exists a positive relation between diversity representation and purchase intention. The study also demonstrates that this positive relationship holds across gender, age and city. Based on the observations from the experiment, certain insights have been drawn to enable the new-age fashion brands to attract a wider customer base.