Abstract. The world is facing economic, environmental and social challenges, which have resulted in the megatrend of sustainability. It is well known that fashion industry has negative effects on sustainability. The topics of sustainability and unsustainable fashion production are very current and discussed in today’s economy. This has resulted in the demand of sustainability also from the consumers’ side, which means that companies should also start focusing on making their operations more sustainable. Companies should consider their impact on the world seriously and take corporate social responsibility into account.
The aim of this Master’s Thesis is to recognize how a sustainable fashion marketing strategy can be defined. In other words, the research purpose is to find out how a fashion company can build a sustainable marketing strategy. This research aims to awake discussion on how fashion industry can be made more sustainable.
The research is conducted by studying existing literature and analyzing the case company, Finnish fashion brand Andiata. The brand was chosen because it highlights its sustainable values and promotes fashion. The research approach is abductive and qualitative. The theoretical framework of sustainable fashion marketing strategy is built through topics such as fashion industry, fashion consumerism, fashion marketing and sustainable marketing, as well as sustainable marketing, marketing strategy, sustainable consumerism and sustainable marketing management.
This research is built on the sustainable marketing strategy model presented in existing literature. The model includes the steps of (1) Mission and objectives, (2) Market and environment analysis, (3) STP Process, (4) Marketing mix, (5) Measuring and evaluating and (6) Public participation. The empirical material consists of the case company interview and chosen marketing material: social media posts, newsletter and website frontpage. These materials and the interview structure are presented in the Appendices 1–5.
This research confirms and develops the six-step model of sustainable fashion marketing strategy. The most important findings include that the aspects of sustainability and fashion should be taken into account on each step of the process, and that sustainable marketing is much more than marketing — it should take into account the whole business operations from the production chains to end-use processes. The research also adds details to the existing theoretical knowledge about the topics
