Sustainability as a core value : How Hungarian fashion brands construct their brand image as sustainable

Absztrakt (kivonat)

The thesis examines and discusses the sustainable brand image of Hungarian emerging fashion brands. Our carbon footprint on the planet is increasing, owing to rising consumption rates. Fashion is one of the most fouling industries on the planet, we buy fashion products more than hitherto. Nowadays the strong reality of fast fashion captures the attention of a lot of people worldwide, sustainable fashion is changing people’s mindsets. This paper examines the sustainable fashion phenomenon and how people can get to know slow fashion brands through branding in Hungary. In this thesis, I am seeking the answer to the following question: ‘How do Hungarian rising brands build their sustainable brand image, and how do they communicate this to their customers?’ Branding is perhaps the world's most potent commercial and cultural force. Whether we see it or not, we are bombarded with thousands of brand messages each day. The present thesis relies on the two basic elements of branding - brand communication, and the brand itself. In the theoretical part, I introduce the idea and characteristics of sustainable communication, the evolution of fashion communication, and storytelling with fashion which brings the brand communication segment to a close. Further, I go through the visual communication part, emphasizing colors and symbols. I conclude this chapter by highlighting the concept of brand building and sustainable branding within it, using Kapferer's Identity Prism model. For the empirical part of the thesis qualitative interviews were conducted. I study the sustainable branding of six Hungarian designer brands, Nanushka, Aeron, Cukovy, Alma Vetlényi, Kazetta, and Ladik. I identify the four main aspects that are essential for sustainable branding of Hungarian designer brands: (1) identifying the target audience and design the source of sustainable communication accordingly, (2) let the product speak for itself - highlight the life of the item, following the example of Nanushka, (3) humanization and being explicit are the basic expectations of a brand (4) educating customers through raising awareness in order to shift consumer behavior.