The effects of environmental and uniqueness benefits in slow fashion advertising on the purchase intention and willingness to pay of consumers.

The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world. Aiming at reducing the impact of the fashion industry, the development of slow fashion has occurred. As consumers showcase increasing interest in the value of sustainability, advertising the slow fashion garments has become of increasing relevance to slow fashion brands. Based on theoretical findings this research is expanding on the limited slow fashion advertising research by researching environmental and uniqueness benefits in slow fashion advertising. The reason to research the effect of an environmental benefit in an advertisement, is because the environment is the cause of the development of the slow fashion industry. Furthermore, fashion consumers value the environment and uniqueness in fashion. Both the purchase intention and willingness to pay have been proven to be a substantial method to measure the effectiveness of an advertisement, which have thus been used in order to measure the effect of the environmental and uniqueness benefits. Therefore, the research question to be answered in this research is “To what extend does the inclusion of environmental and uniqueness benefits in slow fashion advertisements influence the purchase intention and willingness to pay of consumers?”. Through a deductive quantitative approach, a 2 by 2 between-subject survey experiment has been conducted. Findings of the study conclude that a uniqueness benefit in an advertisement has a significant influence on the willingness to pay of consumers. However, no significant effect of an environmental benefit on the purchase intention and willingness to pay was found. In addition, no significant effect of the uniqueness benefit on the purchase intention was found. The inclusion of both the environmental and uniqueness benefit did not lead to a significant effect on both the purchase intention and willingness to pay. Additionally, the attitude towards a brand is concluded to not be a mediator for the environmental benefit in an advertisement on the purchase intention and willingness to pay. This study contributes to the academic knowledge of slow fashion advertisement and can be used by slow fashion brands in order to advertise their garments.