Influencing Generation Y students’ clothing brand awareness: A gender perspective

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic significantly affected the global fashion industry, causing several changes that intensified competition between fashion retailers and brands, making it more challenging to establish or increase clothing brand awareness. Gender plays a crucial role in consumers’ perceptions and decision-making, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of gender in effectively establishing and increasing clothing brand awareness. The objective of the study was to determine whether differences exist in the creation of clothing brand awareness of Generation Y male and female students. This study followed a descriptive research design. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to students for voluntary completion. A total of 625 completed questionnaires were analysed by performing frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, internal consistency reliability, correlation analysis and regression analysis. After establishing the reliability of the measurement instrument, and confirming significant statistical relationships between all the constructs, multiple linear regression analysis was performed. The findings of the regression analysis revealed that for Generation Y male students, product, store image and advertising of clothing brands significantly influence their awareness of a brand; while for Generation Y female students, the price and advertising of clothing brands significantly influence their awareness of clothing brands. This study contributes to the literature relating to gender studies and brand awareness, and provides practical recommendations for clothing brands and retailers to more effectively establish or strengthen clothing brand awareness among Generation Y male and female consumers, respectively.