Abstract
Recently, traditional cultural resources (TCRs) have become a core part of enterprise clothing branding strategies. Such clothes, expressed in traditional culture, are widely accepted and recognized by audiences. Unfortunately, industry has leveraged these brands poorly and created ones that lack sign-cognition of TCRs. This has resulted in products reflecting shallow traditional cultural patterns (sign-form) rather than deeper adapted cultural expressions. The negative association resulting from this shallow and generic patterning in branding can be harmful for TCRs and damage the image of a brand in the minds of the people, thereby threatening the survival and long-term development of the brand. In order to solve this problem, this study divides the solution into three steps: (1) defining and understanding sign-meaning and sign-function in TCRs from the context of existing literature; (2) assessing, evaluating and breaking down sign-meanings, via in-depth interviews, into several sign-production sub-categories: (a) cultural attribution orientation; (b) knowledge perception orientation; and (c) stakeholders orientation; (3) Utilizing a typical brand development case study to demonstrate how these sign-meaning sub-categories can be help a brand better communicate with its audience. Firstly, it is noted that cultural attribution orientation: (a) expands the notion of brand culture; (b) promotes the movement of the design language of a brand from a dependent development into an independent development; and (c) connects the brand with potential audiences through a cultural gene transmission. Secondly, it is noted that knowledge perception orientation not only expands the foundation of expert groups but also provides TCRs-related to platforms of learning for audiences (e.g., to convey the brand’s social reputation of responsibility through educational communication). Thirdly, stakeholder orientations provide a foundation for brand integration with commercial resources and thus transform the brand to combine with social, commercial and industrial forms of collaboration. Beyond these three sub-categorizations, the study shows that sign-functions of TCRs can have an influence on cultural transformation, academic cohesion and social connection for clothing brands. This study provides a new perspective on TCRs with respect to sign-meaning and sign-function. TCRs can help clothing brands expand to reach audiences of traditional communication media, such as fashion shows. They can also help establish a more stable community mode of communication for non-commercial purposes.
Highlights
The transition to a global modern industrial economy has created an environment in which rapid specification, production and distribution of fashion products is creating a world market that is gradually converging
Chinese clothing brands tend to be short-lived and tend to have a poor brand perception compared to well-known luxury brands
traditional cultural resources (TCRs) have leveraged properly and integrated into a brand can help to associate the brand with the wider culture
Summary
The transition to a global modern industrial economy has created an environment in which rapid specification, production and distribution of fashion products (e.g., via fast fashion) is creating a world market that is gradually converging. Chinese clothing brands tend to be short-lived and tend to have a poor brand perception compared to well-known luxury brands They are associated with being cheap, low-quality products [5]. Many international high-value brands utilize Chinese original clothing manufacturers (OCMs). These OCM products are branded under the labels of these highly recognized and luxury non-local brands for export to Japan, Europe, the United States and other countries. This further weakens the Chinese clothing brand market [6]
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