Eco-friendliness and fashion perceptual attributes of fashion brands: an analysis of consumers’ perceptions based on Twitter data

This research aims to discover if there is a connection between the fashion and the eco-friendliness perceptual attribute of a fashion brand. In particular, we assume that an increase in the eco-friendly perception will influence the brand image positively. The hypotheses were tested using Twitter data. Twitter uses an algorithm that pushes content into the user timeline. Through the algorithm we evaluated the relevance of each tweet, the eventual past interactions with the author of the tweet, and tweets the user found engaging in the past. The two perceptual attributes are captured through the recourse to some exemplars accounts that represent social media conversations around the world of fashion (identified by the words fashion, glamour and style); and eco-friendliness (through the words environment and ethical business). We computed a similarity function between the followers of the exemplars and those of the brand. The results suggest that there is a correlation between the fashion and the eco-friendliness perceptual attributes of a brand; this correlation, though, is far stronger for luxury brands than for high and fast fashion brands. The difference in the correlations confirms the tendency of fashion luxury firms over the last few years to consider dealing with environmental issues more and more as a core business and not just as an added value to the firm’s offer.