Alternative Marketing Strategies in Commercial Eco Fashion*

Fashion brands and companies that wish to market eco-fashion aim to benefit from the use of marketing campaigns addressing the fulfilment of this megatrend’s lifestyle aspects. The promoted “green” lifestyle is reflected on to the fashion items by means of a strong brand image, which is as important as the product itself. Therefore eco-fashion is ultimately bonded with brand architecture and all its visual componentsfrom hangtag to store-design. Most fashion brands have incorporated terms such as eco, green, natural, organic and sustainable into their marketing campaigns in order to establish an association between their brand name and the environment, as well as shifting their business philosophy to socially responsible (and/ or politically correct) business practices, so that the customers are already familiar with the conventional marketing concept promoting the LOHAS lifestyle. Creating a serious awareness for alternative thinking and responsible acting towards the environment requires alternative media to bring new messages across in order to differentiate them from conventional LOHAS marketing messages – making them more authentic and therefore more credible. This study investigates the relative importance of alternative marketing strategies of environmental friendly eco-fashion products and global responsibility reaching out to the younger generation.