ethical marketing research report

Does Ethical Marketing Even Matter?

Madeline Clark and Casey Fick and Chris Stoddard and Taylor Buckley

ETHICAL MARKETING AND CONSUMER DECISION

Abstract

This study analyzes consumers’ attitudes towards ethical marketing and their purchasing habits

of ethically made products, as well as the effectiveness of different types of marketing done by

ethical brand. “Ethical Marketing” in this study is defined as “marketing to consumers who want

their goods produced in a manner that is both fair to the environment and the workers involved in

creating the product.” While consumers often say they identify with ethically responsible

behaviors, they do not seem to make an effort to actually buy ethically made products.

Additionally, this report finds that ethical brands that promote their ethical initiatives rather than

their products are recognized more as ethical brands. To ameliorate the gap between ideals and

actions, we suggest a universal identifier on all ethically made clothing products to encourage

awareness, identification and a trend towards making ethically produced clothing the sole

socially acceptable type of clothing. Survey data from respondents drawn from student and

nonstudent populations are used in this study.

Keywords: ethical production, ethical marketing, fair labor, ethical consumption,

consumer behavior, social bias

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Introduction

For most of human history, people have known exactly where their clothing came from.

The concept of stores full of ready-to-wear clothing and accessories only came about after the

Industrial Revolution when producing en masse became more affordable and accessible for large

corporations. At the turn of the 20th century, concerns about unsafe working conditions for

underpaid women and children in textile factories showed the beginning movement towards

ethical production standards; however, these concerns became less prominent as the demand for

ready-to-wear clothing expanded and corporations began to outsource their production to

sweatshops in underdeveloped countries. As technology and communications has created a

global marketplace, consumers are again concerned with the circumstances under which their

goods are produced, prompting another push towards fair labor and compensation for the

laborers. Additionally, consumers have become increasingly aware with the waste they produce,

also prompting a concern in environmentally ethical production and goods.

While there is mounting pressure on large corporations from consumers to increase the

transparency of the production of their goods, there is also a large and ever-expanding consumer

demand for goods in bulk at low prices. The contradiction poses a problem for manufacturers

and consumers alike. Will consumers make the effort to support ethically transparent companies

if that company’s products have higher prices? Will the manufacturers be able to produce the

bulk of their demanded products with stringent ethical confinements? The problem of appeasing

consumers’ concerns while also maintaining their production and pricing concerns is a

conundrum facing clothing, food and technology industries today.

Since the trend of ethically made products is a newly popularized ideal, this research will

provide a good benchmark for future analysis. Currently, the market penetration of ethical

products is not large, but if the trend continues and becomes a future norm, this research will be

valuable to track the progress of the movement. Additionally, studying what consumers

recognize now as ethically made products will provide a roadmap for future marketers who are

looking to move into the ethical clothing sector.

As the market stands, there are a handful of clothing corporations that consciously make

an effort to use sustainable materials (i.e. recycled fabrics, upcycled or used clothing, organic

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fibers, etc.) as well as ethical production methods. These companies include TOMS Shoes,

Patagonia, Inc., L.L.Bean, Inc., Timberland LLC, Stella McCartney, Columbia Sportswear

Company, American Apparel, Warby Parker, Under Armour, Inc., Adidas AG and Black

Diamond Equipment. These corporations have stringent ethical guidelines when it comes to their

production methods as well as their use of environmentally friendly and conscious materials in

their products.

These corporations make an effort to let their consumers know that their goods are

ethically made, leaving the question of if this marketing is an added bonus for these companies.

We suggest, the fact that a brand is ethically made will influence consumers to purchase the

brand’s products. In order to have valid research, this hypothesis will be tested against a null

hypothesis which states, the fact that a brand is ethically made has no effect on whether a

consumer will purchase their products.

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Literature Review

The first piece of scholarly literature that I looked at for our study was “Corporate Social

Responsibility In The Retail Apparel Context: Exploring Consumers' Personal And Normative

Influences On Patronage Intentions” which was conducted by Sonali Diddi and Linda S. Niehm.

The study that they conducted focused on a pool of 407 consumers and revealed that

“universalistic values, moral norms, expectations of ethical behavior, knowledge of

environmental issues in the apparel industry, and attitudes all had significant and positive effects

on consumers' patronage intentions toward retail apparel brands engaged in socially responsible

supply chain activities” (Diddi 2). Their survey was structured similarly to ours, with the

conductors asking the participants various questions regarding their buying habits in regards to

companies that take corporate socially responsible (CSR) actions. Though they focused on the

ethicality of the clothing industry, they also asked participants different questions about their

morals to get a better understanding as to why they would or would not support these brands. We

did not ask many general moral questions in our survey, as we mainly stuck to questions

pertaining to ethical marketing and production, however I believe that in a future survey, this

would be an additional informative area to cover. In the survey, they used a likert scale of 7 in

order to ask participants to what degree they agreed or disagreed with statements such as

“Purchasing apparel from retail brands involved in CSR activities versus not purchasing from

retail brands not involved in CSR will make me: a). feel like a better person b). Feel like making

a personal contribution to something better c). Feel like the morally right thing to do” (Diddi 12).

The results of their study presented a significant and positive correlation (β = .53, p < .001)

between universalistic values and moral norms which supported their hypothesis that the morals

of the consumer are determined through universalistic values. This means that consumers

actions’ are influenced by values that we have determined to be universalistic and will likely

affect the purchases that they make when shopping for clothes. This supports the alternative

hypothesis that we proposed which stated “The fact that a brand is ethically made will influence

consumers to purchase the brand’s products”. Ethics are a prime example of a universalistic

value therefore, it is likely they would have an affect on the moral norms of the consumer

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causing them to feel more inclined to buy an ethically produced product that would be

considered interchangeable with a non-ethically produced piece of clothing.

Though my second literature review was conducted outside of the apparel industry, I still

believe that the information collected regarding consumers’ reactions to CSR practices used by

musicians can be seen as universal responses to this type of business behavior. In the study, “Do

They Know It’s CSR At All? An Exploration Of Socially Responsible Music Consumption”

conducted by Todd Green, Gary Sinclair and Julie Tinson, they determine whether or not the

ethical practices that musicians take influence the opinion of their fanbase and those outside of it.

For example, the researchers found through the study that music festival goers “hold generally

positive attitudes towards environmentally friendly music festivals” (Green 232). However,

when they polled the respondents asking how many of them would still be willing to attend a

non-environmentally friendly festival, 85% said they would be alright with it. I find this statistic

to be important to our own study because we experienced a similar attitude-behavior gap in our

own findings. We found that, as a whole, respondents seemed to say that they try to be

environmentally conscious when shopping but the choices that they actually make don’t very

well reflect that notion. They also found that consumers tend to be more likely to buy a hedonic

product that is ethically produced than a utilitarian product. Depending on the good, consumers

may experience guilt when buying a hedonic product like a chocolate bar or makeup. They can

justify that guilt with the ethical factors associated with the product leading them to be more

likely to buy a chocolate bar made with fair trade cocoa beans than a Hershey’s bar because they

feel like they’re making a socially conscious decision. This could explain some of the

attitude-behavior gap in our study because clothes are primarily seen as a utilitarian good,

making them less likely to give consumers those same feelings.

To further explore this attitude-behavior gap, I reviewed the study “Care And

Commitment In Ethical Consumption: An Exploration Of The 'Attitude-Behaviour Gap” which

was conducted by Deirdre Shaw, Robert McMaster, and Terry Newholm. Through their analysis,

they found that consumers will often be so self-interested, that on surveys they will overly rate

the level at which they believe themselves to be environmentally and socially conscious which

we found to be a reoccurring theme within our own study (Shaw 253). They also proposed that

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consumers may have a willingness to buy ethically produced goods but don’t have the monetary

funds with which to follow through with their purchase. I, however, do not think that this point

applies to our survey as the majority of our respondents said that their household income is over

$100,000 so I don’t believe that they lack the funds to spend slightly more money on a piece of

clothing that was made ethically. Because of this, I believe it to be more likely that the

respondents were overrating themselves in order to satisfy their self-interest and provide them

with the idea that they’re being ethically conscious even if they really aren’t.

Despite what this research shows, Fair Trade USA, the nonprofit certification group for

companies that exhibit social and environmental conscious behavior in their production lines,

stated that their certified ethical apparel “need to be available to a wider mass-market” (WSJ

“Fair Trade”). I believe that this would be a step in the right direction as they point out that

“millennials are the ones driving the rapidly growing movement for sustainable and ethical

fashion” which coincides with what we found in our study. I think this is one of several steps that

they should take however, because even if consumers buy one of these products, they have no

easy way of showing that their shirt was ethically made. This also calls into question whether the

ethical practices that these companies are taking are actually doing any good. For example,

TOMS donates one pair of shoes to a child in need for every purchase of their shoes that is made.

They recently hired researchers to find out whether or not this was making a difference and

surprisingly, it did not have as great an impact as they hoped. The researchers discovered that

their gifted shoes were not making a noticeable difference on shoelessness in these areas and that

after receiving the shoes, the amount of children who believed that others should provide for the

needs of their family rose from 66% to 79% of those interviewed (Economist “Free Two

Shoes”). This presents an entirely separate argument as to whether or not the changes that some

of these companies like TOMS are making is doing more good than bad and whether they should

change the way in which they give back.

When conducting our literature review, the first piece I had looked into was a study

completed by Ronald Frank, Matthias Unfried, Regina Schreder and Aja Dieckmann of GfK

titled “Ethical Textile Consumption: Only a Question of Selflessness?” which looked into what

factors were driving shopping behaviors around ethical consumption. The study looked at

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German populations and determined that self-reported behaviors were not in line with sales

figures of ethical brands and products. While a majority of respondents stated that they would

not purchase clothing if they knew it was not made ethically, only one in four consumers bought

an article of ethical clothing (Frank, Unfried, Schreder, Dieckmann, 2016). Delving further into

this discrepancy, researchers found that for 85% of the respondents considered the most

important features fit, comfort, good workmanship, ease of care and quality of material while

59% care about environmental friendliness or socially fair manufacturing and trade conditions.

These findings in combination with half of respondents expressing ambivalence towards fair

trade seals stating that they felt they only made sense when they are “mandatory for for all

manufactures and brands and adequately controlled” (Frank et. al, 2016).

The second study I reviewed was done by Sandra Diehl, Ralf Terlutter and Barbara

Mueller which looked at the effect of humane oriented corporate social responsibility appeals in

advertising campaigns. This was a different angle, as it didn't look at ethical consumption, but

rather other ways that consumers satisfy their conscience. The study found that advertisements

with humane oriented CSR appeals created a chain reaction in consumer’s minds. The higher the

perceived degree of humane orientation the more positively the ad was evaluated. This in turn

made participants more likely to evaluate the advertiser or brand as being socially responsible

which influenced intended behaviors (Diehl, Terlutter, Mueller, 2015). All signs point to

consumers preferring companies that are making a positive difference in the world, but no such

agreed upon preference is seen in ethical or unethical production and business practices.

Essentially, this research discovers that brands that may not be employing ethical production or

business practices can be seen as doing so just by making sure the advertisements they air have a

strong humane appeal, or a strong tie to some issue that people hold close. In a word, companies

that are by and large unethical can paint over these practices with a check and a video camera

(Diehl et. al, 2015). The study also found that the issues that garnered the highest measured

responses were those pertaining to improving education, eradicating poverty and hunger, and

protecting the environment (Diehl et. al, 2015).

The last study I reviewed was by Iain Andrew Davies and Sabrina Gutsche which looked

at the motivations of the mainstream ethical consumer. This consumer is what they reference as

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ethically influenced consumers. These individuals are not “radical” or employing a higher level

of thinking or understanding while making purchase decisions (Davies, Gutsche, 2016). They

found that perceived benefits pertaining to self through peer esteem, accomplishment and

perceptions of higher quality were the most influencing factors in an ethical consumer’s purchase

decision, not altruistic motive (Davies et. al, 2016). They also found that these consumers were

happy to purchase an ethically made product at a higher price if it was the only product in the

category available at a retailer, but would not go out of their way to purchase it. Furthermore,

because of this retailers got somewhat of a “halo effect” by carrying ethical products (Davies et.

al, 2016). This caused consumers to attribute the socially responsible actions to the retailer, not

the product or brand. This piggy-backing makes it preferable for retailers to carry ethical

products in addition to their original product offerings (Davies et. al, 2016)

An interesting piece of literature that I came across in doing some secondary research is

entitled “Do ethical consumers care about price? A revealed preference analysis of fair trade

coffee purchases”. This research was done by college students similar to ourselves looking at the

buying practices of college students with fair trade products. This research was done at Alberta

University and the subjects involved were college aged students as well as some faculty and staff

of the college. For this research, students turned to their on campus coffee shop that was

frequented by the student body. This coffee shop sells fair trade coffee as well as many other

brands and flavors of non-fair trade coffee. To conduct their research the students doing the

analysis convinced the coffee shop owner discount the prices of coffee (about $0.25) during peak

times of the day. These changes in price would be clearly advertised to the consumers. They then

discounted the coffee, one per peak period of the day. After a consumer would buy their coffee,

the student analyzing would approach them and ask them some brief questions asking what they

knew about fair trade coffee. What they found was interesting. Their survey consisted of about

half women and half men. It was also almost evenly split between students and staff. They found

that students (younger in age ) were more willing to buy the fair trade brand of coffee than older

staff were. They also discovered that females would buy fair trade slightly more than men.

Overall they found that prize didn’t have much of an effect on the responsiveness of fair trade

coffee drinkers. Meaning that if they were to increase the price of the fair trade coffee, fair trade

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coffee drinkers would be less likely to abandon this product as opposed to non- fair trade coffee

drinkers. These results go in hand with what we expected to see in our survey. We assumed that

college aged students would be more likely to purchase fair trade regardless of the price. These

results do not so much match our results about what people look for when buying a product in

which most people ranked price as one of their top concerns.

The second article I reviewed entitled “The magic of ethical brands: Interpassivity and

the thievish joy of delegated consumption”, looked at the motives behind ethical purchasing.

They examined Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) and how brand consumption is used for

individual identity. They looked into research done on intrinsic motives of consumption and

found that buying ethically made products can provide consumers with a hedonistic pleasure.

Meaning that the reason that consumers buy ethically made products is for their own internal

pleasure. What this article questions is why it is that people, knowing that they are most of the

time not buying ethically made products or products made in sweatshops, ignore it as though it is

not important. Although alternatively feel good about themselves for buying ethically made

products. This article also discusses three different types of consumers, the indifferent who looks

at ethically made products as not really having meaning to them. They buy ethically made

because it's convenient and they feel good about themselves. Activists, or strict believers of

buying ethically made products are hedonistically rewarded because to them it is a believable

delegation of ethical practice. And the cynic who understands ethical buying and brushes it off as

falsehood. In conclusion this article explains that the majority of people will only buy ethically

made products for a hedonistic reward.

We also wanted to do some research into ethically made clothing in specific. This article

“Understanding Ethical Consumers: Assessing and Moderating Effects of Price Sensitivity,

Materialism, Impulse Buying Tendency and Clothing involvement” gave us some insight into

many different aspects of ethical buying practices. While it covered price and also post-purchase

return rates, we found the information on ethically made clothing, really supported our research.

The article claimed that their research showed that the highest scoring ethically made clothing

type was clothing that was made “sweatshop” free. People who bought these products felt good

about buying a product that supposed the improvement of working conditions. Their study also

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showed that people who were ethically conscious preferred it if the clothes were able to be worn

for a long period of time, insinuating good quality. This goes hand-in-hand with our research

done in our survey. We found that Patagonia was one of the most recognized ethically made

products of many other apparel companies that we listed. Patagonia puts and emphasis on the

quality of their product. While at the same time, encourages people to only buy one product of

theirs because they promote sustainability and know that their products are of good quality. In

this article it is also stated that “participants were willing to pay more for socially responsible

apparel if the clothes contain aesthetic values and if the price is affordable”. This is interesting to

our study because we can see that Patagonia does provide this aesthetic value. Patagonia

products are especially trendy right now, fitting into recent fashion trends. Most people said that

they recognize that Patagonia is ethically made and we wonder if it is due to the labels placed on

their clothes. This may make them more recognizable to consumers.

In our research findings we also wanted to gain some insight on what people felt about

ethically made clothing or the industry as a whole. We found a blogger Nikki Mattei from

Fashion Revolution who gave us some insight into where the disconnect is with ethically made

clothing and purchasing behavior. Mattei claims that having been in the fashion industry for

many years, she has a good grasp on what is ethically made and what is not. She understands that

their are issues with companies and treating their employees fairly as well as some brands even

falsely labeling their clothing. What Mattei states is “I do want to buy ethically but I want to

wear clothes which make me feel good” (Mattei, 2016) . Mattei’s issue with ethically made

clothing is that she can not express herself or buy clothing that she feels good in. Showing us that

there is a gap in the market. Mattei explains that buying ethically can be a hard thing to do,

unlike buying organic/ethically made food or makeup. She explains that the food and makeup

industry has become more diverse with ethical products due to consumer demand and pressure to

satisfy the market. The pressure may simply not be there in the ethical clothing industry.

We also wanted to look into other research that has been done that may be similar to ours

or the hypothesis we were trying to research. College student Sophia Jamal of Duke University

believes that the fashion industry is beginning to transform into a more conscious industry. She

has done research into some ethically practicing brands and claims that “their numbers are

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undeniably growing” (Jamal, 2016). She claims that the top three factors that people consider

when purchasing a product are price, design/style along with durability. In her research she states

that “only 3% if students picked production” as a factor they consider when purchasing a

product. When she asked in her survey which brands that people had heard of that they knew

where ethically made, the top two recognized were Patagonia and TOMS. Concluding her

research she gathered that from her sample 59% had heard of and recognized ethical fashion.

Jamal claims that ethically made clothing have a long way to go in terms of getting people to see

their brands as popularly as they might with Patagonia and TOMS. She gathers that overall

people do not understand that there is ethically made clothing that is fashion forward and

working towards the betterment of society.

In a 2005 study of Belgian professors and administrators at Ghent University, researchers

determined consumers’ willingness to buy Fair Trade coffee. In the country, there is a 27% price

increase on Fair Trade products, which the researchers hypothesized would be a big deterrent for

consumers. The study consisted of 808 respondents and discussed attitude-action gap between

consumers. While opinion polls in Belgium showed a growing market for ethical products, these

types of products often had less than 1% market share in each industry (de Pelsmacker et al.,

2005). Brand loyalty and personal preference (e.g. for flavor or style) instead of concerns over

production method or origin of the product were larger influences over purchase decisions (de

Pelsmacker et al., 2005). Perhaps this is because the brand of Fair Trade was not fully

established in Belgium at the time of the survey. The research suggests that one of the main

issues the study found was the misinformation spread on fair-trade products, or the

misunderstanding of the meaning of Fair Trade labels by consumers (de Pelsmacker et al., 2005).

The remedy to this would be education of fair-trade products to the consumers in the future.

In a 2008 study of Italian retail chain customers in Milan and Florence entitled “The

Missing Link Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Consumer Trust,” researchers found

a strong link between a company’s positive CSR and commitment to customers and a willingness

to buy Fair Trade products from that retailer. The study had a total of 400 respondents from the

city, all who were aware of fair-trade products and brands. After much analysis, researchers

found that although it may seem logical that a company with positive CSR would achieve higher

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importance and more acceptance in the marketplace, the only true change that CSR has is when a

company has negative CSR (Sandro Castaldo et al., 2008). This study also found that high brand

loyalty and trust in that brand will be an indication of fair-trade good produced by that company.

This is where a positive CSR can come into play. If a company has not had any scandals, and

promotes the fact that they are supposedly committed to the needs of their consumers, they will

have success with a fair-trade labelled product (Sandro Castaldo et al., 2008). In correlation with

that, consumers who trust Fair Trade products are more likely to develop brand loyalty to that

product, and will be more willing to pay a premium price for the product (Sandro Castaldo et al.,

2008).

In a 2013 study entitled “Consumers’ Awareness of Sustainable Fashion,” 306 survey

respondents were asked about how they perceive a product to be ethical based on eight

classifications: recycled, vintage, organic, vegan, artisan, locally made, custom and fair trade.

The study found that only half of these products were considered ethical (Shen et al., 2013).

These products fell under the recycled, vintage, fairtrade and locally made categories. The

research then went on to suggest that since only 50% of these products were recognized as

ethical, the brand of ethical goods has not yet reached its market potential. In order to achieve

higher purchase rates, the study suggests, consumers must be aware that the products exists

(Shen et al., 2013). Unlike other research, this study admits that there is not a large enough

awareness of ethical brands for “ethical-ness” to be a major decision factor when purchasing a

product.

Michael Hobbes, a human rights consultant in Berlin wrote an article for the Huffington

Post on the challenges of buying ethical products today. He argues that consumers cannot shop

themselves into a better tomorrow, but rather policies are the only way to ensure ethical

production of consumer goods (Hobbes, 2015). Hobbes highlights the fact that large

corporations, such as Nike, Wal-Mart and H&M, who are often attacked for their unethical labor

practices are not aware of the actual transgressions happening in the factories where the clothing

is being made. Instead, they are being crossed by a series of “sub-, sub-, sub-contractors” who

circumvent the fair labor laws that American corporations as legally subject to follow (Hobbes,

2015). He goes on to explain that the real problem in the production industry now is the

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increasing middle class in developing countries who are not far enough removed from unethical

labor, and whose countries do not have the stringent laws that are set in America. The factories

in these countries selling domestically do not have to worry fair labor because they are not forced

to be. Hobbes poses an unconventional, negative view towards consumer protests for or against

certain brand because of their supposed ethical practices (Hobbes, 2015). Instead, he suggests,

corporations must work with the local governments in which they are certain their goods are

being produced to create governmental policies which would force factory managers to pay fair

wages, stop child labor and increase the health and safety standards for all workers.

Finally, Nathaniel Dafydd Beard, co-founder of Fashion Research Network and lecturer

at Coventry University in London discusses the lifestyle and societal factors affecting ethical

fashion consumers and the future of the ethical fashion industry. Beard discusses the importance

of the emergence of the “liquid society” consumers now live in, where they are “constantly in a

state of flux” or indecisiveness about decisions of all importance (Beard, 2015). This type of

society has emerged in the Western world as a result of satisfaction with the standard of living

and the search to become “rounded” individuals. Beard also discusses the fashion trends of retro

and vintage clothing, stating that retro styles may not be totally beneficial for companies, as past

period-styles can be related to outdated societal norms or cultural grievances; however, he does

affirm that vintage and second-hand clothing is a viable ethical trade, and explains that the trend

of second-hand clothing is a win for ethical products (Beard, 2015). As far as the future, Beard

explains that larger firms in joint ventures with smaller, eco friendly firms run the risk of

negative consumer perception if they are not fully committed to eco fashion like their partners

are. Finally, he concludes that the ultimate perpetuance of the eco fashion trend lies in education,

and the only way for the movement towards ethical fashion to continue is to educate more

consumers of malpractices as well as companies who excel in the area of ethical fashion

production.

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Methodology

The survey that we conducted had a total of 351 respondents with 289 of them finishing

the survey in its entirety. The survey was primarily composed of multiple choice, likert scale,

rank order and short answer questions. Our survey had a total of 53 questions, as we had 40

questions organized as the metadata of one question, so our survey time could vary in length

depending on the answers respondents gave on the first part of that question. The survey was

mainly distributed through Facebook and email, providing a convenience and snowball sample.

Family members and friends shared the survey on their Facebook pages or through email which

accounted for the majority of our participants. We had 35 (12.11%) respondents out of the 289

who lived outside of the U.S., with countries ranging from UK, to Sweden, all the way to South

Africa. These responses were a welcome variance from our respondents, as the large majority of

them were living in the United States. In total, we had 247 females (85.47%), 39 males

(13.49%), and 3 non-binary (1.04%) respondents take our survey. Among these respondents, the

three most recorded age groups being 45-54 (101=n, 34.95%), 18-24 (80=n, 27.68%), and 55+

(63=n, 21.80%). Our hypotheses were as follows:

H1 The fact that a brand is ethically made will influence consumers to purchase

the brand’s products

H0 The fact that a brand is ethically made has no effect on whether a consumer

will purchase their products

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Discussion of the Results

The data we collected through the survey was split into two main subgroups; college

students and older adults. We had a total of 358 respondents, with 289 respondents completing

the survey. The majority of our respondents were out of college, but we had a significant amount

of college students complete the survey as well. The majority of respondents reported a total

annual household income of greater that $100,000, meaning that our respondents more than

likely have disposable income that can be spent flexibly. We believe that this demographic

information reported informed behavioral intent. In our survey, we asked respondents to

complete a section of statement agreement scales with seven degrees varying from strongly agree

to strongly disagree. Pertinent results from this section can be seen in figure 1.

Figure 1 Percent of students that responded with some level of agreement

Percent of adults that responded with some level of agreement

I make an effort to support ethically made products

77.2% 89.5%

I am aware of current world issues 89.5% 96.6%

I buy clothing based on trends 71.9% 33.8%

I consider myself a leader among my friends

70.1% 69.2%

I am willing to pay extra for ethically made products

70.2% 79.2%

As is illustrated in Figure 1, the majority of respondents reported being aware of current world

issues and making an effort to support ethically made products. From this, we suggest that there

is a correlation between the level of awareness of ethical practices and the level of effort being

made to support those practices. However, after running a regression analysis, we found that

there was only a 20% correlation, so this theory is not plausible with the data collected. This is

possibly due to the relatively small data set and even smaller response to the question. We also

found that while the raw data suggests that all statements in Figure 1 are correlated, they are not

statistically proven to be so.

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Figure 2 Percent of students that recognized the brand as ethical

Percent of adults that recognized the brand as ethical

Toms 45.6% 54.5%

Patagonia 35.1% 45%

L. L. Bean 35.1% 36.8%

Warby Parker 7% 6.9%

Columbia 7% 9.5%

Black Diamond 3.5% 3.9%

Our research proved that there is some disconnect when it comes recognizing and

identifying brands that sell ethically made products. As seen in Figure 3, 61.8% of our

respondents recognized that TOMS were an ethical brand. This was the highest accurate

recognition of all of our listed ethical brands. Patagonia came in second with 50.4% recognition

and third was L.L. Bean with 43.1%.

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Figure 3

When a respondent recognized a brand as ethically made, we then prompted them with

follow up questions. “Did you receive the product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?” (if

yes) “Did you purchase the product knowing it was ethically made?”. This gave us insight

insight into whether or not whether or not the product was ethical influenced purchase decision.

` We first looked at TOMS. 151 of our respondents recognized that Toms was an ethical

brand. From that, we asked people if they owned a TOMS product in which we saw that 53.32%

did. We then asked if they bought their TOMS product for themselves or if it was given to them

as a gift. Of the 79 participants that said they did own a TOMS product 91.14% said that they

bought it themselves and 88.73% knew it was ethical when they bought it. This data shows us

that people are recognizing that TOMS is an ethically made product and it is influencing their

purchase decision.

We then decided to look into TOM'S marketing strategy to see if their marketing efforts

might have an influence on why it was the highest recognized ethical brand. What we see is that

TOM’s does not heavily market their products. TOMS is very much a promoter of the cause in

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which they are promoting. For every pair of TOMS shoes that is purchased, they promise to

donate a pair to someone in need. Their ongoing slogan is “One for One” which they use on

many of their product displays and their website. They also run a yearly campaign titled “One

Day Without Shoes”, with this campaign TOMS encourages people to go a day without shoes to

bring awareness to what an impact a simple pair of shoes can do. We have not found advertising

about the quality or style of the TOMS shoes it seems that all marketing is based toward the

cause and what we as consumers can do to contribute to the cause.

We then took a look at Patagonia which was the second highest recognized ethically

produced brand. Of the 121 people that recognized Patagonia as an ethical brand, 54.55% owned

a Patagonia product. Of those 66 people 77.27% purchased the product themselves and only

43.84% knew it was ethically made when they purchased it. From this data we can see many

things. Because there is such a fifty-fifty split on whether people recognized this brand as being

ethical, we can attribute some of its recognition to trends. When we asked people in our survey if

they based their shopping habits off of current trends 71.9% expressed some level of agreement.

The Patagonia quarter snap pullover is currently a huge trend on college campuses, we can

attribute the high purchase percent to be from a desire to meet a trend, by both our respondents

that were college aged and our adult respondents. When looking at the marketing strategies by

Patagonia we expected to see that their would be some marketing towards college age students,

especially in regards to some of their most popular products. What we found was quite the

opposite. Patagonia does not do promotional marketing for their products. They, like TOMS,

focus more on giving back in their marketing efforts. Their most current marketing efforts were

18


from this past black friday. While many companies were promoting discounted merchandise,

Patagonia focused on a bigger issue. They promised that all of their revenue made on Black

Friday would all be donated to environmental conservation and other wildlife protection

organizations. Patagonia was expecting to bring in about 2 million dollars with this campaign.

They ended up grossing 10 million dollars, all in which they donated. Another campaign that

Patagonia ran was the Wear Worn Tour. This campaign is interesting because Patagonia actually

encourages people not to purchase their products. The purpose of this tour is to get people to

wear their already worn in Patagonia products. Claiming that the products they already have hold

a lot of memories and it’s way more sustainable for the environment for you to fix the products

you have instead of buying new.

What we gathered from analyzing the top two most recognized ethical brands of our

respondents is that marketing doesn't matter. Both TOMS and Patagonia are brands do not focus

so much on their products but on how you are helping support a bigger cause. Maybe this is the

key to successful ethical marketing? We also understand from this research that trends as well as

quality and price play an important role in a person’s purchasing behavior. This correlates with

Patagonia and TOMS products which are all recognized for being long lasting products.

An issue often faced by ethical, fair trade, and environmentally friendly brands is losing

consumers over price points. Ethically produced goods are often subject to higher prices, due to

fair wages for the laborers of the product, unique materials used in the product, and more

expensive production methods for the goods. In much of our research, we found that price was

the ultimate deterring factor from purchasing ethically made goods, resulting in consumers

compromising their morals to save money. With this in mind, we asked our respondents to

determine how much more they would be willing to pay for an ethically made, sustainable

product. The table below, Figure 4, compares the college students’ responses to those out of

college.

19


Figure 4 Percent of college students willing to pay extra Percent of adults willing to pay extra

I would not be willing to pay extra. 8.77% 12.17%

5% 19.3% 22.61%

10% 36.84% 36.69%

15% 17.54% 8.7%

20% 8.77% 12.61%

25% 7.02% 5.22%

30% or more 1.75% 1.74%

This data set is a good example of the altruistic ideals college students hold when it

comes to their attitudes towards purchasing ethically made brands. While they are a third less

likely to refuse buying a product because of a price increase due to ethical production methods,

they are less willing to pay over 15% more for that product. This could be due to a limited

budget, as student life does not lend itself to producing disposable income. On the other hand,

adults who are out of college are more likely to refuse a pricier, ethically made product outright,

but will commit to spending more than college students on goods with up to a 20% increase in

price. It is interesting to note, however, that anything more than a 25% increase in price for both

college students and adults out of college is very rarely accepted by these groups. The

information expressed here agrees with the earlier presented information in Figure 1, where

almost 80% of adults claimed they would be willing to pay more for an ethical product, while

just over 70% of college students said they would do the same.

20


Summary and Conclusions

Our findings were consistent with that of the majority of the literature we reviewed.

There is a disconnect between self-reported tendencies and intent and actual awareness or

purchasing behavior. A recent study corroborate these findings as well, reporting that 28% of

consumers have never had a purchase decision influenced by a retailer’s ethical standards and

26% could not recall (Ipsos, 2016). Another study found that 39% of consumers are less likely to

purchase ethically made products because of the higher prices and 33% because information

about the products isn’t readily available (Ipsos, 2016). When looking at both these studies, we

can infer that our results are framed by these findings. While we had found that some percentage

of respondents who owned ethical clothing purchased the items knowing they were ethical, the

only brand that had a significant enough amount of responses to infer based on behaviors that the

ethical nature of the product affected purchase decision was Toms. The trends surrounding

Patagonia “Snap T’s” and L. L. Bean’s “Bean Boots” can explain why half of respondents who

owned a Patagonia or L. L. Bean product were unaware that these products were ethical. Overall,

our findings suggest that current trends have much more influence on the purchase decision

regarding ethical products than the ethical nature of the products.

These result do not support our hypothesis but instead our null hypothesis, that the fact

that a brand is ethically made has no effect on whether a consumer will purchase their products.

The only exception to this result is the findings regarding Toms, which we attribute to their

marketing strategy as explored earlier.

There is good news in the future for ethical brands, as one study projects a steady growth

into 2020 of retail value of ethically made and labelled products (FoodNavigator-USA.com,

2016). This steady growth projection implies that consumers are not widely changing behavior,

but the prevalence of these products will continue to encourage consumers to change slowly but

surely.

Limitations

Although we took care to create the most successful survey for our future analysis, we

were confronted with several limitations. First, the time period of our survey and our survey

21


sample were, we believe, too short and too homogenous to give us a fully accurate representation

of the American attitude towards ethically made products. Since we were only able to survey our

friends and family through convenience and snowball sampling, we feel we are getting results

fairly similar to our own biases, and not those of the whole country or market for ethically made

products. Additionally, although we have secondary data to supplement our analysis of the trend

of ethically made products, our two week survey could be much more effective if it measured

behavioral trends over months, and even years.

In addition to the sample and time constraints, we feel we may have run into individual

biases in terms of the definition of “ethical marketing.” Many respondents left comments at the

end of the presentation with their own definitions of the term, or letting us know that they were

not aware the definition we presented was mainly focus on producing clothing ethically. For

example, one respondent said, “Local / Sustainable is my focus. It gets too complicated

understanding what makes a product ethically produced.” Yet another said, “It would have been

good in your intro to let the person taking the survey know you were speaking mostly about

clothing. When you're first started the survey, I thought it was about coffee!” So it is clear our

respondents may not have been fully engaged with the survey with our definition in mind.

Another limitation we encountered was one of a lack of knowledge. Many respondents

left comments about their lack of knowledge on the topic of ethical production methods in the

clothing industry. One respondent blamed her age for her lack of knowledge of ethical brands,

while another said they had “some serious thinking to do” after realizing that their attitudes and

willingness to pay more for a product did not match, affirming previously discussed research on

the attitude-action gap in consumers. Others attributed their lack of knowledge to new settings,

as some of our respondents are new residents of the U.S.

22


Recommendations

Although we had a large number of respondents, we would like to expand the study to

cover more areas of the country or world. This would give a stronger idea about how or if ethical

marketing affects consumers in the country as a whole, not just the northeast. We also would like

to conduct a longitudinal behavioral study that audits consumption data and marketing messages

received by representatives of populations in the United States. We feel strongly that this will

give the most accurate and reliable data on the influences around purchase decision.

We also recommend that ethical brands looking to increase sales and awareness consider

placing products in large-scale retailers. Although these retailers may not carry exclusively

ethical products, this could open up the brands to mainstream consumers that make up the

majority of consumers. Based upon our findings we also would consider adding some universal

outer mark to ethical clothing to increase the social desirability benefit for consumers. This had

come up in many of the studies we looked at as well as our own and believe it could be very

helpful in increasing awareness and sales for ethically produced brands.

Lastly, we would urge ethical brands to follow the marketing strategies of the most

recognized brands; talking about the work, not the product. While this may be counterintuitive,

our research and the studies we looked at both suggest that humanitarian appeals and an

emphasis on CSR initiatives are morel likely to influence consumers when looking at ethical

products than talking about the actual product.

23


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26


27


Appendices

Default Report Ethical Marketing December 4th 2016, 5:34 pm MST Q1.2 - Are you 18 or older?

# Answer % Count

Total 100% 358

1 Yes 99% 356

2 No 1% 2

Q2.2 - Please identify how strongly you agree or disagree with the statements below.

Question Strongly

agree

Agree

Somewhat agree

Neither

agree nor

disagree

Somewhat

disagree

Disagree

Strongly

disagree

Total

I make an effort to support ethical brands.

18.69%

57

34.43%

105

30.16%

92

13.77%

42

0.98% 3 1.64%

5 0.33%

1 305

I consider myself aware of current world issues.

25.74%

78

45.87%

139

23.10%

70

1.32%

4 2.97% 9 0.66%

2 0.33%

1 303

I have a tendency to buy products

1.32%

4 16.56%

50

34.77%

105

20.86%

63

15.56%

47

9.27%

28

1.66%

5 302

28


based on trends.

I am knowledgeable about human rights issues.

16.50%

50

46.53%

141

29.37%

89

4.29%

13

2.64% 8 0.33%

1 0.33%

1 303

I favor products made in my home country.

26.07%

79

32.01%

97

21.12%

64

14.52%

44

3.30% 10

1.98%

6 0.99%

3 303

I consider myself a leader among my friends.

11.92%

36

30.46%

92

25.17%

76

22.19%

67

6.95% 21

2.32%

7 0.99%

3 302

I am willing to pay more for ethically made products.

18.81%

57

35.64%

108

23.76%

72

12.21%

37

5.28% 16

3.63%

11

0.66%

2 303

Q3.1 - Based on your preferences, please rank the importance of the following considerations while shopping.(Drag and drop into preferential order)

Question 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total

Price 36.68%

106

25.61%

74

16.26%

47

11.42%

33

6.92%

20

2.77%

8 0.35%

1 289

Style 17.30%

50

23.53%

68

20.42%

59

15.57%

45

8.30%

24

7.96%

23

6.92%

20

289

29


Quality 36.33%

105

23.88%

69

24.22%

70

10.38%

30

4.15%

12

0.35%

1 0.69%

2 289

Origin 1.04%

3 4.15%

12

10.73%

31

14.53%

42

24.22%

70

27.34%

79

17.99%

52

289

Socially Responsible/Ethical

4.84%

14

9.69%

28

9.34%

27

14.53%

42

28.37%

82

21.11%

61

12.11%

35

289

Convenience 2.77%

8 9.69%

28

15.22%

44

25.26%

73

13.49%

39

20.42%

59

13.15%

38

289

Manufacturer 1.04%

3 3.46%

10

3.81%

11

8.30%

24

14.53%

42

20.07%

58

48.79%

141

289

Q3.2 - How often do you buy new clothing?

# Answer % Count

1 Once a week 1.67% 5

2 One - Two times a month 28.33% 85

3 Less than once a month 32.33% 97

4 Three - Four times a month 3.33% 10

5 Seasonally 34.33% 103

Total 100% 300

Q3.3 - At what store/brand did you make your last clothing purchase?

Store Number of Respondents

Macy’s 15

Talbot’s 9

30


L. L. Bean 9

TJ Maxx 10

Amazon 2

Target 14

Victoria’s Secret 5

H&M 7

Woolworth’s 7

Old Navy 11

Marshall’s 10

Walmart 6

Kohl’s 18

Nordstrom 16

Q4.2 - From the list below select the brands that you know to be ethical or socially responsible.

# Answer % Count

Total 100% 246

805 Toms 61.79% 152

804 Patagonia 50.41% 124

807 L.L. Bean 43.09% 106

816 REI 36.59% 90

810 Target 17.07% 42

815 Timberland 15.04% 37

819 Stella McCartney 13.82% 34

809 Old Navy 11.79% 29

31


818 Levi 10.98% 27

812 Columbia Sportswear 10.98% 27

806 Urban Outfitters 10.16% 25

820 Nike 9.76% 24

808 American Apparel 9.35% 23

823 American Eagle/Aerie 8.54% 21

811 Warby Parker 8.13% 20

825 Nordstrom 7.72% 19

817 Under Armour 7.32% 18

821 Victoria's Secret 5.28% 13

814 ADIDAS 4.88% 12

813 Black Diamond 4.47% 11

822 PacSun 2.85% 7

824 Hot Topic 0.81% 2

Q4.3 - Do you own a Patagonia product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 54.55% 66

2 No 45.45% 55

Total 100% 121

Q4.4 - Did you receive the Patagonia product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count

1 Purchased it myself 77.27% 51

2 It was a gift 22.73% 15

32


Total 100% 66

Q4.5 - Did you purchase the Patagonia product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 49.02% 25

2 No 50.98% 26

Total 100% 51

Q4.6 - Do you own a Toms product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 52.32% 79

2 No 47.68% 72

Total 100% 151

Q4.7 - Did you receive the Toms product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 79

Q4.8 - Did you purchase the Toms product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 88.73% 63

2 No 11.27% 8

Total 100% 71

33


Q4.9 - Do you own a L.L.Bean product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 86.79% 92

2 No 13.21% 14

Total 100% 106

Q4.10 - Did you receive the L.L.Bean product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 92

Q4.11 - Did you purchase the L.L.Bean product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 43.84% 32

2 No 56.16% 41

Total 100% 73

Q4.12 - Do you own an American Apparel product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 47.83% 11

2 No 52.17% 12

Total 100% 23

Q4.13 - Did you receive the American Apparel product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

34


# Answer % Count



Total 100% 11

Q4.14 - Did you purchase the American Apparel product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 50.00% 4

2 No 50.00% 4

Total 100% 8

Q4.15 - Do you own a Warby Parker product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 25.00% 5

2 No 75.00% 15

Total 100% 20

Q4.16 - Did you receive the Warby Parker product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 5

Q4.17 - Did you purchase the Warby Parker product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

35


1 Yes 80.00% 4

2 No 20.00% 1

Total 100% 5

Q4.18 - Do you own a Columbia Sportswear product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 84.62% 22

2 No 15.38% 4

Total 100% 26

Q4.19 - Did you receive the Columbia Sportswear product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 22

Q4.20 - Did you purchase the Columbia Sportswear product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 22.22% 4

2 No 77.78% 14

Total 100% 18

Q4.21 - Do you own a Black Diamond product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 18.18% 2

36


2 No 81.82% 9

Total 100% 11

Q4.22 - Did you receive the Black Diamond product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 2

Q4.23 - Did you purchase the Black Diamond product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 50.00% 1

2 No 50.00% 1

Total 100% 2

Q4.24 - Do you own an ADIDAS product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 81.82% 9

2 No 18.18% 2

Total 100% 11

Q4.25 - Did you receive the ADIDAS product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



37


Total 100% 9

Q4.26 - Did you purchase the ADIDAS product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 14.29% 1

2 No 85.71% 6

Total 100% 7

Q4.27 - Do you own a Timberland product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 58.33% 21

2 No 41.67% 15

Total 100% 36

Q4.28 - Did you receive the Timberland product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 21

Q4.35 - Did you purchase the Under Armour product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 30.00% 3

2 No 70.00% 7

Total 100% 10

38


Q4.29 - Did you purchase the Timberland product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 38.89% 7

2 No 61.11% 11

Total 100% 18

Q4.30 - Do you own an REI product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 71.91% 64

2 No 28.09% 25

Total 100% 89

Q4.31 - Did you receive the REI product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 64

Q4.32 - Did you purchase the REI product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 43.40% 23

2 No 56.60% 30

Total 100% 53

Q4.33 - Do you own an Under Armour product?

39


# Answer % Count

1 Yes 88.89% 16

2 No 11.11% 2

Total 100% 18

Q4.34 - Did you receive the Under Armour product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 16

Q4.36 - Do you own a Levi product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 70.37% 19

2 No 29.63% 8

Total 100% 27

Q4.39 - Do you own a Stella McCartney product?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 9.09% 3

2 No 90.91% 30

Total 100% 33

Q4.37 - Did you receive the Levi product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count

40




Total 100% 19

Q4.38 - Did you purchase the Levi product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 17.65% 3

2 No 82.35% 14

Total 100% 17

Q4.40 - Did you receive the Stella McCartney product as a gift or did you purchase it yourself?

# Answer % Count



Total 100% 3

Q4.41 - Did you purchase the Stella McCartney product knowing it was ethically made?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 50.00% 1

2 No 50.00% 1

Total 100% 2

Q5.2 - What percentage extra would you be willing to pay for an ethical product?

# Answer % Count

1 I would NOT be willing to pay extra. 11.46% 33

41


2 5% 21.88% 63

3 10% 37.15% 107

4 15% 10.42% 30

5 20% 11.81% 34

6 25% 5.56% 16

7 30% or more 1.74% 5

Total 100% 288

Q6.1 - What gender do you identify with?

# Answer % Count

1 Male 13.49% 39

2 Female 85.47% 247

3 Non-Binary 1.04% 3

Total 100% 289

Q6.2 - What is your Age?

# Answer % Count

1 18-24 27.68% 80

2 25-34 4.84% 14

3 35-44 10.73% 31

4 45-54 34.95% 101

5 55+ 21.80% 63

Total 100% 289

Q6.3 - Are you currently living outside of the United States?

42


# Answer % Count

1 Yes 12.11% 35

2 No 87.89% 254

Total 100% 289

Q6.4 - In what country are you currently living?

In what country are you currently living?

Country Number of Respondents

United Kingdom 4

Sweden 1

United Arab Emirates 1

South Africa 18

Canada 5

India 1

Israel 1

Zimbabwe 1

Ireland 1

Q6.5 - Are you currently a college student?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 19.79% 57

2 No 80.21% 231

Total 100% 288

43


Q6.6 - What is your current class standing?

# Answer % Count

1 Freshman 14.04% 8

2 Sophomore 21.05% 12

3 Junior 8.77% 5

4 Senior 47.37% 27

5 Graduate 8.77% 5

Total 100% 57

Q6.7 - What is the total annual income for your household?

# Answer % Count

1 Less than $20,000 5.13% 14

2 $20,001 - $29,999 3.30% 9

3 $30,000 - $39,999 4.03% 11

4 $40,000 - $49,999 2.20% 6

5 $50,000 - $59,999 6.59% 18

6 $60,000 - $69,999 5.13% 14

7 $70,000 - $79,999 4.76% 13

8 $80,000 - $99,999 9.89% 27

9 $100,000 or over 58.97% 161

Total 100% 273

Q6.8 - Do you have any additional comments?

Do you have any additional comments?

Good survey. I hope more companies follow these examples.

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I realized I can educate myself more about where and how products are made before I buy it.

Good luck with your project!

to encourage ethical manufacturing it should be up to the governments to make a stand and they should give tax breaks to companies who comply or alternatively tax companies who don't more. It should not be the responsibility of the consumer to pay more because a product is made by an ethical company as a not of people are not in a financial position to do so and have no choice but to shop based on price.

Define "ethical".

Because of my age I feel I am less aware of some of these issues than a younger person would be but that shouldn't be an excuse!

It would have been good in your intro to let the person taking the survey know you were speaking mostly about clothing. When you're first started the survey, I thought it was about coffee!

no

Still learning about ethically made products

I just realised how uninformed I am on ethical buying and thought I rated myself high. However when considering actual cost I was willing to pay I realised that my ethics didn't match. I have some serious thinking to do. Thank you, if nothing else it's given me a good kick in the right direction!

I don't think so

Sorry not too familiar with the stores in the USA yet so my answer to the ethical stores was a bit of a thumbsuck

I live in the US now hence the reason I'm not entirely sure which brand are produced ethically but in my home country I always check out which manufacturers and brands are produced ethically. Its important to me as I do not believe in "" sweat shops".

This is a great survey I liked the layout and topic.

Buy clothes less than seasonally (wasn't an option)

Local / Sustainable is my focus. It gets too complicated understanding what makes a product ethically produced.

I only buy cloths maybe once a year.

Post your results/findings when you finish!!

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