Fashion involvement, self‐monitoring and the meaning of brands

Abstract

This study considers the importance of fashion involvement in the interpretation of brands of jeans as measured by Snyder’s revised self‐monitoring scale, which discriminates between people who are highly motivated to respond to social cues and those who remain “true to themselves”. Over 650 people in the UK aged 14‐34 were shown either a branded or unbranded stimulus. They were asked to record their attitude to 27 pairs of bipolar adjectives using a semantic differential scale. At the same time they completed Snyder’s scale. It was found that self‐monitoring is a significant mediator of meaning with regard to unbranded, but not branded, jeans. A model of choice by elimination of the unacceptable is suggested by high self‐monitoring responses. It has implications for the amount of advertising required to support a fashion brand.