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Abstract
Online shopping has been popular across all generations since the genesis of
Web 2.0. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have facilitated
the online shopping experience which is widely accepted by users of all ages.
Furthermore, the surge of active online shopping has been seen due to the
Covid19 pandemic and its restrictions. Generation Z, famously known as Gen
Z, born between 1997 and 2012, are the most ethnically diverse, educated,
technologically native and valued driven generation. They are always with
their smartphones having access to world information in their hands. They are
going to be the primary engine of the growth in fashion in the coming years.
Many brands have identified this and are acting on their strategic plans
accordingly. Short-form video content has been popular in the past few years
and growing increasingly. Social media applications like TikTok and Instagram
reels along with a few other regional platforms are popular among this cohort
group. Brands have also understood the unanticipated influence of such
short-form video content and are now using it actively. With attention span
coming to merely 2-3 seconds, it becomes crucial for brands and marketers to
hold attention from this generation. Due to the pandemic, the amount of time
spent on social media platforms has increased drastically which has also led
to increased expectations and consumption of content. The findings suggest
that this cohort group indulges into short form video content more than any
other format. Their fashion consumption is influenced by the reels they see on
Instagram.
Keywords: Gen Z, Online shopping, Fashion Communication, Short-form
video content, buying preference, Fashion and Beauty
1. Introduction:
Cultures invent various technologies that end up shaping the behaviours
and mind-sets of that culture. All the different generations have certain
traits that are specific to them. The cohort group born after 1996 to 2010
are known as Generation Z, also known as gen Z. This generation is
native to the internet as they were born and used internet from the
beginning. At the same time, this generation have witnessed several
downfalls as well. During the global economic meltdown of 2008, they saw
their families crush under financial crisis. In the late 2010s, the COVID-19
pandemic made them struggle to get their own employment opportunities.
However, all these have shaped this cohort group and have developed a
generation specific traits.
Communication is the key of a successful business. The way a brand
communicates with their customers affects its popularity and awareness in
the crowd. Fashion communication is a vast system that includes, visual,
textual communication practices done by the fashion brands. It includes
photoshoots, campaigns, styling, blogs, video, editorial marketing, social
media marketing etc. In current scenario, the Fashion communication
deals with the social media in a major way.
Social media applications is the boon of web 2.0, when plethora of
platforms came to existence, that allowed two way communication. It
allowed brands to communicate with their customers in unimaginable way
and also allowed customers to reach out to the brands via multiple
channels. Today, social media has turned into a daily routine where
people come across new options for everything also it has become the
exhibition room of their own identities.
Social media has become an integral part of a brand’s communication
strategies with its target audience. Digital media constantly encourages to
shop more, wear our things for less time, and discard them thoughtlessly.
One of the most popular social media application, Instagram offers
unlimited images of bodies, lifestyles, social classes, fashion aesthetics,
and geographies from which we can scroll endlessly whole day. The
options have been widened by a factor of follower counts. Advertising in
digital marketing floods users’ feeds and walls which are not ignorable.
One of the latest edition to this social media ecosystem is the Short-form
videos. Along with the variety of choices available in the market, people
have observed reduced attention span. The short-form Video (SFV) is an
answer to that. Consumers have been consuming 10-14 second videos
like never before. Tiktok, Snapchat and Instagram were some of the
pioneer apps to understand the demand and offer it to their users.
Currently, the generation Z indulges more on these SFV like Instagram
Reels and Tiktok than other formats. Since, Tiktok has been banned in
India for security concerns, this research paper focuses more on
Instagram Reels.
2. Literature Review:
(Yoon, 2003) Globally Fashion consumption has been rapidly flowed by the
young student consumers. They are more updated with the fashion trends
than the older generations.
(Gao & Simonson, 2015) Currently within the online retail segment the
consumers have plethora of choices, perhaps too much. In the fashion
system, people wish to dress up in a specific way or with a certain brand to
set a distinction with those who don’t have access to a certain brands while
sharing a similar identity with consumers of the same style or brand.
(Soeikas, 2017) defines in his article that “A social media influencer is a user
on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry. A social
media influencer has access to a large audience and can persuade others by
virtue of their authenticity and reach; they have the power to affect the
purchase decisions of others because of their (real or perceived) authority,
knowledge, position or relationship.”
The influence of social media application has resulted to the increased
customer satisfaction along with the increased buying behaviour. (Susanti,
2017)
(Prasad & praveen, 2019) The development of Social networking has been so
well that it has become an integral part of our daily lives. The use of digital
marketing in the fashion industry has revolutionised the way a brand sells
their products. Brands today use a social media accounts to sell clothes. The
enhanced customer engagement can be created by offering a high quality
content like videos, blogs, quotes and free giveaways.
(Zang, Wu, & Liu, 2019) The short-form video app has been in popularity
since last few years, this rapid development has also increased the concerns
of overconsumption and excessive use. TikTok currently has over 150 million
daily active users who open the app 4.7 times a day, on average. The social
and technical features of short-form video apps have affirmative influences on
ones’ attraction and attachment to these apps. Short-form video apps allow
users to expand communication and make new friends, and giving them a
sense of belonging, which in return makes them stay on the platform for
longer time.
(Ma, Shao, Chen, & Dai, 2020) The short video display makes consumers
have more perceived quality than with the long video display. A video with
overall view and the minute details of the product has higher assumed quality
than the one which only shows overall look and feel of the product. The short
video format is quicker to make for the content marketing and provides
interesting visual experiences, also expands the marketing space. Brands and
online retailers may utilize this short videos to increase customer base and
order conversation.
(Qadoos, Talha, Hasim, & Rizwan, 2020) The impact of Electronic Media on
youth is a wide world. The impact is basically on their habits, dressing that
what style they adopt to be wearing and they use to maintain
themselves. that electronic media has a positive relationship with fashion
trends that change the student preferences in their clothing sense through the
process of advertisement. the youth followed the electronic media to notice
about the new fashion trends which is going on like colour of clothes, style of
clothes, etc.
(Nanini, 2020) Fashion clothing is massively consumed, and consumer habits
are deeply affected by online advertising. Influencers’ are one novel example
of how online advertising is subtly influencing fashion consumption. Fashion
can be perceived as impractical, uncomfortable or strange. However, its
acquisition has kept on growing, without ever fall- ing down even in the worst
economic crisis.
(Wang, 2020) For mobile devices, short-form videos are getting increasing
popularity through social media platforms. During 2010, most videos on
YouTube had been under 10 min in length. In 2017, social media users
already consider YouTube with longer videos in comparison to Facebook,
Instagram, and Snapchat, which they considered to usually provide shorter-
form videos
(Thangavel, Pathak, & Chandra, 2019) Within Generation Z customers, brand
loyalty is losing its significance. The Internet has given access to information
(reviews, product comparisons, etc.) at an ease that almost no young
customer will buy a product by only following a brand name. Gen Z lives in a
world of constant upgrades and processes myriads of information than any
older generation did at their age. Their shopping orientation has a lot of Value
consciousness and convenience-driven decisions. It also differs substantially
from that of preceding generations, and the marketing strategies that target
the Gen Z online shoppers has to be changed in a certain manner. This
cohort searches for something new and discover new trends while being
engaged with certain brands.
3. Methodology:
As part of the secondary study, an inquiry into the published literature was
conducted, which served as a theoretical basis for this study. For this research
paper, the necessary information was obtained from primary sources using mixed-
method research. The study was carried out as a survey where a questionnaire was
used as a data collection method. and later The focus groups discussion (FGD) was
conducted. In total 150 respondents took part in the research by filling the online
survey. From the total respondents the majority of them (82%) were women and 2%
of People preferred not to disclose their gender. Considering the differences in
specifying the age bracket for Generation Z, the target audience was kept as people
born after 1996. The respondents were selected using the convenience sampling
technique keeping mix pool of Tier1, Tier2 and Tier3 city residents.
4. Analysis & Findings:
Based on the collected data from the online survey, Interesting information was
retrieved. A shift has been noticed in the overall use of social media among Gen Z
and the way they use it to consume fashion and fashion media.
4.1 Social Media usage:
Gen Z is the first generation that was born with the internet, and have been using it
from an early age. It has woven in their lives in an unimaginable way. Of the total
respondents, 14.7% of people used social media applications more than three hours
a day. 42.7% of respondents had average use of 2-3 hours per day.
Since all the social media applications are providing a different experience to the
users, it is obvious that certain social media applications are more popular in Gen Z
than others. 96.6% of people rated Instagram as their first preference followed by
Youtube and Snapchat. Facebook and Twitter are not popular in this cohort group as
only 29.3% and 16.3% chose these platforms respectively.
As discussed above, Instagram being the most popular social media application in
Gen Z, they use the majority of their time on it. 47.3% of respondents use Instagram
for 1-2 hours per day on average and around 8.7% use it more than 3 hours per day.
Figure 1 Average use of social media apps in a day
Within this usage, respondents had different preferences in terms of the type of
content Instagram provides on the platform.
Figure 2 Average use of Instagram in a day.
As extracted in the secondary study, the short-form video format is the top priority.
Reels, a recently launched feature on Instagram was preferred as the first priority by
55 respondents. Followed by the Static Feed post and the least preferred type was
Instagram Live.
Figure 3 Preferred content type on Instagram
4.2 Consumption of fashion:
Since Instagram is a democratic platform that allows users to put up all kinds of
content through various channels, everyone finds something other of their interest on
this platform. AI Algorithms make sure that the user gets what they want. Fashion
and beauty content was the first priority of the respondents with 80%, followed by
Memes for 78% and DIY crafts with 60%. Several other types of niche content were
also preferred by the respondents.
86.2% of respondents watch Instagram Reels for fashion-related content and 75% of
them also follow fashion influencers on Instagram and consume their content. But
when it comes to being influenced by such content, only 54% agreed on styling or
dressing up in a certain manner, after seeing it on reels. Following the global trends
is not favourable by the respondents as only 30% of them agreed to follow trends set
up on reels. Undoubtedly, reels are popular and being consumed the most, some of
the reasons of Fashion related reels being attractive to this cohort group are as
shown in the chart below.
Figure 4 Key features of an Instagram Reel
For Gen Z, the highest priority was Styling- how the influencer or any content creator
is styling themselves and setting up a trend to follow. Other crucial components of a
successful reel were Music, production quality and the types of clothing used.
4.3 purchase behaviour
It has been proven that Gen Z invests their time and consume Fashion media via
Instagram reels and have shown interest in continuing doing so. The same cohort
group, however, has shown less interest in purchasing fashion and beauty related
products in the past. 55% of respondents have not purchased any products after
seeing them on Reels. At least, not directly using the shopping feature available on
Instagram. They have shown interest in buying or renting the products through Reels.
One interesting piece of information was retrieved from this survey which can be
tapped upon by the brands or retailers. As shown in the chart below, 84.6% of people
have come across a new brand or small business via Reels.
Figure 5 Discoverability of new brands via Instagram Reels
Since the Instagram Algorithm works in a specific manner, Instagram reels have
been boosting the reach of businesses. It has helped several brands gain and
maintain awareness in the target audience.
5. Conclusion:
To conclude, it has been observed that Generation Z, being the native internet user,
consumes a sizable amount of fashion media through social media apps like
Instagram. Within that usage, the Gen Z consumers are looking more and more
towards the short form video format One of the most important finding was that Reels
can be a major platform for brands to increase the awareness. Brands and marketers
can leverage this and increase their reach in this cohort group. The findings also
suggest that since people have shorted attention time, it is important to keep them
engaged via interesting music, clothing used in the reels and styling done. Brands
and content creators should focus on producing higher quality content with
interesting styling done to hold the attention.
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