PEOPLE PILLAR
People pillar is all about maintaining ethical behavior as a business towards its stakeholders and understanding specific needs of the target market to gain profit and competitive advantage. According to Varley et al. (2018, p. 213), it is essential for businesses to research their consumers, especially in demographic terms, in order to be competitive among other firms in dynamic market.
Generation Z are people born between 1995 and 2010 who grown up in digital world and are comfortable enough to easily use many sources of information technology. Term ‘digital natives’, originally used by Marc Prensky, truly defines the lives of Gen-Z which are extremely online, the generation works, shops, dates, makes friends online and overall spends more than 6 hours per day on their phones (McKinsey, 2020).
People from this generation are attracted to unique brands which let them express their individuality, reflect their values regarding mental health and climate change and provide diversity. There are several top brands among Gen-Z, which were highly rated in the survey conducted by BoF Insights (2022). The top two brands were Nike with its combination of stylish designs, creative collaborations and accessible prices and, surprisingly, Gucci, which is in luxury sector and provides expensive goods. Key reasons for those results are brands’ responses to the ethical topics and opportunities for individual expression. Nike’s clothes are suitable for many social groups regardless their age, skin color, race, orientation, and body type, meaning that the brand supports the diversity and a new wave of “inclusive consumers” (BoF Insights, 2022). Whereas Gucci provides the uniqueness deeply desired by any representative of Gen-Z in their clothes and engages with younger customers by various collaborations such as NFT drops and virtual spaces in Roblox and The Sims (BoF Insights, 2021). Moreover, many Gen Zers consider themselves environmentally conscious and expect the same behavior from the companies. They are well educated about brands and use Internet resources in a highly analytical and programmatic way for their search for truth.
Due to rapid rase in technology and in level of education in it, fashion brands are starting to look more for people with technology and computer skills, as well as, with marketing skills and critical thinking (Stolzoff, 2018). These employees’ skills will allow the brand to be successful in E-Commerce and to obtain new ideas of how to work and effectively use new technologies e.g AI Generators.
Reference List
Varley, R., Roncha, A., Radclyffe- Thomas, N. and Gee, L. (2019) Fashion Management: A strategic approach. London: Red Globe Press. https://libsearch.arts.ac.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opacdetail.pl?biblionumber=1384267&query_desc=
Asia’s Generation Z comes of age (2020) McKinsey & Company.
Gucci’s Robert Triefus on Testing Luxury’s Allure in the Metaverse (2021) The Business of Fashion.
Nike and Gucci Top Gen-Z’s Favourite Fashion Brands (2022) The Business of Fashion.
These are the skills to learn for the future of work, according to the World Economic Forum(2018) Simone Stolzoff