Our country has experienced social changes such as industrialization, urbanization and popularization at a rapid speed, and as it goes through economical development, political reform and social reform, the consumption and the value have been changed ...
Our country has experienced social changes such as industrialization, urbanization and popularization at a rapid speed, and as it goes through economical development, political reform and social reform, the consumption and the value have been changed to adapt to the social changes. In these changes, the people expressed their lifestyles more individually and even in the process, their lifestyles are becoming more complex and subtle. In the society of diverse changes, the companies should establish long-term strategies to catch up lifestyles and consumption trends of the consumers, and consider the problems related to images of the products and the companies. Under such circumstance, advertisement gives trusts of the products to the people and it also improves the value of the company.
Especially the advertisement for fashion that is known as the image industry is presented before the season and constantly changes to express the consumers' ideas most sensitively so its roles is very important. Instead of relying on the one's intuitive ideas, the advertisement should rely on the analysis on external environment of the changing market and the expression strategy in order to develop effective advertisement marketing. Now is time to examine more effective advertisement messages in order to satisfy the consumers' rapidly changing desire of purchase and distinguish the brand.
Recently, the most noticeable characteristic of the women's fashion market is the effect of casualization caused by inspiration of young minds so the career casual was reduced and its change to young casual and young character casual is being accelerated. Therefore, this study was attempted to investigate the advertisement messages of women's fashion in Korean fashion magazines and the difference in the submission types through a content analysis. The interviews with fashion experts showed that the trend of today has changed rapidly so the study limited the magazines from 2004 January issue to 2005 December issue and collected 810 women's fashion advertisements of young casual and career casual in order to analyze creative factor, appeal type and consumption value of each fashion.
The study's results and meanings can be summarized as the followings.
First, most of the women's fashion advertisement were expressed with photos and also there were many that had photos and illustrations together showing that new expression strategies are being attempted.
Second, most of the advertisements had 1 or less than 1 model and this may be result of the increase in inner directed type(individualism and self-centeredness) due to the social trend.
Third, there are more advertisements with well-known celebrities and different starts that have a favorable impression and are attractive such as actors and singers. This suggests that it is the prosperous time for the celebrity star marketing. The study result shows that advertisements with celebrities and stars are for young people that admire fashion models in the advertisements and these advertisements pursue changes in the consumers' attitudes through identification through identification with the popular celebrities rather than drawing internalization that occurs through high reliability of the information provider.
Fourth, the differences in activity types and backgrounds of the advertisements based on the consumers' age and job could be observed. The advertisements for young casuals frequently reflected outdoor life, leisure sports, travel, recreation and etc. where as the advertisements for career casual showed images of urban, professional and social activities, suggesting that the lifestyles of modern people and the life they pursue are different.
Fifth, gorgeous and vivid colors were mainly used in the advertisements and such result is due to positive and different consumptions and a trend sensitive to the latest fashion. These colors were used in different advertisements of women's fashion based on the brand character.
Sixth, the appeal type in the advertisements showed to have a high persuasive tendency due to the sensational appeal that pursues modern sensation and new things. When the appeal type was examined in detail, many of the advertisements for young casual pursued individuality that showed independent factors that can be distinguished from others and had sensible messages that express youth and freedom. As for the career casual, there were many advertisements with sensational appeal that pursues modern sense and new things, and advertisements expressed with sensible messages that emphasize roles in different social position. This shows that there is a difference in the appeals of the detailed appeal types based on the submission type.
Lastly, the consumption value in the advertisements for women's fashion increased in the order of rarity value, popularity value and emotional value. The result shows that the proportion of emotional value that emphasizes pleasure, joy, happiness and satisfaction as well as the proportion of popularity value are big. Also, the proportion of rarity value is increasing due to the new consumption trends such as Masstige and Trading up. When the result of the study is to be looked in the VALS consumption value theory, it can be seen as a trend that emphasizes individualization, internal satisfaction of oneself and internal value of one's expression instead of the trend that emphasized the external values such as the existing values and regulations. This is because the consumers moved their interests to their inner sides due to abundant resources and increased safety. In other words, the behavioral value that enables self-realization and expresses one's sensible emotion such as personal achievement, pleasure in life, change, variety, freshness and etc. has become more important than the social status and symbol.
The study that looked into the changes of consumers' values in advertisement messages and appeals through a contents analysis will become a valuable data for marketing strategies of companies that can predict the consumption tendency of today and the future. The study illustrates that there need to be more diverse forms of expressions and consumption values in agreement with the consumers' expectations for advertisements. Also, the study suggests practical marketing strategies for the communication that can draw the consumers to the actual purchase through advertisements made for each gender and age group according to the goals of the company or the brand so that they can appeal the consumers' demand for self-realization and form impressive attitudes toward the brand.