Generation Y, children born to baby-boomers, is widely considered to be the next big generation. Businesses are therefore struggling to find ways to capture a piece of this market. Could cause-related marketing be the answer? Employs an experimental design to examine how collegeage Generation Y consumers respond to a cause-related marketing (CRM) offer based on four structural elements. Also examines the potential impacts of sociodemographic characteristics of participants. The results indicate that a CRM offer is more likely to elicit a more positive response to a disaster cause than an ongoing cause when businesses use non-transaction-based and long-term/frequent support. Finds that females, social science majors, parents' annual income and previous donation activity have significant impact on the evaluation of a CRM offer. There is a positive relationship between evaluation of a CRM offer and purchase intent toward the offer.

Apparel retailers need more information to reach and increase patronage from Generation Y with $150 billion purchasing power. Experiential retailing, involving one or more of the five senses, helps create utilitarian and hedonic benefits for brick‐and‐mortar apparel shoppers. However, little is known about how Generation Y responds to experiential strategies. This study of Generation Y brick‐and‐mortar apparel shoppers, using a cohort approach, seeks to determine which dimensions of a shopping experience, as well as shopping involvement level and demographics, are associated with store preference and patronage intent.

In this highly competitive market, fashion brands struggle to distinguish themselves to increasingly apathetic consumers. To become more competitive, fashion retailers employ emotional branding as a way to engage their customers, addressing the growing trend of consumers' seeking emotional relationships with a brand. Although brand technicalities such as product attributes, features, and facts may be unmemorable, personal feelings and experiences better shape consumers' evaluations of brands. This study illustrates why emotional branding is essential, especially to fashion brands, when developing brand strategies in a volatile marketplace. Trends that support a need for these strategies include consumers' desires for positive experiences, expressing authentic self, achieving warm glow from helping others, and co-creating design or ideas with the brand. We propose a model for emotional branding strategies that focuses on sensory branding, storytelling, cause branding, and empowerment. The case studies we provide for each strategy describe how fashion brands can engage customers through emotional branding.

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Consumers' perceptions of visual merchandising can arouse consumers' in-store merchandise exploration, such as interacting with products, differentiate a retail brand among competitors; contribute to brand preference; and encourage purchase intentions. However, the combination of topics, visual merchandising and cognition, remains relatively unexplored. Thus, Study I develops measures of visual merchandising cognition and Study II examines the impact of visual merchandising cognition on brand preference, with a focus on fashion brands. This research used mixed methods and an experimental design to empirically test the influence of visual merchandising cognition on fashion brand preferences. Confirmatory factor analysis finds three dimensions of visual merchandising cognition: in-fashion, attractiveness, and function. A structural equation model confirms a conceptual framework for the influence of visual merchandising cognition on brand preferences. In-fashion and attractiveness have a significantly positive effect on brand aesthetic attributes. Function has a significantly positive effect on brand utilitarian attributes. Favorable attitudes toward visual merchandising directly transfer to favorable brand attitudes that are positively associated with purchase intentions.