Is the Name to Blame? Investigating Consumer Brand Bias

Overview

Objectives/Goals While shopping with my peers I have noticed their opinions of brand names and articles of clothing influence each other. I am interested in fashion, and I was curious to discover how much brand bias affects clothing choices in adolescent and pre-teen girls. The purpose of this project was to attempt to discover whether or not brand name bias affects adolescent clothing choices and if peer pressure might influence the opinions of the girls as well. My hypothesis was that store labels would influence clothing choices and that peer pressure would make these biases even more significant. Methods/Materials I performed two separate trials, and I also created a survey which each girl completed. In both tests, the girls were given a sheet with five blouse choices. Half of the test sheets had the correct brand name assigned to the blouses while the other half had the brand names assigned at random to the five blouses. The first tests were taken in privacy, and I called these the Independent Trials. The girls ranked their preferences for five blouses with assigned store labels. In the Peer Pressure Trials, the girls could interact and view each other#s responses. The participants later each completed a shopping survey I created. Results I performed a total of 150 tests with 75 test subjects and also analyzed the results. I also analyzed 75 surveys the participants completed. When the students ranked blouse choices with assigned labels independently (in privacy) brand bias was evident. Unexpectedly, in another trial when the students ranked their blouse choices when they could interact with one another, brand bias was not as evident. Close friends instead ranked their clothing choices according to the blouse styles and largely ignored the labels. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion, in contrast to my hypothesis, label brand bias was more significant when students ranked choices privately than when with a peer group. The blouse styles rather than labels seemed to drive the peer pressure decisions. Still, according to my shopping survey results, the students revealed definite bias towards certain brands.

Awards (1)

• Fourth Place

Competition history

• CSEF 2013 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0410

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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