Prof. Emanuela Scarpellini
University of Milan, Italy
Title: The challenge of sustainability in fashion business sales and marketing
Abstract:
Sustainability has become a key word throughout the business world and is particularly central in the fashion world, which despite its glamorous appearance, is among the most polluting industries on the planet. Thus, sustainability has become an important part of Corporate Social Responsibility marketing and in general of the corporate strategy of fashion industries. Many studies have shown how it can give a brand a competitive advantage over other companies, facilitate customer loyalty, help growth among younger customers who are very sensitive to environmental issues, and generally create a relationship of trust that is reflected in positive economic results. This presentation underscores how the transition from “traditional” marketing related to mass-production industry to sustainability marketing is well present in theoretical studies. Suffice it to recall the various proposals to develop the Marketing Mix scheme originally proposed by Philip Kotler. Of great importance in this regard is the transformation of the consumer market, with the new generations of Millennials and GenZs particularly attentive to environmental and social inclusion issues. Fashion marketing and communication must adapt to these changes in order to accompany the transformation of companies toward sustainability and employ practices that includes all stakeholders. Most studies in this regard have focused on large companies and major brands that are key players on the global fashion scene. This presentation aims to draw attention to another segment of the market: small and medium-sized fashion enterprises (SMEs), taking as an example their presence and activity in industrial districts in Italy. I would like to show that peculiarities related to company size, together with the many differences between the markets and business policies of SMEs and those of large companies, of fast fashion for example, suggest different solutions. Indeed, sustainability marketing strategies need to adapt flexibly to different market peculiarities. My analysis is based on a study carried out on a sample of Italian SMEs and proposes a series of specific actions for this type of companies regarding supply-chain, marketing, and communication to make sustainability marketing a reality. References N. Anguelov, The Sustainable Fashion Quest: Innovations in Business and Policy, Productivity Press, 2021 E. Bottani et al., Economic and environmental sustainability dimensions of a fashion supply chain: a quantitative model, Production, 2020 T.Y. Chan et al., “The consumption side of sustainable fashion supply chain”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 16 (2), 2012: 193-215 R.E. Freeman, Strategic Management: a stakeholder approach, Cambridge University Press, 2010 P. Kotler, H. Kartajaya, I. Setiawan, Marketing 3.0, From Products to Customers to the Human Spirit, John Wiley & Sons, 2010 E. Scarpellini, Italian Fashion since 1945: A Cultural History, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Biography:
Emanuela Scarpellini is Professor of Modern History at the University of Milan, Ph.D. in History of European Society, Milan.
She was a visiting scholar at Stanford University and Cambridge University, and she was Kratter Professor at Stanford University, Fulbright Visiting Professor at Georgetown University (Washington). She was Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences and at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution), Washington DC.
Emanuela Scarpellini has presented papers at many international conferences in Europe, in the USA and Asia.
She is the founder and Director of the Research Centre MIC for Fashion, Image, and Consumer Culture at the University of Milan, an institution promoting scientific studies and initiatives also in connections with fashion companies. She is also Director of the Raffaele Mattioli Library for the History of Economic Thought. In 2022, she won a European-funded project on Sustainable Luxury, Fashion and Design (MUSA), exploring the new frontiers of economic and digital sustainability.
Her interests concern the economic and social aspects of the consumer society, as well as business and economic history. Her last works are about the consumer’s history in the twentieth/twenty-first century: economic and material culture, history of Italian food, new developments of fashion and design.
She wrote more than 150 publications, including:
- The Italian Look, or the Democratization of Fashion, in The Routledge companion to fashion studies, E. Paulicelli, V. Manlow, E. Wissinger eds., London, Routledge, 2022
- The End of Mass Market and the Age of Segmentation, Entreprise & Histoire, 2019
- Italian Fashion since 1945: A Cultural History, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, pp. 265
- Material Nation. A Consumer's History of Modern Italy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 276.