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A New Scenario Of Fashion Marketing In Islamic World: A Case Study Of

Iranian Women

Article · January 2011

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 Journal of Business and Policy Research
Vol. 6. No. 2. September 2011. Special Issue. Pp.126-135

A New Scenario of Fashion Marketing in Islamic World:

“A Case Study of Iranian Women”

Alireza Miremadi*, Samira Iran**, Marjan Shadafza***

and Fereshte Moshiri****

Today, global marketing competition pushes businesses to find out

new competitive advantages which are directly related to the needs
of consumers. Recently, fashion has considered an attractive area
for marketers because people desire differentiation more than ever.
Besides, Muslims is an attractive segment for businesses to pay
attention. Due to Islamic principles, their needs and desires are
different from others. This study is going to find out the important
attributes of Islamic fashion marketing in the mind of Muslim women.
To achieve this goal, a survey conducted in Iran and Iranian women
asked to participate in the study by filling a questionnaire. The results
show that among different factors, Muslim women consider three
attributes to be the most important one. Finally, the researchers
proposed some recommendations.

Field of Research: Marketing

1. Introduction

Nowadays, globalization is inevitable issue for all companies, regardless of their field
of business, to consider if they want to still compete in the market. Among different
business industries, Mark Easey mentioned fashion as one of “large global business
sector going through a period of great change” which needs marketing for managing
its growth and change. (Easey 2009) In addition, the necessity of paying attention to
fashion is more obvious as somebody discover the fact that clothing has very
especial effect on self-esteem.

Moreover, according to the represented statistics, Muslims were about one-fifth of

mankind in 2009. (Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/) Such number shows an
attractive segmentation in this competitive global market. These people have to be
satisfied as consumers by representing goods and services which are not only align
with their beliefs, but give them a feeling of proud and passion. So, as a first step,
their needs and attitudes should be extracted. Then, these needs should be met in
all different stages of designing, manufacturing and marketing of the Islamic goods
and services.

Therefore, on the one hand, fashion marketing undoubtedly, is a profitable field to

work on it. On the other hand, Muslims and their demands for Islamic goods and

*
Assistant Marketing Professor & MBA Director at Sharif University of Technology, International
Campus, School of Management, Amir Kabir Square, Kish Island, Iran. Tel: +98 764 442 2299 (please
dial extension number 326) -Fax: +98 764 442 16 28, Email: [email protected],
[email protected],
**
MBA Graduated from Sharif University of Technology-IC, Email: [email protected]
***
MBA Graduated from Sharif University of Technology-IC, Email: [email protected]
****
Master of Mathematics from Chamran University of Ahwaz, Email: fereshte. [email protected]
 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

services reveal a new opportunity in today‟s global market. Applying approaches that
are suitable for secular market to Islamic market bring out some risks if they were not
align with Islamic beliefs (Morphitou & Gibbs 2008). “The Islamic marketing principles
combine a value-maximization concept with the principle of justice for the wider
welfare of the society”. (Hassan et al. 2008). The objective of this study is to find out
the Muslim‟s attitude towards different attributes for fashion marketing.

The researchers discover the important variables which are helpful to construct the
effective Marketing strategies with implementing the right integrated marketing
communication IMC and enable us to create unique selling proportion message
towards Islamic. In this study, researchers tried to emphasis on previous works on
“fashion marketing” and “Islamic marketing”. Then, Muslims consumers‟ attitude
toward Islamic fashion is studied. To achieve the last objective which is discovering
the Muslim consumer‟s attitude toward Islamic Fashion, a survey conducted based
on seventeen Likert scale questions in combination with three demographic ones.
Then, the results analyzed and discussed. Finally, some recommendations proposed
for applying Islamic Fashion Marketing.

1.1. Statement of Problems

Today, almost all the fashion companies should use fashion marketing as essential
and vital tools to provide competitive advantage in this competitive world by creating
unique brand, hence these arises a need to find out the most Islamic vital attribute
for fashion companies in Islamic world . Here the researchers aim to probe into the
reason of implementing right factors or attribute in fashion industry and introduce the
precise Islamic marketing strategy.

1.2. The Objectives of Research

1. To investigate the most important attributes in fashion marketing which

passed away through Iranian women
2. To understand the most effective Islamic Marketing Mix strategies in women
fashion Marketing.

2. Literature Review

At present, research activities in the area of Islamic fashion marketing through

variety tools of integrated Marketing communication on consumer and fashion
companies in Iran or even in the Islamic world are very limited.

2.1. Fashion Marketing

Nineteenth century can be mentioned as the beginning of fashion design

story. At this time, “designs were the product of the dresses worn in the royal
courts” (Bailey 2007). This is the time of emerging the design houses in
Paris which apply artists to paint and design for cloths (Retrieved from:
www.Wikipedia.com). “For centuries, individuals or societies have used
clothes and other body adornment as a form of nonverbal communication”
(Retrieved from: http://www.fashion-era.com/).

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 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

Striving for differentiation as an innate characteristic of human being, always make

an attempting to enter to an area called fashion. Fashion is not just about cloth, it‟s
about all other products such as jewelleries, apparel, footwear, etc. Nielsen found
these products as about 36% of total consumer expenditure (Nielsen 2001).
Nowadays clothing and fashion purchase decision are based on wants of the
consumers, they ask for variety of products (Brun & Castelli 2008). That is why
marketing function has integrated with fashion during the recent centuries. Mike
Easey defined fashion marketing as a way for application of business in cloth
industry that focuses on target consumers of clothing and related product and
services (Easey 2009).

“Fashion marketing combines the elements of advertising, design and business

administration, as well as a solid understanding of the fashion world, in order to take
a new clothing line and get it the attention it needs to be successful” (Retrieved from:
http://www.fashion-school-finder.com/). Increasing demand for product variety in
combination with market-oriented view, forces companies to face with different
market demands at the same time (Heikkila 2002; Holmstrom et al. 2000; Lee 2002).

The role of fashion marketers according to Mark Eseay can be summarized in five
processes: Fashion marketing search, Fashion product management, Fashion
promotion, Fashion distribution, Fashion product positioning and price (Easey 2009).
Generally Fashion marketer has to determine the needs and motivation of each
consumer. To find this out there is several factors that should be considered: age/
generation, gender, occupation, economic circumstance, social class, religion
(Bohdanowicz & Clamp 1994). This study is focused on religion and mention that
Muslim creates special target for fashion marketer, so they should be aware of
Islamic marketing issues.

2.2. Islamic Marketing

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defined the concept of marketing as “an
organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and
delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that
benefit the organization and its stake holders” (AMA 2008). Since Religion plays
important role in purchasing decision of people, the Islamic perspectives should be
added to marketing issues in order to attract Muslims. In the other word, Religion
should be regarded as a marketing tool. (Arham 2010)

Islamic marketing can be determined as applying all the marketing rules that are not
against Islamic rules and holly Quran. For instance, Islam advice its followers to
obtain wealth but it emphasizes that this acquirement should not to be through obtain
easy money by Riba. (Arham 2010) Actually, “At the heart of Islamic marketing is the
principle of value maximization based on equity and justice for the wider welfare of
society.”(Saeed et al. 2001) In summary, there are four characteristics for Islamic
marketing as: spiritualistic, ethical, realistic and humanistic. (Sula & Kartajaya 2006)

2.3. 4p of Marketing From Islamic Perspective

One of the most applicable marketing tools is marketing mix that is accompanied by
Islamic perspectives in Islamic marketing as follow:

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 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

Product: to make a halal product, all the process and function should be conforming
by Islamic law. Information tag should be labelled on each product that involves all
the content and ingredients. (Al-Buraey 2007) “Under the Islamic approach, the
production process has to be guided by the criteria of the value and the impact of the
product upon the whole society. This is due to the highest importance given to the
actualization of the optimum welfare of a human being and society.” (Hassan et al.
2008)

Price: from the point view of Islamic marketing, it is not permitted to change the price
of a product without changing the quality or quantity of it simultaneously
(IbnTaymiyah 1982).it does not mean that never they can change the policy of price,
it happens when they marketer want to curb opportunistic tendencies among
merchants or there is scarcity of supply. (Hassan et al. 2008)

Promotion: in Islamic marketing to promote products all the products‟ defects should
be mentioned. (Al-Buraey 2007) women in advertising should be used in accordance
to Islamic point of view. Also, exaggeration is not allowed. (Al-Buraey 2007) In
addition, misleading advertising and sales tactics and sale promotion by using
manipulation are avoided. (Hassan et.al. 2008)

Place: in Islamic view distribution channels have to deliver satisfactory service to the
customer, it is common to have an agency representation to facilitate the movement
functions. (Hassan et.al. 2008)

3. The Methodology and Model

Initially, the professional executives in the field of fashion Marketing and professors
were asked to review the questionnaires and if there is any ambiguities which
researchers have not noticed. An exploratory pilot testing was conducted on 50
women respondents to identify the factors which would be considered and used in
structuring the final questionnaire and the women were from diverse backgrounds.
Then, a large number of questionnaires distributed to the consumers of woman
fashion items. Since the researcher has found the relevant data, it wasn‟t necessary
to pilot the questionnaires again.

The questionnaire finally consisted of seventeen statements and the women

respondents were asked to indicate the degree of importance with these on a five
point scale (1= strongly important, 5 =strongly important). It was administrated to two
hundred and ten people .finally, one hundred and ninety six questionnaires were
chosen for the study.

3.1. Sampling Technique

In general, sampling has two main categories: probability and non-probability

sampling. In the case that general ability is the main concern of research, the best
choice is probability sampling, however, for surveying consumer oriented or national
based this method seems to be inappropriate (Saubders & Thornhill 2007). This in
essence means that all the probability sampling such as simple random, systematic,
stratified random technique would not be possible in a research of this quantum.

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 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

Thus, the researcher has used a quota sampling by allocating 196 samples in two
cities.

It is important to take into consideration the period of study which undertakes from
September 2010 till January 2011 .The study area is limited to Tehran and Kish,
furthermore, Tehran is identified as one of the fast developing city in Iran with vast
diversity of Iranian cultures inside it. The time factor was considered to be a major
constraint, moreover, the survey was conducted only in two cities, and hence the
result from the study may or may not be applied to other areas. Further study method
which was adopted for collecting the data in this study has its own limitations.

4. The Findings

The following table (Table 1) indicates the demographic characteristics of the

sample.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics

Percentage of number of
Demographic characteristics
respondents
Age Upper 56 1.8
46 to 55 7.7
36 to 45 17.3
26 to 35 34.5
18 to 25 38.7
Education MS and upper 27.4
BS 34.5
upper diploma 11.3
Diploma 25.0
under diploma 1.8
Job Retired 1.8
University student 17.3
Housewife 10.7
part time job 20.2
full time job 50.0

Internal consistency or reliability of the instrument was conducted by finding the

Cronbach alpha coefficient. Cronbach‟s alpha is an index of reliability associated with
calculating the reliability of items that are not scored right versus wrong (Fraenkel &
Wallen 2003). The ranges of Alpha coefficient is from 0 to 1 and it may be used to
describe the reliability of factors obtained from multi-point formatted questionnaires
or scales (i.e., rating scale: 1 = unimportant, 5 = very important) (Fraenkel & Wallen
2003). The higher the score, the more reliable the scale is.The researchers reached
on 0.711 for Alpha Cronbach (Table 2) which is higher than what Nunnaly indicated
as an acceptable reliability coefficient. (Nunnaly 1978)

Table 2: Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha N Of Items

.711 17

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 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

Correlation and regression are best applied together to set whether metric variable
are associated with each other. The dependent variable can be explained by some
independent variables .in this research, the dependent variables of interest (Islamic
Marketing satisfaction) and independent variables can be the marketing mix which
research discovered. These independent variables consist of: Colour, Religion,
Discount, Design, Comfortability, Durability, Advertising, Price, Culture, Cleared,
Store, Word of Mouth (WOM), Material, Guidance, Bonus, and Specialization. These
variables divided into four groups as marketing mix elements.

4.1. Analysis of Consistency

First of all, consistency of all the factors was captured by applying items to total
correlation analysis. Under this, correlation of every item with the total of major and
the computed value is compare with the standard value .0159. If the captured value
is found less than the standard value, then whole statement will drop and will be term
as an inconsistency. But if the value is more than the standard value, it term as a
consistency.

Table 3: Correlations
Islamic Islamic Islamic Place
product Mix promotion Mix Mix price
Islamic Product Mix Pearson Correlation 1
Sig. (2-Tailed)
N 196
**
Islamic Promotion Mix Pearson Correlation .422 1
Sig. (2-Tailed) .000
N 196 196
** **
Islamic Place Mix Pearson Correlation .234 .471 1
Sig. (2-Tailed) .001 .000
N 196 196 196
** ** *
Price Pearson Correlation .346 .364 .174 1
Sig. (2-Tailed) .000 .000 .015
N 196 196 196 196
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Researchers applied forward stepwise regression model, which end up with only
three out of sixteen factors in regression model. The three variables in the model are
religion, design and material.

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 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

Table 4: Model Summary

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
a
1 .420 .176 .171 1.037
b
2 .509 .259 .250 .986
c
3 .527 .278 .264 .977

a. Predictors: (Constant), religion

b. Predictors: (Constant), religion, design
c. Predictors: (Constant), religion, design, material

The R2 value of a model tells research what percentage of the variation in

dependent variables is explained by all independent variables in the model.
Researcher found out from Model summary Table 4 that religion, design and
material has .278 precents of variation on dependent variables (Islamic Marketing
satisfaction).

Table 5: ANOVAd
Model
Sum of
Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.
a
1 Regression 38.161 1 38.161 35.518 .000
Residual 178.356 166 1.074
Total 216.518 167
b
2 Regression 56.021 2 28.010 28.796 .000
Residual 160.497 165 .973
Total 216.518 167
c
3 Regression 60.125 3 20.042 21.016 .000
Residual 156.393 164 .954
Total 216.518 167
a. Predictors: (Constant), religion
b. Predictors: (Constant), religion, design
c. Predictors: (Constant), religion, design, material

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 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

Table 6: Coefficients
Model Unstandardized Standardized
Coefficients Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant) 1.795 .209 8.582 .000
Religion .366 .061 .420 5.960 .000
2 (Constant) 1.162 .248 4.691 .000
Religion .288 .061 .330 4.701 .000
Design .251 .059 .301 4.285 .000
3 (Constant) 1.045 .252 4.152 .000
Religion .235 .066 .269 3.573 .000
Design .231 .059 .276 3.916 .000
Material .136 .065 .155 2.074 .040
a. Dependent Variable: Islamic Marketing Satisfaction

The overall, F test for the model, if this is significant, it indicates that the model is
good overall, this show up as a P-value of less than .05 on the Anova Table in the
regression output.

5. Summary and Conclusions

To move Muslim consumer from trial to preference , Islamic fashion marketing need
to deliver on their value proposition .Based on the result of this study and applied
different statistical techniques, Religion, Design and Material are the most three
important factors to be considered in generating Islamic Fashion marketing
strategies for companies. In addition, Islamic Fashion Marketers should pay attention
to these three major attributes in all of the producing steps if they want to attract and
capture women Muslim segment.

Religion is the vital attributes in Islamic marketing so it was mandatory to position it

as the one of the most important factors in mind of Muslims consumers. Design is
the next considerable factor mentioned by respondents and it directly related to the
concept of HEJAB which always emphasized in Al-Quran and Hadith. Material used
in producing clothes is the last important effective factor on Islamic marketing
satisfaction which is seen by Iranian woman respondents. There are lots of
discussions about the concept of HALAL in Islamic documents and it extended to all
aspect of a Muslim life such as food, drinks, and clothes.

To put it in nutshell, researcher proposed several recommendations for Islamic

fashion marketers who want to make marketing strategy on Islamic Segments:

 Designing and Preparing clothes with HALAL materials(based on Islamic

rules)
 Using HALAL logo for their advertisements
 Inset the stick of HALAL logo with Halal Material on their clothes
 Considering the Islamic rules while making the Islamic clothe

133
 Miremadi, Iran, Shadafza & Moshiri

 Synchronize world fashion with Islamic rule to sustain and attractive Muslim
women and shift it from Niche market to mass market.
 Pay attention to cultural values and norms while making a cloth

It should be mentioned that there are different limitations for this study. Most of these
limitations were predictable, but there were some that were discovered during data
gathering. Difficulty of data collection through secondary data due to lack of previous
work or difficulty to find a representative sample out of the whole population of Iran
are some of the limitations of this study. But, the most important one is participating
of only women in data gathering. Actually, men were not considered in current study
so the results of this study are more appropriate for women.

However, one could summarize it by stating that Muslim consumers appear to seek
three major kinds of benefits from Islamic fashion marketing, Religion, Design,
Materials, furthermore there should be significant promotion or advertisement
activity to boost Islamic fashion inside and outside the country or overall throughout
the Islamic world.

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