Conclusion
Gender has been one of the most widely used strategies for segmenting consumers (Putrevu, 2001). The communications literature indicates that both biological and socialization factors contribute to gender differences, which in turn influence their information processing and judgment. Furthermore, according to ITPCC, external information might be especially important in decision-making when there is insufficient or inconsistent information stored in schemas, as such information might provide a connection between a seemingly unrelated event and the existing schema. Especially for SR messages from apparel brands, external information in the form of information transparency might provide a link between brands’ claims and their actual SR efforts. Information transparency can help reduce information asymmetry by providing additional evidence about credence attributes of SR messages. Therefore, this study investigated how males and females evaluate SR claims from apparel brands based on their existing brand schemas and information transparency.
The study has important findings, and therefore, contributions and implications. The findings suggested that both male and female participants’ post-schemas were affected by their pre-schemas, thus supporting the schema-congruity theory (Mandler, 1982). The study findings also indicated that high information transparency on SR claims influences participants’ post-schemas about apparel brands’ Made in USA and Fair Labor claims, thus supporting Bettman’s (1979) IPTCC. The findings emphasized the fact that although consumers’ existing schemas about the brand are important indicators of how they form their post-schemas after exposure to SR marketing messages, the type of SR message and the gender of the message receiver control the impact of pre-schema on post schema. Moreover, depending on which gender they are targeting at, males or females, apparel brands can benefit from allocating their resources to be transparent about their SR efforts. These findings can be helpful for apparel marketers and brand managers in designingtheir SR marketing communications. Detailed implications of the study are listed below.