Within the current marketing environment, the competition between products and services is
becoming increasingly tough. Each producer of goods and services attempts to obtain a
potential market share by making consumers believe that they have the answer to all their
personal needs and desires. Branding was introduced to differentiate homogenous products
such as clothing. Clothing items (products) can now be bought according to the psychological
elements that they represent and not only for their physical characteristics and need-satisfying
properties. Due to this psychological nature of purchasing, which is increasingly becoming a
part of consumer behaviour; it is crucial that manufacturers in the clothing industry become
familiar with the perceptions and attitudes of the consumer.
Clothing is likely to form an integral part in the enactment of social encounters and it is also
seen as a very important channel of non-verbal communication. Clothing is therefore used as
a code, which allows messages to be created and understood selectively (Auty & Elliott,
1998:109). They state further that perceptions of brand users have been found to differ for
identical brands within a product category. Within the context of this study, perceptions
regarding branded clothing were tested. The need for information about the symbolic nature
of clothing is crucial to demonstrating how perceptions are formed and interpreted in society.