The Power Of Clothing Labels To Shape Your Life

Posted by JacobSloan on May 4, 2011

In another experiment, volunteers watched one of two videos of the same man being interviewed for a job. In one, his shirt had a logo; in the other, it did not. The logo led observers to rate the man as more suitable for the job, and even earned him a 9% higher salary recommendation.

In a society in which the populace is now referred to as “consumers” rather than “citizens”, we all know the power of branding. The Economist reports on a study showing just how far this effect goes — the cooperation, respect, and money which others will give you varies widely based on the logo that appears on your shirt:

Rob Nelissen and Marijn Meijers of Tilburg University in the Netherlands examined people’s reactions to [actors] who were wearing clothes made by Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, two well-known brands that sell what they are pleased to refer to as designer clothing. As the two researchers show in a paper about to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, such clothes do bring the benefits promised: co-operation from others, job recommendations and even the ability to collect more money when soliciting for charity.

One of their female assistants asked people in a shopping mall to stop and answer survey questions. One day she wore a sweater with a designer logo; the next, an identical sweater with no logo. Some 52% of people agreed to take the survey when faced with the Tommy Hilfiger label, compared with only 13% who saw no logo.