How Ott Influences Gen Z's Fashion Trend Adoption

Gianna Capri Desch

doi:10.7273/000005223

Over-the-top services or streaming services have become the way that Gen Z viewers choose to take part in shows and movies. Since they are easily accessible and available on any device, they are the perfect medium for Gen Z to be entertained and inspired by their favorite character’s fashion. Factors including enjoyment of a character and perceived attractiveness of a character help to build the foundation of how the viewer will connect to a character. Parasocial involvements with Gen Z’s favorite characters help to guide how they interact with the character and create a bond that allows them to want to talk about the character with others, thus leading to fashion trend adoption from that character. Disposition Theory of Media Enjoyment was used to help explain enjoyment in media and in the context of the study. The Parasocial involvements used included affective, cognitive, behavioral, referential, and critical involvements. The purpose of this study is to examine which factors and involvements lead to fashion trend adoption of Gen Z’s favorite OTT characters. An online survey was conducted on Qualtrics and distributed through Amazon Mturk. The survey collected 263 usable responses. The results of the multiple and linear regressions indicate that the enjoyment of a character has a positive effect on affective, cognitive, behavioral, referential, and critical involvements. Additionally, the perceived attractiveness of a character has a positive impact on all types of involvements. These findings diverge from the hypotheses that were tested in several ways. Specifically, it was hypothesized that enjoyment would have negative effects on critical involvement and perceived attractiveness would have negative effects on critical involvement and referential involvement, respectively. However, the results showed that enjoyment and perceived attractiveness both had a positive influence on critical involvement and perceived attractiveness had a positive influence on referential involvement. The study found that all types of involvement, except for affective involvement, had an impact on social TV engagement with a character's fashion. However, the results diverged from the hypotheses in two ways. Firstly, behavioral involvement had a negative impact on social TV engagement with a character’s fashion. Secondly, critical involvement had a positive impact on social TV engagement with a character’s fashion, whereas it was hypothesized to have a negative effect. This study will allow marketers and retailers to connect to Gen Z viewers through their favorite characters to be able to expand new trends and sell products that align with what Gen Z sees on screen.

How Ott Influences Gen Z's Fashion Trend Adoption

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