Strategies
Wearables Your Way
Stitches: What’s the history behind your company?
Matt Waterman: Hanesbrands Imagewear (formerly Hanes Printables) has been in existence for about 40 years, and the company currently has three different lines – Hanes, Champion, and Outer Banks – that each cater to different parts of the apparel market. The Hanes brand has been around since 1901, and is the broadest in its product offerings, focusing on core apparel items such as T-shirts, sweatshirts and polos. Champion is focused on team and athletic wear and has been in existence since 1919. The Outer Banks line was created in 1983, and offers corporate apparel. All of the apparel we provide can be decorated for any number of end uses, most especially for corporations and identity marketing, uniforms, and team uniforms. Each of these brands has a lot of heritage with customers as well as in the industry itself.
Stitches: How does the heritage of the Hanes brand affect your marketing and promotional efforts?
MW: It’s a great advantage for us to have such great brands in our portfolio. Hanes has national media exposure and can be found in nine out of 10 households across the country. It’s a brand that everyone has grown up with and has come to rely on for quality, comfort and value. The strength of these brands and the heritage behind them is what sets us apart from competitors. Items like our Beefy Tee, which has been around for 35 years, is still one of our top sellers in the line. With Champion, it’s the college bookstore sweatshirts. What will continue to sell those brands is the legacy, the familiarity of styles, and the breath of distribution.
Stitches: What are the some of the current industry trends you are involved with?
MW: One of the trends that has been going on for awhile now in retail and something we are embracing is tagless apparel. We did some market research recently regarding the preferences of graphic T-shirt wearers, and there was an overwhelmingly positive reaction to tagless products. We have a huge initiative called Destination Tagless with the main objective being to make the entire Hanes line tagless. We feel this is very important to the Hanes brand. We also currently offer a line of lightweight t-shirts, and will be introducing our new Nano-T line later this summer. The Nano-T is also lightweight, and has great styling similar to that in retail.
Stitches: How have your overcome challenges, recent or otherwise?
MW: I think last year was a challenge for everybody; however, I think due to the portfolio of brands we have to offer we were able to navigate the difficulties very well. Because we offer a variety of products at a variety of price points, we were able to satisfy customer needs with products that we already had in our line. While consumers may not have been buying the most expensive products in the line, we still had products that met their needs.
Stitches: What do we have to look forward to in the future from the Hanes family of brands?
MW: I think you’re going to see some of the news around the Hanes sustainability initiatives that we are trying to focus on. Since 2007, as a corporation, we have reduced our overall energy usage by 11%. We are also reducing the resources needed to produce products. It’s sustainability based on conservation and I think you will continue to see more of that in the future. We are also concerned about meeting consumer needs in the marketplace. With Champion we’ve been at the forefront of developing performance fabrics with moisture management. With Outer Banks, we’ve tried to focus on easy-care apparel items, such as shirts that don’t wrinkle or fade and are easier for the customer to take care of. There’s always an innovation out there that tries to serve the needs of the consumer. We continue to see those as growth opportunities in the marketplace.