Part II: Why Bother with Cotton Demand Creation?
May 26, 2011 Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part feature story on cotton demand creation. Part I appeared in last week’s newsletter (click here to view Part I) http://cotton247.com/news/ci/?storyid=2120. Jeffrey Silberman is the executive director of the International Forum for Cotton Promotion (IFCP), and the Chairperson of the Textile Development and Marketing Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City.
The apparel and home furnishings industries depend on the cotton industry to continue to support the consumer’s love of cotton. This has always been cotton’s trump card. People like cotton, and they consider it both luxury and utilitarian at the same time.
Cotton’s success has always been directly proportional to how well that message is communicated through the supply chain, and how effectively it is presented to the consumer. There has never been a more important time to promote cotton. Its future market share is largely dependent on the continued preference for cotton, especially in consumer products, and that is the role of demand enhancement.
But demand enhancement covers more than just promotion, because more than just promotion is needed. There are ways to dilute the focus on absolute fiber price by shifting the focus to total costs.
For example, technologies like modern water recycling and other performance enhancements that reduce processing costs should be studied and highlighted in presentations. Product improvements, such as better wicking properties, can help recapture the active and outdoor markets.
More emphasis should be put on fabric research and development that can help to reduce the costs of developing new products, which can stop the erosion of — or even recapture — market share, but aimed at particular product opportunities.
Fabric developers, patternmakers, and fashion designers are now working with more and different blends, and in many cases those fabrics have a higher synthetic content than before. It isn’t uncommon for denim to contain 75 percent cotton and 25 percent polyester, and regenerated cellulose — while still pricey due to limited production — has a presence as well.
The same competitive fiber groups that gain market share by criticizing cotton through false or exaggerated sustainability claims, if left unchecked, will get a free pass if the cotton industry does not speak up. Polyester is still made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and still considered by many to be at the heart of a slowed-down global recovery.
How to Get Started
Demand enhancement activity took a brief respite during the financial meltdown, but hopefully efforts will now begin to gain greater momentum. They should. Anyone who thinks that cotton’s market share is stable because it is drawing a high price right now may be unhappily surprised a few years down the road.
Getting started on a promotion activity is usually harder than doing the activity itself. In fact, the events themselves are often quite enjoyable. Some of the activities that seem to be the most popular are fashion shows and contests, and most recently, projects that focus on the fabric development itself. The best events are those that combine three attributes. They are visual, they manage the fiber content of the product, and they attract media. That is the winning combination.
The easiest way to begin a fabric development contest is to contact the textile department of a school that specializes in fashion. If, on the other hand, you want to use fabrics already available in the market, the department that manages fashion design might be more appropriate. Most schools have policies governing how they work with outside organizations, but written agreements are necessary and ample lead-time is important.
It’s also important to support the effort by doing more than writing a check. Make sure you have a contact with the project that you can check in with every few weeks to see how the activity is going and ask how you can be of help. It’s a mistake to show up 15 weeks after the project begins and assume everything went as you had imagined it would.
Another way to get started is to “piggyback” on an existing event or a collective effort. Using the same logo as others would be an example of a collective effort, as would a cooperative venture. That logo can then be used to tie ongoing events to ongoing programs.
Of course, it’s always a good idea to start with the International Forum for Cotton Promotion’s Web site. There are a host of articles, approaches and strategies there for you to use, and with the introduction of the CottonExpert, videos of individuals will also be available to address specific areas of demand enhancement expertise.
Finally, be sure to support ingredient branding. It works for Cotton Incorporated, Colombian Coffee, and computers that have “Intel Inside.” The template is set, now it just takes some focus and some effort.
For more information, please visit http://www.cottonpromotion.org.
GET THE NEWSLETTER TODAY!
