← The Marketing Millennials
The Marketing Millennials
5 Marketing Lessons from a 125-Year-Old Brand with Dawn Hedgepeth | Ep. 415
00:49:17
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- [00:01]
A
Ever think about how much time you spend doing admin versus real work? Wrike fixes it. Smart task management AI that flags risks and one source of truth for your whole team. For real. Check it out@wrike.com TMM that's W R I K-E.com TMM welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murra and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the up. Hey Don, welcome to the podcast. I know you're taking time out of a busy shoot right now, so thank you so much for the the time today and excited to chat.
- [01:01]
B
Hey Daniel, thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Appreciate the time.
- [01:06]
A
I want to first get into your background, how you got into marketing so we could set the stage of who you are and all that good stuff.
- [01:15]
B
Well, I guess it's an interesting story. I kind of fell into marketing. Truth be told, it was not a direct journey. I always wanted to be a criminal defense attorney, so that was kind of what I had my my mind set on from the time I was fairly young, actually even in high school. After college, I decided to take some time before taking the LSAT and became an editor for a law journal in Boston for a national law publication and found that people weren't really that satisfied with their job. Lots of people gave me recommendations that made it seem like it might not be the right career. So I pivoted and actually went to school for a master's of public policy, which I determined was kind of getting into the spirit of the law, but what was behind it as opposed to practicing law? And while there I started working for a professor in the business school because I could take classes on both sides in the business school and also in the policy school and found that I just really loved business. I really got engaged in the content marketing, things like that. And that's kind of how it all happened. I started right from, right from business school, began working as an associate brand manager at Unilever, and 20 something years later, here I am. I just found that I really loved the career in brand brand management, which is really where I started. Loved all the different aspects of marketing, how different every day could be, how many different types of challenges there were. And over time, marketing just has gotten more and more interesting, it feels like, and it keeps me on my toes every day. So it has certainly continued to hold My interest all that time.
- [03:01]
A
That's amazing. It's funny because my, my wife's in marketing too and she always like claimed to fame as she's a law school dropout. She went to law school for like a year and was like, peace out, I don't want to be a lawyer. And then got into E commerce and now she's like a chief growth officer at an agency doing E commerce stuff. But it's so funny. Like same type, similar story. Wanted to be a lawyer. Wanted to be a lawyer and decided that's not my path. Yeah, I want to first go into this because it kind of is fresh in your mind. I know at Hanes you're in a lot of different retail marketing and you're right now doing some retail retail media shoot. So what kind of retail marketing does Hanes brands find the most effective?
- [03:53]
B
Well, it does differ by retail media network a little bit. We do marketing measurement studies and determine what worked best for us in what channel. That's both national tactics as well as all of our retail media tactics. I would say one of the ones that has been more successful lately in a couple different network spaces is really olv online video, connected TV also in some cases where you can do it like Amazon for example. But video content seems to just be reigning king everywhere right now and is very engaging and we have found that to be a fairly positive return for us in many cases. I think there was a time when retail media was really focused mostly on that lower funnel, performance type media where you were really trying to drive the conversion and grab the sale. And you know, obviously you need to be there for the, for the digital shelf. You need to have presence and search and display, primarily search so that you show up. But nowadays it's so critical to really make that media work effectively. You really have to cover all phases of that purchase journey and so enter in things like video content, which is in many cases much more upper funnel, historically considered upper funnel, more brand marketing, brand messaging, general awareness, driving, making sure you really have enough people at the top of the funnel to kind of get all the way down into conversion and turn it into a sale. So video content definitely working really well in a lot of instances.
- [05:35]
A
Now I know we started like kind of in the weeds, but let's back up a little bit. But on what is your approach of building a long term marketing strategy? Especially now that we're in such a fast moving environment with digital media now. AI, everything's moving so, so fast. So what is your process of building a marketing strategy?
- [06:04]
B
That's such a good question. I tend to think of not much is long term nowadays and I feel like there's not always a lot of patience even for long term strategy. I think the primary thing though is that you have to have long term goals and objectives and then be open to the fact that you're going to pivot that marketing approach multiple times probably in order to get to those long term goals and make sure you achieve them. But I mean, I think the only thing we guarantee right now is that things change constantly. Right. So I think the idea that you might have kind of a long term playbook in marketing tactics, I don't know that I really buy into it right now. I feel that it's just the assortment of things that we're playing with is changing all the time. If you think about AI, for example, you just raised AI. Obviously the AI landscape is just changing constantly. What it looks like today and how we're using it today is going to be very different than even probably in six months, Months. But I think from the standpoint of knowing who your target is, knowing who you want to reach, who your audiences are, what your brand is trying to achieve, those form, you know, critical basics about, you know, what your marketing strategy should be long term. I think we always have an eye towards future proofing. So I think the other thing is while you're building a strategy, make sure you're building in plenty of time, energy and funding to some extent for testing and learning. Because, you know, there's so many different things out there and they are changing so fast that you want to make sure you're continuing to evaluate your media mix your marketing mix all of your tactics and making sure that you're reaching your consumers in the, in the best possible way.
- [07:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, I also want to go into which is one of the hardest things to do in marketing for a lot of people is like once you've thought about that long term marketing strategy and all the, I know it's easy way to pivot out of some of the things, but you have the kind of like foundational pieces. How do you align now the strategy to like the goals given by the CEO, the board? How are you aligning revenue goals and business goals to that marketing strategy that you're, you're making?
- [08:33]
B
Well, I mean, listen, I think ultimately most marketers would agree that we have marketing plans in service of, of sales. Right? We are all out there. You know, I don't, I don't think there's a marketer out there that doesn't believe they are a salesperson too. And driving towards, towards revenue. I think that's the ultimate goal. So when we allocate where what our goals and objectives are for a marketing plan, for example, we should be allocating where we want to spend dollars behind initiatives that matter towards driving a growth plan. So I think from the way we view it, we start any annual planning process or even a long term planning process with what are the revenue goals, what are the goals of the general managers that I'm supporting, for example? And then we can craft a marketing plan that lays out the building blocks to get to those revenue goals. And in some cases it's about making sure we have good measurement, especially on things like performance media where we can measure exact, you know, we can have a pretty good projection of what sort of sales we can drive. But then in other cases, like your brand media investment, it can take a little bit longer and we have an eye towards how much we have to build our brand presence in order to kind of reach those revenue goals and objectives. I think a lot of it is about thinking about what your market share goals are as well. You know, one thing is revenue, but another is what's your position in the marketplace and what do we have to do to be competitive and also to drive our market share in the places that we really need to. Obviously we have some big brands in our portfolios. Our biggest brand is Hanes. It operates in six or seven different categories at this point. So we have men's underwear and socks and women's underwear and kids scrubs, comfy wear, lots of different businesses. So there's a lot of different places to focus. And part of our job in marketing is helping to determine based on what our revenue goals are set by the CEO, set by also our general managers of those businesses where we're going to focus, focus our effort and not try to do everything but try to make sure we're very surgical about where we want to grow and compete and where marketing can help us do that.
- [10:47]
A
Yeah, and I think one thing you said is like two of the things that you're, you're, you're dealing with is how do I gain like relevance in the market share and then also I have to hit sales and the sales goals. So how are you, how do you balance the initiatives of brand building and performance marketing and what is like you don't have to give exact numbers, but what is, how do you balance like the budget between like what efforts need to go into brand building stuff and what efforts need to be like strictly straight performance marketing to drive sales.
- [11:23]
B
I think you're asking the million dollar question. I also think you're probably bringing to light what is one of the most difficult conversations for CMOs today and marketing teams today. It's like, you know, we have to drive short term sales. We're living in a world where tariffs are crazy, right? Like where like, like the tariff changes week by week have been throwing wrenches for lots of businesses out there, you know, mine included. So from that perspective, you know that you, you have business needs that are short term and, and you know that performance marketing can return short term results. There's no doubt about it. And things like retail media plans and, and efforts are also, they have the benefit of what they drive in terms of immediate sales, but they also, let's just be honest, they're part of joint business plans with customers and in some cases they are leveraged for activity, right, for generating promotional events on the store, support on the floor, support for shipments, things like that. So that performance media and in some cases a retail media can be really important for delivering your short term goals. The brand goals though I think like I mentioned at the beginning that more and more we are finding too that you know, with, with the world shifting into more investment in retail media. I think that that is the trend that I've seen across lots of industries. It certainly has been the trend in ours. You, you do have to make sure you have enough awareness and so there, there comes your brand effort is important even in that making that performance media work harder. So I think big brands do have to continue to spend in brand media and dollars. Finding the balance is tough because especially in an environment where the short term business plan is challenged with volatile market environment, which is where we are right now. But you can't go too long without brand media investment because you begin to lose your relevance with your consumers and impacts the ability of your media to be successful, but also just impacts what people think of you. I mean we want brands to be top of mind. We want brands to be culturally relevant. But anymore, I don't think it always requires a big television campaign or something like that to drive brand recognition and brand awareness. That is the value of things too. Like influencers, partnerships, collaborations, there's all different ways we can drive brand heat as we call it, and brand awareness. And it doesn't necessarily have to be that. We're just producing a typical ad campaign to do it.
- [14:11]
A
Yeah, it's kind of funny because I think like what comes to mind for me for Hanes is like the 90s, like Michael Jordan partnership. Like I still think that a lot like that. Yeah, it's really funny. It's like when I think about Hanes and I, that's why I, when I was like a 90s kid would buy only by like Hanes underwear because I was like, oh, Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan it. But now like the way people buy are so different and there's a new, new era of like Gen Z coming up and Gen Alpha coming up. So I, I was wanted to ask you, like, how are you thinking about like with like the new space of like influencers and different retail partners? I know you did a partnership with like Urban Outfitters, which is like a younger, younger audience. Could you talk a little bit about like how you thinking about like how to bring Hanes to the younger audience and the new wave of buyers?
- [15:12]
B
Sure. Yeah, you're right. We have been trying to get younger for a number of years. I mean, I think brands in general, especially brands like ours, we turn 125 years old next year. Hanes does. So it's certainly a brand that has a long heritage. And your story is similar to so many people that we hear. It's like, oh yeah, I grew up with Hanes and my dad wore Hanes and actually my grandfather even to some extent. And all that of course is true. But how you make a brand relevant for the next generation and continue to bring in new people, new people continuously. And not just bring them in because they trust it, but also because they really feel for it and they really have this, we call it this love for the brand. Right. You would like them to become proponents of your brand and to be telling people about it. And I think that's a world we live in right now too with influencers, where you really want them to kind of sometimes do your marketing for you. Right. I mean they are big creators are out there talking about your brand sometimes better than you can do and certainly in a more authentic way. So I think we have focused on partnerships. We are focused on influencers of all different levels. I also think we're. You mentioned Urban Outfitters. That is actually something we were really excited about. Earlier this year. We launched a bespoke collection with Urban Outfitters. And you know, we have other collaborations as well, higher tier as well. You know, we've been partnered, doing a collaboration with supreme for 15 years. So it's not necessarily new. But what it is is also finding like where are those places where younger people are and where does our proposition of comfort make a whole lot of sense with that proposition that is maybe even more suited to younger consumers. We had a lot of love for Urban Outfitters and also you know, for the, for the college age or college minded that kind of life stage that they attract generally and that they are talking to in their, in their stores and online. That aligns really well with who we've been trying to reach but also who resonates with our product right now we designed into that with Urban Outfitters and you know, brought it to life there. And I think that's, that's the kind of thing that we're trying to do is, is find equities like that where we can bring something to the table like our strong comfort, heritage and our durability, our great products, our you know, comfortable basics. Are really having a moment right now. I think in time post Covid especially people love their comfortable wear. Fortunately we make that and we feel like we do it. We've done it for a long time and really it's about finding new ways to kind of get it into the hands of new consum. Whether that's you know, Urban Outfitters or TikTok Shop. We launched our TikTok shop just recently, maybe about a month ago for Hanes launched Maidenform a little bit earlier this year. A little different story and intimates. But those building those, those relationships and those types of programs can help us get this brand kind of in culture a bit more than we can do just on our own.
- [18:27]
A
I want to know like what is the, the thought process internally when you're making the decision to go do for example like a limited partnership with like or a capsule line with a a person like a brand like Urban Outfitters when you go retail versus launching like into a new category like hey, Haynes wants to go into your I know you launch athleisure line. So like how do you think about like limited time partnerships with retailers versus like making that decision? We need to like add a new category to the Hanes like SKUs.
- [19:16]
B
It's a good question. One part of that is collaborations and partnerships. Even things like Urban Outfitters for example. A lot of that it's equally about brand heat and what it's doing for your brand itself and what you're. It's almost like the value of the marketing, right? Is this equal or even in some cases greater to the volume that you, you'll actually sell? I mean we are a large scale company, right? Hanes is a large scale brand. We're in broad distribution in Walmarts and Targets and dollar stores and Department stores. So we have great accessibility. But when we're talking about launching into a new category, for example, that's a much bigger volume opportunity. And we're kind of thinking about where can we push and extend our brand into places where our equity really makes sense. But we don't currently have product there, and it's an opportunity for us to make the brand quite a bit bigger. So I do think that's probably not the only differences, but I think a large portion of. There are a lot of things that we would do from a partnership and equity standpoint that are really about as much about the marketing value and the brand building aspects of that partnership even more so than the volume that we would sell.
- [20:38]
A
Yeah, that totally makes sense. I also want to go. I mean, I feel like it was, I mean, a big decision, but probably like an easy decision because Hanes is known for like, comfort where. And athleisure is like the, like the new, like for the last, I would say like the last, like from COVID onward has been seen as like the comfort wear of everybody. Like, people like, besides, like, there's the home, staying at home, cozy, but then there's like going out and I want to wear something that's like comfort, but I don't want to. I wanted to look at least. Yeah. So why did that decision come about? And like, what, what are the, like the pieces that went into that decision?
- [21:24]
B
Well, I think, I mean, obviously we do look at trends and our design team looks a lot at trends and what's out there. And something like Athleisure, for example, that has been trending. Right. So we are pretty good at staying right on top of trends. I wouldn't say we're not going to necessarily be the ones who lead the trend because we are a brand that's about, you know, democratizing value and giving people access on a broad scale. We do have a, you know, a value proposition versus, you know, whatever big name retailer out there, for example, one of the bigger athleisure wear companies. But looking at design trends is one piece of it. I think also though, it's looking at again, where we have something that we can add to the proposition. In the case of the athleisure type line that we just launched, Hanes Moves, that is the name of that collection. We did research with consumers and determined that there are problems, there are things that they face when they are moving, when they are engaging in movement that are uncomfortable. And we sought to solve issues of discomfort because that is our core brand proposition. So again, like if I look at it through the lens of what is my brand all about, what's that core proposition? And we stand for comfort and we are almost universally known for that. If you ask consumers everywhere, we do all sorts of research, right. But they can all tell you that Hanes is really about comfort. Where are the moments where we can solve a problem that consumers have? If I take the case of men's underwear, for example, chafing was a huge problem. People are like, I go out there and I move and I have a problem with chafing in my underwear. Doesn't solve that for me. I have chafing even when I'm wearing box or briefs and things like that. So in Hanes moves, we built underwear with anti chafe cooling panels built in. And so again, it's not just if we talk about it as athleisure. Yeah, of course that's high level what it's all about. But digging into what we sought to offer in the products, we sought to bring the Hanes value of comfort to things that might be causing them discomfort when they were moving.
- [23:38]
A
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- [24:46]
B
TMI when you work in underwear. We all know each other's stories also. I can tell you all about bras also. You know, I, we, I had this conversation this morning when we were on set. People were like, oh, we were talking about somebody's bra and how it fit and like, you literally can't phase me. I could, I will talk to you all day long about profit if you'd like, we all know each other's bra sizes, but I mean, that's one type of product. We launch a lot of different innovations. And I think the key to determining how we go about it is really starting with those great consumer insights and determining where to go from there. We did a whole marketing program last year around our comfort period product. Again, that's a product that talk about tmi, people, we're making period underwear. But honestly, there was, there was a question there around, like, how do we bring that to market? What is the insight around why Hanes should be in period underwear, for example? Because there were other competitors there. But doing a little bit of research with consumers and working with our agency and our team, we determined that there was a pretty large gap between people who knew about period underwear and people who were actually using it. So then you ask, well, why do we have that gap? Why is it that over 90% of women are aware of period underwear, but only 30 something percent of them had ever tried it? And the Duggar, the more we dug into it, the more research we did, the more we realized it was because they were really confused. People were like, I don't understand this. Can I wash it? Is it gross? Do I feel wet? Like, how does this thing actually work? And they weren't getting those answers. I mean, it was just sort of like, okay, I see underwear out there that costs like $20 a pair, says it's period underwear. But like, I'm kind of scared to try it because I don't really understand a lot about it. So we did a whole campaign and we launched the product, but we also did a whole campaign around answering those questions very directly. Just saying, you know, do you feel wet? No. Can you wash it? Yes. We did digital out of home billboards. We kind of did, gave out samples. But more importantly, we answered people's questions directly. Didn't try to be cutesy about it. We didn't try to like play too much into, you know, naming the period, naming, you know, all that kind of stuff. But we really just went directly at what do people need to know about it? And we really drove some great results. But that, that, you know, that is one way that we kind of also look at what products to go into and then how to bring it to the market is, is different depending on what we're, what we're working on starts with insights.
- [27:26]
A
Yeah, I was going to go ask you about that because it seems that from just like talking to you, Hanes is on the pulse of like knowing what Conversations are having like the anti chafe conversation and the, the period underwear conversation. But like I want to know how, how you collect these insights. Like what are you doing to get insights like this? And so people know. Like because everybody says as marketers you should talk to customers or you should do social listening or you should do. But like nobody really knows like the best way to do it. So what, what, how do you find these insights as a brand?
- [28:07]
B
It's a good question. I do think it's, it's a combination of things. Like there's no one silver bullet to how you find the best insights and sometimes you find them in unexpected places also. But number one is always be curious and always be listening. That may sound super basic, but my team has a WhatsApp chat. We're like constantly sending stuff to each other over the weekend around what do we see in social media, what do we notice in the, what are, like just what do we see? Like being curious and watching what's out there is one way. We do a lot of research. We do qualitative research, we do focus groups. We do talk to consumers. We also do product research where you know, we wear test things and we put products, you know, we put those anti chafe boxers on men and then talk to them about how did it work, how do you like it? Did it, you know, what is it soft, is it comfortable and does it keep you cool? Are you solving the chafing problem? How does it work versus other things out there? And sometimes just listening to how consumers talk about it and the language that they use gives you real insight into how you can, how you can frame it up with them and how you can reach them a little bit more. And again, I really do feel that we are trying to solve problems for people ultimately. Like, I think sometimes marketing gets a bad rap about just trying to sell things. But I really view our job as, as trying to solve problems for consumers sometimes that they don't even know that they need and they don't even know that they have it. But if we do it right, we can find the right insight. I think social listening is critical, especially nowadays because that's where people are having the conversations. I mean, we can put people in a room and get behind a two way, a one way mirror and have a moderator and ask all sorts of questions. And we do do that. That is good, solid research. That's, you know, a lot of big, you know, a lot of companies will do that. But I think at the end of the day we're all in different groups, we're all on social media. You know, I have my mom's groups out there and my working moms groups, my middle aged moms groups, whatever, all these different groups that I follow. And people are having the dialogue right there all the time around what products work for them, what do they like, what are they struggling with, you know, and just being there and listening and even participating to some extent as a consumer thinking about how you experience some of those things. That is how we get some of our insights as well. So I do think it's a combination of things. We did a campaign at the beginning of this year. Our message was if you wouldn't flaunt it, toss it, or if you wouldn't flaunt it, refresh it. And it was really all based around the fact that people hadn't returned to buying innerwear at the pre Covid rates since, you know, since COVID So I mean, here we are in 2025 and people still haven't fully returned to buying bras and underwear and their innerwear basics, socks, things like that, at the same rates as they were doing before COVID Now a lot of that was people stocked up. I mean, people didn't have anything to do. They bought a lot of products online E commerce went crazy and the sales kind of piled in. Apparel had a really good year while people were at home or a good year or two, but then they kind of fell off when it came to their underwear and their bras and just stopped buying at that same rate. So in that case, we actually worked to do a survey and, and we, we actually had a survey that we commissioned with our PR agency and, and sought to figure out like, what are people doing if they're not buying underwear, bras, socks, like why aren't they buying it? What are their habits? What are they? And we found some really funny things, but we, we, we found some insights there. Like, I don't know, people are keeping backup pairs. Like there's, you know, 60% of Gen Z and I think 57% of millennials actually said they have in case emergency underwear. So like in case they have a stomach bug all of a sudden, in case they are sweaty, for example, from going to the gym and they just didn't expect things. Who knows? There's all sorts of reasons you might need a backup pair. But then also we found that people were like 47% of people were holding on to bras when they didn't fit and forget about the number of holes that they were willing to tolerate in socks. Before they would actually buy new pairs. Those insights, which we commissioned through that big, you know, more about like a national survey, we used that to turn into a campaign that said, hey, it's time to refresh stuff. And you know, we actually put in a campaign out with creative that showed if you wouldn't wear this underwear with holes and stretched out things and be proud of it and you wouldn't flaunt it, it's definitely time to refresh and go back and stock up your drawer. So I think there's lots of different ways of gathering those insights up. I think the key is listening and being curious and asking and then figuring out what's most meaningful to react to and how can you help people.
- [33:25]
A
Yeah, I want to also go into it because a lot of people know the Hanes brand as Hanes, but I know Hanes has a bunch of brands under Hanes and I think one of the ones that I want to just talk about, which I thought was like cool and I think got so much buzz on TikTok and PR buzz with, was with the Bonds brand and Robert Irwin like all over Tick tock. I saw like, I saw literally my feed for a week was like that came with Bonds with. Yeah. Robert Iron. Which is, which is crazy. And he's like using a popular, like talking about like connecting with a younger audience and connecting even with like an older audience because we know, we know he's.
- [34:15]
B
Because of his father.
- [34:17]
A
Yeah. So what went into like that and like how do you balance creating brand campaigns with so many different brands that are under your portfolio?
- [34:30]
B
Yeah. In the case of Bonds, you know, the Bonds brand is in Australia. It is one of our biggest brands. It is the biggest brand in Australia in our Australian business business. And we decided to launch that brand into the US earlier this year. And you know, the, the Bonds Australia team sought to find ways that they could resonate with American consumers as they brought in a very classically Australian brand which, you know, obviously we didn't have. It wasn't well known here. And obviously when you launch a new brand you have a long ways to go in terms of building awareness. So we're still doing that. Robert Irwin helped us quite a bit. Basically. I think they looked to build a campaign with kind of a quintessentially Australian influencer or talent. And I think Robert Irwin, with his history and the fact that people hadn't seen him in so many years and all of a sudden he was all grown up, but he was modeling his underwear and he was in his Bonds and He had this amazing snake around his neck, and it was a very visually arresting campaign. And I think it was one of those things where it brought a moment for him. Right? It was just right time, right place. People kind of went crazy for Robert Irwin, which is really beneficial for the Bonds brand. I think the second part of your question was around, like, how do we balance when we have multiple brands? And I mean, I think this is also. This is tough when you have a portfolio of brands. I'm a mom of four. I always like to say it's similar to my house at home. You got to figure out how to feed all the kids and how to split your time and split your money, split your resources, split your attention. And that is certainly challenging. And I think the way that you do that, number one, there's a question of how you manage your resources, and that's about prioritization and making sure you're clear about what you're trying to do. You likely can't prioritize every one of those brands every year in terms of at least a big marketing play, a big marketing campaign. But you can gate them, balance them, determine, like, what, you know, where is the big story that we need to tell? Where is the. What are the jobs to be done that we have for each of those brands in year and how are we going to accomplish it? But then there's also the challenge that we have, like if you're a company like ours, where we have a number of different women's intimate brands. We have Valley, we have Maidenform, we have Playtex, you know, now we just launched, you know, we have Hanes women's. They all sell Brasil and women's underwear. And then the answer to that is things. We have a really sharply differentiated portfolio of brands. So our brand positioning statements, our audiences, they need to be very clear. We call them swim lanes. We really have to create those swim lanes so that we can very easily put out something that we say, yeah, that is definitely Valley. That is speaking to Bally consumers versus oh yeah, that is definitely a maiden form piece of creative. And that's a communication that's reaching a different set of target consumers. And I think it's a constant work in progress, honestly. You have to continuously try to make sure that we're shaping brand stories that are meaningful and we're telling stories that are unique and different for each of those brands in the portfolio.
- [37:53]
A
I wanted to ask you two more questions. One is what are some. Since you have been ahead of trends, I've heard on this podcast and Been doing a lot of things with like influencers and stuff like that. What are some trends that you have your eye on at Hanes Brands?
- [38:16]
B
Well, we can't ignore AI. As I mentioned earlier, I think I'm watching how people are using AI in marketing to be smarter, to produce more content, to really. I think there's just such an ever growing need for content that figuring out the AI role in giving you access to more content, higher quality content, faster, cheaper, you know, we just have to be, we have to be faster at it, we have to create more, we have to do it cheaper, all these things, right. Just because it's like all consuming content and how you can get enough of it is an everyday challenge. I think AI certainly will play a role in that, whether that's helping you write briefs, helping you create images, helping you create video content. And we're still kind of figuring, watching that, watching the trends. And this is where I think AI gets better, probably and more advanced all the time. And I think what we can do today might be not quite as much as we can do in six months from now. I think we sell a product that's on body. Right. Putting underwear on body is difficult visually for AI. All right. So you still have to, you have to be very cautious with how you use it and you also have to be very aggressive with how you use it at the same time. Because I think it is going to provide us with some answers of how we can be faster and more agile and probably better marketers overall in the long run. I think the other thing is TikTok shops take up a lot of time, energy. Right now I'm watching like it's a very interesting dynamic watching TikTok shops and also how that influences kind of a broader retail landscape, even things like Amazon and that kind of, you know, there's like people watching a lot of what's happening on TikTok and they're not always buying there, but they're buying in other places. But it is certainly social commerce, I think is definitely has been a growing trend for a while. But I think watching where social commerce goes is something that I certainly have on the radar. And we spend a lot of time talking about, you know, where, where do we go next in the world of social commerce?
- [40:41]
A
Yeah, it's like the, the modern day QVC for the younger crowd, which is.
- [40:49]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [40:50]
A
You just, you, you see it like you could buy straight on TikTok or you hear about it, you saw that video that that influencer did and then you go, oh, you Go into, well, lucky in your case, you have like in person retail, you have E Commerce, you have like direct to consumers. So you like, there's multiple places that you could see that social commerce piece come into play. Like, I'm shopping on Amazon. I'm looking for underwear. Oh, I saw someone talk about underwear on social commerce. I'm going to buy underwear on Amazon now.
- [41:28]
B
So, yeah, and I think understanding the path that people take, I think we still don't know. We don't know necessarily. But it's interesting watching that evolve and like, you know, where are, where do they end up buying? What's the point of the last attribution point at which they decide this is where I'm going to buy the product? So we are kind of evaluating that continuously. But it's going to be interesting to see how it evolves.
- [41:52]
A
Yeah. Lastly, is what is a marketing hill you would die on? I asked everybody that in my podcast.
- [41:58]
B
Oh, what is a marketing hill I would die on? Well, I, I would die on the hill for brand equity messaging being critical. I would die on that hill. I mean, I call me a classically trained brand management brand marketer. I've been doing it for a long time. Doesn't matter how many years I've been doing it. Brand marketing works to drive sales. And I, and I do think definitions of brands change. I mean, I think Amazon to some extent, you know, marketplaces have really, really opened up the world of what a brand means to some extent, because your brands, brands coming in from, you know, from other countries and things like that that people really don't know about, they haven't heard about, but yet they become big relatively quickly in today's world. But still, I think ultimately it comes down to, you know, building meaningful relationships with consumers, whatever that looks like through whatever mix of tactics that we're doing that is fundamentally about, you know, brand building. And so I would die, I would fall on a, fall on a hill for, you know, the value of brand marketing, of building your brand with consumers.
- [43:13]
A
I love it. I mean it's, I mean it's, it's true. I mean, people who are going to say Amazon, for example, they look at search underwear, they look at like, okay, here's three choices in my price point that I want. Like, are you going to go with the brand you've never heard of? Are you going to go with the brand who has been around for like 125 years and has proven that they like, has years of brand equity built up that like most, I bet, like you don't see that in a marketing dashboard, but when they're making that decision between three different brands that they might buy, they're going to choose the mo. A lot of the time that like that lift in sales is coming from brand, not because you did anything. It's not because you ran a meta ad or a search campaign. It's coming from that. You've had years of brand marketing and messaging that got into these people's heads.
- [44:14]
B
Right, but, and I do think that's true. I guess that's true. Even particularly in a store environment, in a, in a shelf environment where people are standing at a shelf and they have a limited set of choices and they also have limited information in front of them, then brand is going to be meaningful. E commerce is a little different game, right? I mean like the dynamics of how you get information, the fact that you have 40,000 five star reviews or 4,000, you know, you have a lot of content you can read and you have time and things like that. I mean, then let's go important, right? I mean that can be like an equalizer a little bit that, you know, the information you can get from shopping on E commerce can overcome some of that like need to have a strong brand that you recognize. At least that's what we've seen in our research. But I will say, you know, for brands that are still selling in stores and things like that are doing some sort of omni, you know, combination of things, like there's still something to be said for building your brand. And even brands who haven't been around for a long time and are less traditional in breadth, they are still doing brand work with consumers, whether that's through video content and videos that they're putting up there to kind of show what their product looks like. You know, there's all different ways you can do it, Influencers, things like that.
- [45:34]
A
Yeah, I mean you write about the E commerce space, I mean because like you're not in a retail store and you don't see the reviews next to the product in most stores and you're not seeing video content on the PDPs of like people like trying on products and how does it look on this model versus that model versus that like you have so many different ways to research and now you can like put it into AI and say like which brands? Like now you have like a diff. A whole new research thing that you could do online that you couldn't do before. So it's like you're right about the, I still do think the, the Brand lift is.
- [46:16]
B
Yeah. Important.
- [46:16]
A
Well, I still do have. If you have brand, you still have a slight edge on ecommerce than other people do.
- [46:24]
B
Yeah, I think that's probably true. And I did learn, I was at a customer summit lately and heard a stat that I think it was something like 85% of shoppers in the store are also using their phone at the same time. So they, you know, I don't know if that's your, what you do in the store, but I certainly do find myself doing that like getting information and looking things up and price comparison and you know, people are doing it.
- [46:51]
A
My wife goes into Sephora and like picks up a product and then goes to look at the reviews on E commerce to see like, like how many reviews like does this have? And now like she'll go and look at what like the new millennial trend of like is this like non toxic or not? Blah blah blah like and it does it fit in my app that works? It's like these, all this like now there's so many decisions being made because of a phone in your hand which is hilar. Yeah. Lastly, where could people find you and what are you doing?
- [47:28]
B
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn primarily. That's probably where I am online. I obviously have Instagram, Facebook, but I will admit that some of those channels I use a little bit more for my kid pictures and all that. But you can find out what I'm up to on LinkedIn. Probably the best bet. I haven't ventured into TikTok yet, but when I, when I start making videos there, I'll let you know because I'm pretty much getting ready to bust into like some dance moves out there and do the TikTok trends.
- [48:01]
A
Yeah, you, I, I could see you, I mean knowing Hanes being ahead of trends, like I could see you just trend jacking everything on TikTok, so you never know. Well, thank you so much for coming on and I appreciate the chat.
- [48:16]
B
Thank you so much for having me. It was great talking to you.
- [48:21]
A
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.