Braind Talks Ingredient Branding’s Role in Denim
Now that consumers are playing closer attention to what goes into the things they wear, raw materials providers have a greater chance of appealing directly to the shopper—if they can get the messaging right, that is.
As Tomas Vucurevic, founder and managing director of BRAIND, a leading global expert for ingredient branding, one good message to start with is an appeal to sustainability.
“Ingredient branding is becoming a hot topic for the denim industry, as the longing for more sustainability on one side and the quest for more technical performance are in lockstep changing the future of denim,” Vucurevic said. “Sustainable raw materials and new technologies and processes such as indigo dyeing are game changers towards a greener ‘blue industry.’”
In diving a little deeper, Carved in Blue talked with Vucurevic to understand more of what’s behind successful ingredient branding.
Carved in Blue: How does ingredient branding function within the denim market?
Tomas: A number of denim mills established themselves in the past decade as so called, “B2B Ingredient Brands” in the denim market. What does that mean? It means that brands, designers, the relevant media and potentially retail buyers have learned about these mills/brand names and their products and services. ISKO, Candiani, White Oak/Cone Denim and others, can be counted among them. They invested in B2B marketing activities in order to generate visibility, brand preference and credibility for their brands above and beyond the performance of their products. Through co-branding activities with denim and retail brands, mills have also started to create a visibility of their “ingredient” towards the consumer.
But compared to other fiber and fabric types, we are just at the beginning of a strategic and consistent branding of relevant components in the denim industry.
On the other side, you have a number of raw material suppliers like LYCRA®, CORDURA®, DYNEEMA® or TENCEL™ lyocell who have already established their ingredient brands with consumers in other categories and are now leveraging their existing brand equity into their denim applications. So one key question will be whether it will be the raw materials, the fabric maker, the post production processes or a combination of all which will become relevant to the consumer in order to influence his buying decision?
Lastly, we see a strong push into denim from quality seals such as Bluesign, OEKO-TEX, FairWear and others. They act as well as ingredient brands trying to communicate their “relevant component” through the demand chain, ultimately all the way to the consumer.
So the definition of what an Ingredient is, is starting to shift from the performance it delivers to the value it brings to the finished product.
Who will stand out of the clutter? From the BRAIND® perspective, rather the one with the most complete solution than the “one-trick pony,” who provides only one element of the entire package. But most likely, the one who is able to generate a pull directly from the consumer on his ingredient, because it becomes a relevant “component” for his purchase.
Carved in Blue: Does the consumer see a value?
Tomas: Definitely today more than ever. The textile industry is the second largest waste producer in the world. The environmental and social impact of textile production has entered the minds of consumers and are influencing their shopping habits. On the other side, we have seen a lot of innovation and technology moving into denim. The “stretch revolution” changed the way people—particularly women—buy and wear jeans, and stimulated many new developments such as athleisure. Now we are at the beginning of a process, where wearables and other added-value functionalities for wellbeing or healthcare will be integrated into denim. The biofabrication industry is coming up with complete new sets of materials aiming at a “no circle economy” instead of a circular economy. All these functionalities and services might have the potential to influence or stimulate the buying decision of the consumer in the future and they will actively look for the providers of such solutions when they buy finished products.
Carved in Blue: How can the branding be effectively communicated?
Tomas: We have seen in the past years that with digital communication platforms and clever content-marketing strategies, even companies with small budgets can build-up strong fan communities, which start to demand their products at retail or via social media. Wholesale brands and retailers do not particularly like the idea of ingredient branding, as they see their brand territory as sacred. But that might change soon, as individual brands will not have the power to develop all required innovations by themselves. It is for example difficult to sell a Sonos speaker system without the cooperation and integration of streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music.
But denim brands have to clearly see a value for them in order to let ingredient brands in. It is the job of the Ingredient Brand to come up with a complete solution that is convincing for the wholesale or retail brand.
The best arguments are: Image gain, faster sell-out, price-premium potential, less discount and access to new fan communities. Ingredient branding is much more than putting a label and a tag on the finished product. It is a business and branding model that needs to include all participants of the demand chain in order to create a triple-win situation. For the ingredient, for the brands and for retail.