Favorite Caps and a Saved Marriage

When I first joined the Outdoor Cap team, I had this warped idea that a cap was a just, well, a simple cap. I mean, REALLY, how complicated could selling caps be? Was I ever in for a surprise! I quickly discovered that selling caps is a complicated business. In fact it’s so complicated that Outdoor Cap offers around 2200 different style/color combinations AND a variety of custom programs- just in case one of the 2200 stock items doesn’t suit your fancy! Terms like; 6 panel, ProFlex, moisture wicking, mesh, closure, wash, twill, structured, pre curved, etc… eventually began to make sense and give way to a deeper understanding of the complexity and scope of selling and even owning a cap. (Side note: for those of you wondering- Yes, I’ve had an on-the-job-education and I’ll admit it. I did not know everything when I was hired but I’d like to think I’m gaining ground- now back to it!)

I’ve also discovered that people who are inclined to wear caps are also inclined to have a favorite cap. It’s true! I’ve done the research (well, enough that I’m convinced)! Cap-wearers will wear their favorite cap regardless if it came from a retail shelf, a promotional give-away or if it was custom made to their specifications. And if that cap doesn’t totally speak to them as it was received, they will modify and personalize it to make it their own. Lesson: one should never underestimate the love and affection between a cap wearer and their favorite cap because the cap that earns the moniker “favorite” can reach icon status…

Now imagine your customer’s brand on a “favorite cap”. Imagine how many times it’s worn and how many people see it while it’s worn… Here’s a quick fact from the ASI Impressions Study (http://www.asicentral.com/html/open/EducationandEvents/powersummit08/Impressions_Study.pdf): the average promotional cap is worn 6.06 X per month and encounters an average of 14 people per outing…if my math is correct, that’s almost 85 people per month looking at that one cap and your customer’s brand in one month. I’m also going to stick my neck out and say that a “favorite” cap will generate even more impressions…so remember to remind your customers that quality translates positively into quantity.

Do you have or know of anyone that has a favorite cap? Snap a picture, tell me the story and post it to our Facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/6ekh8rf or e-mail it directly to me: jfranklin@outdoorcap.com

Here are a couple of “favorites” that I’ve encountered:

I ran into this cap-guy in line at a local Starbucks and he was more than excited to show off his favorite, self-customized cap and I was more than excited to find out that it was an Outdoor Cap style. He also told me he has other self-customized caps in his collection at home! He means serious-cap-business.

This favorite was presented to one of our in-house sales managers by a desperate wife of a cap-guy. (By the way, we felt it was worthy of a professional photo shoot -kind of sad it wasn’t branded) She refused to wash it one more time and her husband refused to quit wearing it. Something had to give; so she arrived at our office in a last-ditch effort and in search of a replacement. Luckily, we still carried the style, it was replaced, and a marriage was saved!

Free Hats and Bad Hair

Just this week my stylist tells me that she will no longer color my “stress highlights” until I learn to lay off the straightening iron. This was very untimely since I have naturally frizzy hair and the humidity here has been hovering around 100%. Now, I know you guys (and girls for that matter) really don’t care to hear about my bad hair days but hang with me because I do have a point…eventually. Hey, I’m female so it takes a few more words than you’re used to… so back on track… Consequently, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to look presentable and in the process have found a new respect for the mounds of promotional headwear that I’ve collected throughout the years. Notice I said collected and not worn. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: I work for a headwear company! But I’ll be honest, caps and hats have never been a wardrobe thing for me- until lately. Now, because of a flat iron hiatus, I’m sporting all kinds of headwear from the military to the baseball and yes, even the plaid bucket (okay, I was canoeing but still).

Which brings me to some interesting statistics (and more importantly, to my point). I read in the Impressions Study conducted by ASI Central (http://tinyurl.com/6ffsqdq) that that promotional headwear is the third most owned promotional item in the United States! This excites me not only because my livelihood depends on it or because my hoarded mound of promotional headwear has been validated as normal but because it’s an effective and affordable medium to include in most companies marketing mix! According to the study, the cost per promotional product impression averages 0.005 cents with 83% of the promotional product owners able to identify or recall the advertiser. In my humble opinion and as a person that is in charge of some marketing dollars herself, that’s a pretty impressive ROI. But alas, there’s more! The study also revealed that 41% of the promotional product recipients viewed the advertiser more favorably and 2/3 of the recipients passed along the promotional product to someone else if they didn’t plan to use it. So the impressions are carried onward and elsewhere!

I’m almost glad my stylist banned me from my favorite styling tool so I could become a participating member of the promotional headwear marketing cycle. Now if I could just find a fedora that matched my… well, anyways… Don’t forget about promotional headwear when you’re out selling!