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In 1960, cotton apparel and home fabrics accounted for about 78% of all textile products sold at retail. By 1975, that share had plummeted to an all-time low of 34%, due to the successful incursion of synthetic fibers in the marketplace, threatening the extinction of cotton as a viable commercial commodity.
Historically, cotton farmers ended their involvement with a crop at point-of-sale, confident in the market's ability to take up the cotton crop. But the new competition from petroleum-based fiber producers presented a major disadvantage for cotton, as polyester was aggressively marketed and merchandised at every point throughout the pipeline: from mills and manufacturers, to retailers and consumers.
Reacting to the serious erosion in cotton's consumer market share, producers in the High Plains of Texas called for a collective national marketing and research effort. With support from regional producer organizations, the cotton growers were successful in petitioning Congress into passing the Cotton Research and Promotion Act of 1966. The act established a funding mechanism, based on producer assessments, for the purpose of conducting a wide scale effort to recapture cotton's market share.
This funding mechanism led ultimately to the creation of Cotton Incorporated in 1970. From its inaugural year, the company faced a steadily declining market share, with little product available at retail except for denim jeans, T-shirts and bath towels. In addition, consumers had become increasingly enamored of the ease-of-care synthetic products, and textile mills had moved away from the production of cotton.
From the beginning, Cotton Incorporated adopted a "push/pull" marketing strategy. The objective was to "push" cotton textile innovations into the market through product and process development, while building consumer demand, or a "pull," through advertising and promotion.
By 1983, Cotton Incorporated succeeded in curtailing share decline, and a long steady period of increasing consumer popularity and share growth resulted. Today, cotton can be found on store shelves everywhere in most products categories and cotton share is more than 60% of the marketplace.
The following timeline describes some of the more notable Cotton Incorporated milestones and strategic initiatives, which have helped the company achieve cotton's current share of the home and apparel textile markets:
1970 – Cotton Incorporated is created to combat loss of market share due to consumers' infatuation with synthetic fibers. Marketing means convincing cotton's first customer, the mills, that consumers desire the qualities that cotton provides – comfort, ease-of-care, breathability, and quality – and then helping them use cotton to meet that demand profitably. This in turn drives intensive textile research and development, which gives credibility to brand promotion and enables mills to tailor products to satisfy consumer demands.
1972 – The cotton Module Builder is developed under Cotton Incorporated sponsorship, and licensed to be built and sold. This invention changes the face of the cotton landscape, resulting in a chain of improvements and cost savings across the farm-to-warehouse process.
1973 – The Seal of Cotton® is introduced. The Seal provides a focal point that serves as the basis of advertisements, produces an identity for cotton, attracts instant attention at retail, and quickly communicates comfort and quality to the consumer. By the end of 1973, 18% of American consumers are able to identify it. By 2003, that number had risen to more than 80%, making the Seal of Cotton one of the most recognized brands in the country.
The first module feeder is field-tested. This invention allows an entire module to be fed into a gin as part of a continuous operation, and also reduces the labor previously needed to unload the cotton.
1975 – Cotton Incorporated opens a research dyeing and finishing laboratory for the development of new and improved cotton products.
Based upon Cotton Incorporated developments and consumer comfort research, Spring Mills and Manhattan Shirts announce the conversion to blends of at least 60% cotton, and employ the company's new trademark, NATURAL BLEND®.
1976 – Cotton Incorporated leaps into the media spotlight as a sponsor of the Winter Olympic Games, and begins advertising 100% cotton jeans with the tag line, "If it's not 100% cotton, it's not denim."
Cotton Incorporated is an early participant in the application of High Volume Instrumentation (HVI), working with the cotton industry and the USDA. HVI technology enables rapid determination of key properties of each bale of cotton, and allows the user to see more clearly the effects of environment, production management and variety selection on cotton quality.
Cotton Incorporated opens a fiber processing laboratory with state-of-the-art equipment featuring new rotor spinning technology.
1978 – Cotton Incorporated opens a continuous preparation line facility to prepare cotton for new nonwoven markets.
1980 – The company hosts the first Textile Designer Awards in New York City, recognizing designers' ability to add aesthetic creativity and functionality to 100% cotton apparel and home textiles.
1982 – Cotton Incorporated launches the Engineered Fiber Selection® (EFS®) system, a suite of software programs and services that leverage USDA High Volume Instrument (HVI) data. The system provides significantly improved cotton inventory management and analysis capabilities, as well as electronic communication between producers, ginners, mills, and merchants/co-ops.
Cotton Incorporated opens two international offices: London and Osaka.
1983 – Cotton's share of the total textile market climbs five percentage points to 39%, while recognition of the Seal of Cotton trademark soars to 63%.
1984 – Cotton Incorporated launches its "True Performance" advertising campaign, using hangtags with the Seal of Cotton to identify million of garments at retail.
1987 – Cotton once again regains its dominant position in the textile industry. Market share climbs to 49%, while awareness of the Seal of Cotton trademark grows to 71%. Mill consumption of U.S. cotton reaches levels not seen in 15 years.
Cotton Incorporated introduces wrinkle-resistant technology. Farah is the first company to market the concept.
Cotton Incorporated opens an office in Singapore.
1989 – Cotton Incorporated launches The Fabric Of Our Lives® advertising campaign to a television audience of more than 200 million on Thanksgiving Day. The campaign introduces cotton as an integral part of the American experience and uses a groundbreaking marketing strategy. It is the first introduction of what will come to be the company's tagline – "The touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives."
1990 – Cotton Incorporated introduces COTTECH® technical conferences that are targeted to technical managers, designers and quality assurance staffs in the textile industry.
1993 – Wrinkle-resistant slacks dominate the market with the first introduction by Haggar, followed by Levi Strauss.
A pioneering marketing partnership is forged with Procter & Gamble to display the Seal of Cotton trademark for the first time on non-textile products: Cheer, Tide and Ivory Snow.
1994 – The Lifestyle Monitor™ Survey, a broad-based, ongoing research program designed to capture consumers' attitudes towards shopping, fashion, appearance, fiber preference, denim and home furnishings, makes its debut.
1996 – Cotton Incorporated introduces the Engineered Knit Program, which enables manufacturers to evaluate performance of dyehouse equipment in order to predict how a particular knitting specification performs in terms of shrinkage, fabric weight and width. By eliminating the trial and error involved in shrinkage control, the system reduces production costs and improves product quality.
Cotton Incorporated opens its Mexico City office. In addition, a consumer-targeted advertising campaign is unveiled in Mexico that focuses on six distinct product categories: denim, underwear, women's wear, casual apparel, and sheets and towels.
Two new Cotton Incorporated trademarks are introduced: CARPET BLEND® and RUG BLEND®. The two trademarks represent a key element of Cotton Incorporated's aim to increase cotton's share in the floor coverings market.
1997 – Cotton Incorporated opens its Shanghai, China, office. Mills, manufacturers, and retailers throughout China, who use U.S. cotton, now have access to the various technical, information and fashion services that Cotton Incorporated provides. More than 250 officials and executives representing all facets of China's textile industry attend the official Shanghai office opening.
Weekly stories using Lifestyle Monitor™ data appear in Women's Wear Daily.
1998 – EasiFlo™ Cottonseed, a patented process developed by Cotton Incorporated, is made available to dairy feed formulators. By coating the hairy cottonseed with starch, handling is improved.
Cotton Incorporated launches a new trademark, ABSORBLEND™. This selling tool is licensed to appear on disposable diapers, feminine hygiene products and all-purpose wipes that contain a minimum of 60% cotton and/or cotton linters.
Cotton market share at retail for apparel and home products hits 60% in 1998. This marks the first time, since synthetic fibers were introduced in the mid-1960s, that cotton has enjoyed such a dominant position.
1999 – Cotton Incorporated reorganizes and re-engineers its U.S. Marketing Department. Now called Consumer Marketing, the department includes Retail Marketing, Fashion Marketing, Advertising and Marketing Communications.
Cotton Incorporated reorganizes its growing International Marketing division, renaming it Global Product Marketing. The new division reflects a focus on international marketing efforts that deal with the development of cotton products. Global Product Marketing also works on product marketing initiatives with mills, manufacturers and product specifiers in the United States.
2000 – Cotton Incorporated moves into a new 125,000 square foot state-of-the-art research and development center and world headquarters in Cary, North Carolina. This technologically advanced complex sets the standard for all facilities of its type in the textile industry.
2001 –Advertising adjusts its designated target audience for television to a smaller group of cotton's key customers: women 18-34. These young women are undergoing important life changes – first job, first apartment, marriage, and first child – which represent selling opportunities for textile products.
A highly colorful new U.S. trade print campaign is introduced, which uses small lifelike dolls dressed in cotton clothing. Distinctive and dramatic, the dolls become memorable spokespersons for Cotton Incorporated. Designers are invited to dress the dolls for future ad appearances.
Fiber Management Research introduces a new Windows-based management software system for textile mills, EFS®-MILLNET32™. This client/server system enables a mill to preview, purchase and issue cotton contracts, schedule arrivals, and select cotton mixes for multiple plants using High Volume Instrument (HVI) data.
2002 –Advertising introduces a new campaign in women's consumer magazines. In addition, the print ads call attention to Cotton Incorporated's new consumer Web site for women, TheFabricOfOurLives.com. The Web site, which is created in-house, launches in July and receives more than 500,000 hits in the first three months.
Cotton Incorporated enters into a unique relationship with Worth Global Style Network (WGSN), the world's leading online news, research and trend analysis service for the fashion and style industries. Key Cotton Incorporated research material, such as articles and analysis from the Monitor survey, are published on the subscription-only WGSN service.
Cotton Incorporated receives valuable agricultural technology from Monsanto in the form of gene promoters for cotton plants. These unique DNA elements are proven to regulate gene expression in the cotton plant at various stages of fiber development, which are critical to improving fiber quality.
The Cotton Incorporated Fellowship Program is instituted. All five stellar graduate students, selected in the inaugural year of the program, are involved in cotton breeding research projects under the Cotton Breeding Initiative.
Cotton Incorporated celebrates the 20th Anniversary of its Osaka, Japan office, reconfirming its commitment to building a strong future for cotton products in Asia.
In conjunction with Cotton Council International (CCI), Cotton Incorporated develops a trade and consumer marketing campaign for India called the Cotton Gold Alliance (CGA). The goal of the alliance is to increase recognition of and preference for cotton products in India. This marks the first time the Seal of Cotton has been used outside of the Americas for consumer promotions.
2003 – Cotton Incorporated announces its plans to launch an e-commerce Web site, thejoyofshopping.com, in the first quarter of 2004.
Cotton Incorporated appoints DDB as its new advertising agency after 30 years with Ogilvy & Mather.
2004 – The Textile Research and Implementation division introduces the TOUGH COTTON™ durable press technology, which paves the way for the next generation of wrinkle-resistant 100% cotton apparel.
After more than 15 years, Cotton Incorporated retires its hugely successful "The Fabric of Our Lives®" Campaign, looking instead to communicate more directly with young women 18-34 that cotton is the fashionable and fashion-forward choice for their wardrobes.
2005 – Building market share abroad becomes a key strategy, as Cotton Incorporated and CCI turn their attention to the rapidly growing Chinese consumer market, designing a promotion strategy to boost awareness of the COTTON USA® trademark.
The consumer website, TheFabricOfOurLives.com, has a banner year and attracts more than 1,000,000 visitors. Meanwhile, Retail Marketing expands an already successful partnership with Brooks Brothers to promote two key cotton product lines: the Golden Fleece Polo and the brand's seersucker collection.
2006 – Hoping to connect with consumers at the university level, Strategic Alliances forms Cotton's Dirty Laundry Tour™, which educates young men and women on buying and caring for their clothing and decorating their dorm room, all in order to heighten awareness and exposure of cotton among college students.
The COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN.® denim drive, a call to action to donate denim and give it a "new life" by converting it into natural cotton fiber insulation, travels to 14 colleges across the nation and collects an astounding 14,566 pieces of denim, doubling the original goal. The donated denim is converted to UltraTouch™ natural cotton fiber insulation, which is installed in 12 houses for hurricane-affected families in Baton Rouge, LA.
2007 – The creation of the Natural™ trademark is developed as a part of the company's larger sustainability strategy. Building on the wide recognition of the Seal of Cotton, the trademark resonated across multiple industries, ultimately being adopted by six brands for their own green marketing efforts.
Marking a first foray into social media, Public Relations launches a blog called DenimHunt.com, which taps into consumers' love of denim. As the blog is not Cotton Incorporated-branded, it captures an edgier, more fashion-forward tone, and soon attains a significant following.
The COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN.® denim drive now encompasses the groundbreaking collegiate mobile marketing initiative Cotton's Dirty Laundry Tour®, serving as a grassroots student-run campaign at the university level to educate college coeds about the natural, renewable and recyclable attributes of denim.
Cotton Incorporated celebrates the 10th Anniversaries of the Beijing and Shanghai offices, and hosts a two-day Global Denim Event in Shanghai, underscoring China's importance to the denim segment and the country's growing textile industry.
2009 – Research scientists at Texas AgriLife at Texas A&M University further their study of ultra-low gossypol cottonseed in research funded by Cotton Incorporated. Five generations of cottonseed that generated ultra-low gossypol in the seed and enhanced levels in the leaves had been successfully grown in greenhouses, and is successfully repeated in a true cotton-growing environment in the field.
Public Relations launches two new Web sites to better communicate company strategy: CottonToday, which launches in May, serves as an engaging vehicle to consolidate the company's Sustainability efforts along the entire supply chain, while CottonLifestyleMonitor.com, which launches in December, reduces communication operating costs by taking the Lifestyle Monitor™ Magazine online, and provides easy access to research data of interest to the industry and the media.
Working with DDB, Advertising re-launches "The Fabric of Our Lives®" campaign with a twist, looking to capitalize on strong brand awareness and recognition. The new campaign features up-and-coming vocalists Zooey Deschanel, Jazmine Sullivan, and Miranda Lambert recording their own interpretation of the popular lyrics, "the touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives."
The COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN.® denim drive gets a revamped Web site, www.cottonfrombluetogreen.org, which replaces AccessCotton.com as the online vehicle for the company's celebrated denim recycling program.
2010 – Cotton Incorporated celebrates the past and looks to the future for its 40th Anniversary. The campaign, called "Forty Years of Progress," marks the myriad accomplishments the company has achieved in its history, and paves the way for cotton to remain top-of-mind with the consumer, and a dominant fiber in the 21st century.
"The Fabric of My Life™" advertising campaign launches with two new artists: international pop star Leona Lewis and Grammy-winning artist Colbie Caillat, each of whom gives a new twist to the celebrated song.
With offices now in Cary, New York, Mexico City, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Osaka, Cotton Incorporated is well poised to meet the needs of the world's growing textile industry.
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