Cotton Incorporated 2008 Annual Report

The “Runway to Everyday” commercial stresses the fashionability and versatility of cotton.

Cotton Incorporated’s sponsorship of “The Hills” included an on-air “Fashion Wrap Up” and a strong Internet component to reach women 18-34.

The Consumer Marketing Division of Cotton Incorporated encompasses the Advertising and Public Relations Departments, and the Strategic Alliances Division. The goal of the division is to raise awareness and influence consumer attitudes about cotton that will, over time, influence actual buying behavior. The four key messages the division sought to convey in 2008 were:

• Cotton is a natural and environmentally- friendly fiber choice;
• Cotton is fashionable beyond apparel basics;
• Cotton has easy-care benefits relative to other fibers; and
• Cotton is a desirable alternative to synthetics.

These messages were conveyed through a variety of methods in 2008, including television, which is and always has been Cotton Incorporated’s primary marketing tool to convince consumers, the trade, and the media of cotton’s popularity; television is also Cotton Incorporated’s largest budget item.

The Advertising Department funded a special adult’s media buy in February to support the environmentally-focused “Cotton Fields” commercial. The media buy was a departure from the usual variety that aims the cotton fashionability and easy-care messages to primarily the 18-to-34-year old female demographic. The green message required casting a wider net to a target of adults 25 and older. The commercial ran on CBS primetime shows, CNN News and FOX News, and generated more than 150 million commercial impressions.

Timely alterations to traditional television advertising in 2008 included changing the music on the “Good-Bye To You” commercial to avoid the additional costs of renewing the licensing fee, and the revival of the “Lonely Dry Cleaner” commercial that was returned to rotation in recognition of the difficult economic environment.

The Advertising Department also expanded its traditional use of television by negotiating supporting Internet components of select programs. One such program was the popular MTV reality show, “The Hills,” whose over 1.4 million viewers represent the core demographic. In addition to the cotton commercials that aired on the program, each episode included a 20-second ‘Fashion Wrap Up,’ which presented two fashionable young women discussing the clothing worn by the actresses in the preceding episode, and stressing the cotton items. Teasers after the wrap up encourage viewers to visit a special Cotton Incorporated/MTV Web site to see lengthier discussions of the episodes’ fashions and enter a sweepstakes to win a wardrobe of similar cotton clothes. At the time this report was published, there had been over 20,000 video streams of the ‘Fashion Wrap Up,’ over 150,000 visits to cotton.mtv.com, and sweepstakes entries approaching 150,000.

A similar use of women-oriented television drew upon Cotton Incorporated’s relationship with The Learning Channel (TLC) program “What Not To Wear.” As a major advertiser on the program, cotton is typically made the focus of one episode per season. This year’s episode dealt with the avoidance of mystery fabric as the primary storyline. The episode was filmed in conjunction with a Gap retail tie-in and included tune-in elements and an Internet component designed to drive traffic to the TheFabricOfOurLives.com Web site. The first airing of the episode garnered 720,000 impressions and was rebroadcast eight times. A 15-second version of the “From Runway to Everyday” commercial preceded the viewing of the episode on the TLC Web site and was viewed over 450,000 times. To complete the integrated plan, banners in the “What Not to Wear” microsite drove over 20,000 visitors to TheFabricOfOurLives.com.

To reinforce the Sustainability message of the television commercial, the Advertising Department incorporated the natural message into its ongoing fashion print advertising. Three new ads presented cotton as not only fashionable, but as a natural choice for today’s fashions. The print advertisements also included the Natural™ mark and became part of the advertising rotation in 31 lifestyle and fashion magazines.

The Internet continues its rise as a viable medium for communicating specific messages to targeted groups. Web sites and social media venues have become hugely important outreach vehicles for both advertising and public relations, and the division runs several Web sites in conjunction with the Information Technology Department: TheFabricOfOurLives.com, which had over 2.5 million visitors this year; the youth-focused mysteryfabric.com, which captured another one million visitors in 2008; latelenuestavidas. com, the Spanish-language iteration of TheFabricOfOurLives.com; and the Chinese-consumer focused cotton-imagination.com. In 2008 the division initiated programs within popular social networking groups such as MySpace, YouTube and Facebook, with the Facebook page for cotton having already attracted over 7,000 fans. In addition, the division continues to be an active contributor to the evolution of the environmental section of the business-to-business Web site www.cottoninc.com.

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One of the most ambitious Internet based programs undertaken in 2008 was the creation of the “Do You Know Green?” quiz.

One of the most ambitious Internet-based programs undertaken in 2008 was the creation of the “Do You Know Green?” quiz. Presented as a spoof of game shows, the quiz combined general environmental questions with cotton-specific questions to educate players on cotton’s environmental gains. For symmetry, the quiz incorporated the two spokespeople from mysteryfabric. com, Jane and Susie. The quiz, which was housed on both TheFabricOfOurLives.com and mysteryfabric.com, was promoted online through banners, flash units, and paid searches. To date, the quiz has attracted over 2.2 million players, 10% of whom played the duration of the quiz’s ten questions.

An innovative approach to building an ancillary audience for Cotton Incorporated’s television commercials was the development and distribution of a branded entertainment vehicle titled “InSeam.” This unique, Internet-only program has 20 installments that give an inside look into the lives of three young fashion designers as they conceive, create, and present their new fashion lines. The series is hosted by noted fashion designer Eric Villency. “InSeam” provides Cotton Incorporated with an opportunity to closely associate cotton with fashion as both the single sponsor and as a favorite fabric for some of these designers’ works; and presents another opportunity to run the company’s television commercials online in an uncluttered environment. The series content is being spread throughout a syndicated broadband network that serves over 20% of the consumed video on the Internet, daily.

To date, episodes one through six and the accompanying pre-roll of commercials have been viewed over one million times. Of those, 33.9% of all episodes have been viewed to completion. Viewership of the show has increased week to week by an average of 20%. It is estimated that the entire program will yield over four million viewings of the “InSeam” content including Cotton Incorporated commercials. The media value of the four million pre-rolls alone is $1 million at an average industry rate of $25 costs per one thousand viewings.

The “InSeam” program also incorporated a social networking component with the development of a corporate Facebook page for Cotton Incorporated. The Facebook page serves to both drive traffic to “InSeam” and to expose consumers to all of our programs. Additionally, it gives Cotton Incorporated a direct line of communication with its fans by informing them of new content, articles, episodes, and information about the program. In less than one month, the Cotton Incorporated Facebook page has been “friended” by 6,600 fans.

Cotton Incorporated consumer advertising combined a green message with the fashionability of cotton apparel (above) while print advertising highlighted the natural aspects of cotton to the trade (below).

In addition to using the Internet to convey messages about cotton’s versatility and fashionability, the medium has also served as an outlet to supplement the environmental-themed television and print advertising. To reach the target audience of news-savvy adults, the Advertising Department created a 15-second pre-roll version of the “Cotton Fields” commercial to place on Web news, weather, science, environment and opinion-leader sites. Included with the buy were adjacent banner ads that linked to the Sustainability section of the cottoninc.com Web site. This $500,000 buy generated 78 million viewings of the “Cotton Fields” spot online, plus 272,000 clicks to the site itself.

A critical aspect to fulfilling the mission of Cotton Incorporated is keeping the textile and retail trade aware of the company’s consumer marketing efforts, as well as promoting the services and innovations the company has to offer. Over the past few years the company has promoted the Natural™ trademark through trade advertisements communicating that conventionally grown cotton is sustainable and environmentally-friendly. This effort continued in 2008 when the Advertising Department, in conjunction with the Global Product Supply Chain Division, deployed five environmentally-themed print advertisements that created 167 exposures. The ads garnered a 60% recognition factor among readers of the desirable trade publications WWD and DNR, where the department was able to conduct specific cotton trade awareness research. By expanding the ad buy to print publications and Internet sites around the world, the environmental message became global in reach.

In 2008, a new educational Sustainability DVD was created and distributed to the media and trade. The first video, released to the same audience in 2006, focused on the agricultural side of the ongoing environmental discussion; the second DVD, entitled Textiles: The Sustainability Revolution, centers on textile manufacturing and the great strides being made around the world to reduce the environmental footprint associated with all aspects of manufacturing cotton goods. Released in November 2008, the DVD takes a long-term and global view of cotton’s importance as both a fiber crop and a food crop for an exploding worldwide population. Several prominent environmentalists and agricultural scientists are featured to effectively reinforce the argument that agricultural science, including genetically modified seeds and the removal of gossypol, are vital to the future of our planet; and that cotton has much to offer this and future generations.

Awareness of the DVD has been generated through trade ads, and it has been presented at conferences, distributed through mailings to clients and media, promoted on select Internet sites and through banner ads on textile trade Web sites. The distribution on the Textile World Web site has proven very successful, where it is the third most-popular page on the site. To date, the footage has been viewed on the Textile World site over 31,000 times.

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Public Relations

The Public Relations Department services all other departments and divisions in the company by promoting their work – from technical innovations to press-worthy results of recent tests and surveys. In addition, the department oversees its own independent projects. Among the latter for 2008 were gains in reaching Hispanic consumers in the U.S., as well as Spanish-language speakers around the world; another successful year in communicating the benefits of cotton to the Chinese middle class; and reaching the trade with Sustainability messages and coverage of key innovations.

In 2006, Public Relations began LaTelaDeNuestrasVidas.com as a direct translation of TheFabricOfOurLives.com, but it soon became apparent that the site needed to directly address the Spanish-speaking population with culturally relevant content. In 2007, the department began supplementing direct translations of TheFabricOfOurLives.com with original content aimed at Hispanic Americans. In addition, the department developed a public relations strategy targeted at Spanish-language media. The strategy consisted of three promotional pushes per year, designed to both increase awareness of and build demand for cotton and to drive traffic to the Web site. Web site traffic continues to show steady growth, increasing over 20% between 2007 and 2008 from consumers in the U.S. and abroad. Efforts targeting the Spanish-language media and that speak directly to this demographic on a domestic and international level will continue in 2009.

Trade press outreach in 2008 focused heavily on communications at key industry trade shows, conferences and summits. These events are attended by a variety of trade media and allow the department to augment press releases and other communications with on-the-spot interviews with company experts and through demonstrations of new innovations. This year, the Outdoor Retailer shows created a prime opportunity to not only present the TransDRY™ and other Cotton Incorporated technologies to the media, but to open dialogues about the Sustainability of conventional cotton with this very green– centric media.

At the Première Vision and TexWorld trade shows, which are held concurrently in Paris, France, twice a year, media coverage by such crucial media as Textile World and Inside Fashion included reports on textile innovations, current examples from the FABRICAST™ Textile Library and the surface and color trends forecasts by the Product Trend Analysis Department. Combined, the media impressions of the spring and fall shows were over 70,000.

Media coverage of the Cotton. From Blue To Green. denim drive included a national segment on FOX News.

The Cotton Sustainability Summit in Sundance, Utah, resulted in press coverage in key industry publications.

The standout in trade media coverage in 2008 was the second Cotton Sustainability Summit, presented in partnership with the Cotton Board. The two-day event, held in Sundance, Utah, was attended by four journalists, including one from the prestigious WWD. While all reported on the event, the content of the presentations was so timely that WWD referenced the summit in two additional articles. The combined media impressions for the second Cotton Sustainability Summit were almost 160,000, which will go far in positioning cotton as a sustainable fiber for textiles and beyond.

Another program promoted by the Public Relations Department that presents cotton’s positive environmental profile is the COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN.® denim drive, developed and overseen by the Strategic Alliances Division. The program was originally launched in 2006 as part of COTTON’S DIRTY LAUNDRY TOUR® promotion and is a drive to collect denim that is then repurposed into UltraTouch™ home insulation and donated to housing-based charities. The promotion of the program focused on a grassroots public relations effort at the college and regional levels. The substantial jump in media impressions for the second COTTON’S DIRTY LAUNDRY TOUR promotion is directly attributable to the inclusion of the COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN. denim drive component.

As a stand-alone program in 2007, a retail component was added to the college tour format of the COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN. denim drive, resulting in yet another increase in media impressions.

In 2008, media coverage of the program expanded to a national level and was seen on: FOX Business News, Good Morning America, the ABC News National Podcast, Planet Green and Planet Green Hollywood Green, for an estimated total reach of over 18 million. In addition to these outlets, for which verifiable reach data is available, coverage also appeared on numerous blogs and smaller campus newspapers that are not measured in standard industry monitoring services.

Although solid metrics for coverage on the ABC News Podcast and the blogs are not 100% reliable at this time, the salient point is that awareness of the program is reaching an increasingly wider audience year after year, conveying the message that cotton is natural, renewable, and recyclable.

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Strategic Alliances

Cotton Incorporated consumer advertising combined a green message with the fashionability of cotton apparel (above) while print advertising highlighted the natural aspects of cotton to the trade (below).

Along with the COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN.® denim drive and other initiatives, the Strategic Alliances Division executed an awareness-building consumer campaign through partnerships with seven mall groups across the United States. The objectives of the program were to reach a mass audience with the message that cotton is a natural choice for fashion and home textiles and to stimulate sales of cotton merchandise in the malls housing the program. The execution of the program sought to break through the clutter of convoluted sustainable marketing efforts with a simple message supplementing that of the consumer advertising campaign; cotton is “a natural part of everyday life.”

The decision to use a series of mall groups was made to give the program a truly national reach, and deliver its message where studies show 70% of U.S. consumers make their purchasing decisions -at the point of purchase. Further supporting a mall group-based program came from data from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). ICSC data show that both men and women visit the mall approximately three times per month and spend on average about $100 per visit. Additionally, consumers spend a substantial amount of time in the mall. On average, men spend approximately 72.3 minutes at the mall per visit, while women spend about 82.2 minutes. This data indicated that malls would offer more than one opportunity to influence the perception and purchase of cotton items.

A strategic decision was made to have continual brand messaging at point of sale throughout the majority of the year. To accomplish this, a staggered roll out of the program began in April and ran through December, 2008. It consisted of a combination of branding and promotional signage installed on or in large scale, non-traditional areas such as elevators, escalators, railings, and floors throughout each participating mall. The creative elements included lifestyle visuals of people in cotton and the tag line “a natural part of everyday life,” the Natural™ trademark, and a call-to-action such as a cotton sweepstakes or a cotton sales incentive in the form of a gift-with-purchase opportunity.

The program resulted in over 54 million impressions, the collection of over 470,000 sweepstakes entries, and cotton item sales in excess of $1.3 million, which resulted in a distribution of nearly 7,000 gift-with-purchase items. In addition, market research was executed in an effort to measure the success of the campaign using such criteria as awareness of the campaign, brand recognition, reach, likeability and call-to-action participation. Research providers including Alexander Babbage, National Research Network and Cotton Incorporated’s Market Research Department participated in conducting and analyzing the data from over 3,500 respondents.

Highlights from the research are listed below:

• 70% of respondents can relate to the campaign messages;
• 65% of respondents can relate to the campaign images;
• 56% of respondents say the campaign makes them want to buy cotton; and
• Of the 50%+ respondents that recalled seeing the images in the mall, customer service had the highest location-specific recall (nearly 11%).

Based on these responses, the Strategic Alliances Division concluded that:

• the campaign had positive resonance with the majority of consumers;
• the campaign was successful in encouraging an affinity for cotton; and
• high traffic locations in the mall such as customer service, center court, and the food court are strategic areas for campaign recall and awareness.

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