BLOW YOUR VUVUZELA!

We love Denim, but what about the Vuvuzelas? Good gracious, have you ever thought that we would watch a football match of our favorite national players during the current Soccer World Cup in South Africa while feeling like we are being swarmed by bumblebees, although there are actually no insects to be found? From the stadium to your TV you hear this room-filling and disturbing sound of thousands of permanently and relentlessly blown Vuvuzelas, simple plastic trumpets invented to cheer on the teams. These little noisy, tinnitus-inducing horns seem to have become the symbolic landmark of the first African Soccer World Cup and already have been upgraded to an inevitable and international soccer fan accessory. And, incidentally, out of this sometimes hard-to-bear ‘concerted’ action one can even learn and capitalize, with respect to our industry: To keep customers’ attention up, there are similarly many Vuvuzelas to be blown, so to speak. Product or merchandise is not everything anymore. This is true even if you carry “denim in your blood,” like Chloe Lonsdale, the second-generation designer of the reinvented cult label MiH (Made in Heaven, featured on pg. 76). Although she has the best jeans-related genes and ingredients at hand, she still has to blow the horn strongly to keep her customers’ curiosity, keep them interested and make them spent their money. The main thing is the presentation of your product, of course. The more you create and control the environment in which your product unfolds the better it will sell. This might even mean, as Andrea Rosso, the head of 55DSL, puts it, that you have to “kidnap” your own store and change it completely (even if temporarily) to increase your customers’ excitement (pg. 56). Hyping the point of sale makes totally sense, but even the best and most inspirationally managed and designed store can only be one element: the sound of one curve of Vuvuzelas, so to speak. Creating demand and desire for a brand requires the permanent sound of a full stadium of Vuvuzelas, a.k.a. the synergizing power of a sleek and multichannel marketing concept. That means besides placing your ad into this magazine today it’s also a must to extend your presence online and via a mobile app. That said, let me blow my own Vuvuzela for a moment: From October 2010 on I will pass the baton of day-to-day business and withdraw myself from the helm of publishing at Sportswear International. As future Editor-at-Large I will contribute even more to the magazine, but primarily concentrate on the new formats of our genre: short films and videos, mobile applications and special events. As the company’s future Senior Vice President of New Markets, I will also take care of the BRIC countries and have a special eye on expanding our reach in the USA. I hope to see you all in person and explain further in Berlin. And please forget to bring your Vuvuzela!

Klaus N. Hang
Editor & Publisher