The cotton industry faced a crisis as the Sixties gave way to the Seventies.
By 1975, cotton’s share of the textile marketplace had fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, from 78 percent in 1960, as synthetic and man-made fibers made huge inroads in the fashion industry. The new synthetic fibers even threatened the historically all-cotton jeans category. Fibers such as nylon, rayon and polyester had become household names, often backed by significant advertising campaigns touting their performance. Terms like “wear and wash” and “wrinkle free” associated with synthetic fibers helped erode cotton’s market share.
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Fast forward to 2010: cotton apparel and home fabrics now account for more than 60 percent of textile products sold at retail. A large part of that resurgence owes its success to Cotton Incorporated, which has seen its logo and advertising reach iconic status. In the four decades since it was founded, Cotton Inc. has used savvy marketing and innovative technology advancements to position cotton as a brand, not just an agricultural commodity.
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Cotton producers saw the writing on the wall in the late Sixties and, enabled by the Cotton Research and Promotion Act of 1966, commissioned the consulting firm of Booz Allen Hamilton to conduct a study to see if better marketing could help cotton regain its market share. In 1970, Cotton Inc. was born out of that study.
“The challenge was getting the industry to think of cotton as something other than yesterday’s fiber,” said J. Berrye Worsham, the current president and chief executive officer of Cotton Inc. “It seemed like everything was going the way of synthetics.”
Today, cotton consumption in the U.S., where the lion’s share of Cotton Inc.’s work has been over its lifespan, on a per capita basis far exceeds any other country, said Mark Lange, president and ceo of the National Cotton Council, an organization that represents a broad cross section of the cotton industry.
“That speaks volumes for the success of Cotton Inc. in having an impact on U.S. cotton consumption,” Lange said.
In its early days, Cotton Inc. faced challenges throughout the supply chain. The organization needed to not only sell consumers on the superior qualities of cotton, but also convince fabric mills to switch away from the easier-to-process synthetics, convince more apparel companies to manufacture cotton apparel and convince retailers to sell it.
One of the earliest tasks tackled by the organization’s staff, under its first president J. Duke Wooters, was creating a trademark that would speak to all those stakeholders. The company hired a San Francisco-based graphic designer, Walter Landor, to come up with an image that could represent Cotton Inc. and the commodity it was repositioning. The resulting “Seal of Cotton,” introduced in 1973, still serves as the focal point for advertisements and communicates the brand identity of cotton. According to statistics from Cotton Inc., by the end of 1973, 18 percent of Americans could identify the Seal of Cotton with the words removed. By 2003, that number had risen to more than 80 percent.
With its new seal in hand, Cotton Inc. moved to establish a high-profile consumer media presence, sponsoring the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and launching major media tie-ins with the “Today” show in 1977. In 1980, the company launched its first Textile Designer Awards to recognize the creativity and functionality that designers brought to cotton apparel and textiles.
The Textile Designer Awards, presented 22 times between 1980 and 2003, recognized designers whose work added creative or functional attributes to cotton fabrics. The awards were given to apparel and home textile designers, including Calvin Klein Home, Guess Home, Swift Denim and Haggar Clothing Co. Award categories ranged from apparel knits, wovens, prints and novelties to bath fashions and home technical achievements.
Industry experts agree that Cotton Inc.’s contributions extend beyond its marketing and promotional activities. Going back to its earliest days, Cotton Inc. also maintained a focus on helping the industry innovate at all points in the supply chain, creating some important advancements.
Cotton Inc. established a research dyeing and finishing lab in 1975 to work on developing new cotton products. In 1982, the organization unveiled the Engineered Fiber Selection system, a group of software programs that allowed for greater precision in processing cotton and selecting for the highest quality. The software system used data generated by U.S. Department of Agriculture technology introduced in the mid-Seventies that rapidly determined the properties of cotton bales and offered detailed information about factors affecting the quality of the cotton.
As a natural fiber, cotton has had to compete against the aura and special properties of synthetics over the years. In the Forties and Fifties, nylon was the “magic miracle fiber.” In the Sixties, polyester was seen as modern and superior, said Norma Keyes, director of product standards.
Keyes, who has been with Cotton Inc. for 39 years since starting as a lab technician out of college, said Cotton Inc. worked to promote the technical advances and performance abilities of cotton fabrics in many ways, including bringing flame-retardant cotton to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s program.
In January 1979, following three years of research and work, Cotton Inc. announced that “America’s astronauts are now wearing all-cotton, flame-retardant flight suits,” according to a press release at that time. The organization touted the fact that NASA’s use of cotton proved that cotton was functional, protective and comfortable. Later press materials heralded “flame-resistant cotton safety apparel worn around and out of this world.”
“There’s a real balancing act to bringing the attributes that consumers or businesses or specific jobs need in their clothing and apparel,” Keyes said.
The organization also worked to bring to market some of the early blended fabrics containing cotton and synthetics, Keyes said. The trademarked “Natural Blend,” a 60-40 cotton blend, was introduced in the mid-Seventies.
In its earliest days, Cotton Inc. worked with Texas A&M University to develop a machine called a module builder, said Charles B. Robb, vice president of communications for the Memphis-based Cotton Board, a quasi-governmental, nonprofit group that administers the Cotton Research and Promotion Program that includes Cotton Inc. The Cotton Board is funded by cotton producers and importers.
A module builder takes cotton as it’s picked and compresses it into enormous blocks that hold 14,000- to 16,500-pound bales of cotton each. The loaf-shaped modules are covered with a tarp until they are taken to the cotton gin. Prior to the development, cotton often sat exposed to the elements and temperature fluctuations while waiting at the cotton gin, which degraded the quality of the cotton, Robb said.
“If one thing revolutionized cotton production in the last 40 years it was the module builder,” Robb said.
In 1987, Cotton Inc. introduced a technological development that would have a great impact on apparel — the first wrinkle-resistant cotton. It was adopted first by Farah. The new “permanent press” development countered one of the popular claims of synthetic fibers that had lured consumers away.
In 1989, Cotton Inc. further entrenched itself in consumers’ minds when it rolled out the first “The Fabric of Our Lives” ads on Thanksgiving Day, with Richie Havens singing the soon to be iconic line, “The touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives.”
Over the years Cotton Inc. has spent around $300 million on “The Fabric of Our Lives” campaign, Worsham estimated. After a hiatus, the organization recently relaunched it. In 2009, a series of commercials aired featuring up-and-coming musical artists like Zooey Deschanel, Jazmine Sullivan and Miranda Lambert, who each reinterpreted the music and lyrics. The most recent iteration of the campaign currently airing on television, called “The Fabric of My Life,” launched earlier this year and featured Leona Lewis and Colbie Caillat.
The company’s approach changed how agricultural commodities were marketed, said J. Nicholas Hahn, a former president and ceo of the organization, who spent more than two decades there. The California Raisin campaign, the Got Milk ads and others advertising everything from eggs to beef followed after Cotton Inc.’s advertising campaigns, he noted.
Cotton Inc.’s focus on the end consumer of cotton eventually lead to the first publication in 1994 of The Lifestyle Monitor Survey, a research program that tracks consumer attitudes about everything from fiber preferences to fashion and shopping.
“One thing that makes Cotton Inc. so successful is they combine more than one aspect of what companies care about: information about cotton itself, the prices and availability of raw cotton, as well as information through the supply chain and promotion direct to consumers,” said Julia Hughes, president of the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles & Apparel.
As textile and apparel industries grew increasingly global over the last two decades, so did the scope of Cotton Inc. The organization opened its first overseas offices in London and Osaka, Japan, in 1982. That was quickly followed by offices in Mexico City and Shanghai. In 2002, the company developed a marketing campaign for India called the Cotton Gold Alliance, further expanding its marketing reach abroad and using the Seal of Cotton for the first time outside of the Americas in a consumer promotion. Today, the company has offices in Cary, N.C., New York, Mexico City, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Osaka.
A global footprint is even more critical today, Worsham said. As the domestic textile industry has shrunk, it “has gone from being important to being an absolute necessity for the survival of the U.S. industry,” he said.
The ability to think ahead and continued advocacy for the industry have been the hallmark of the organization for 40 years, industry insiders said. Its innovative approach helped bring the industry back from the brink.
“If it hadn’t been for what Cotton Inc. did for cotton farmers all over the world, we’d all be wearing polyester leisure suits,” said Wally Darneille, president and ceo of the Plains Cotton Cooperative Association in Lubbock, Tex.