Clothing - Ensemble efforts

Fashion is a factor, but there are other criteria that must be met in the design. Adrian Ferrand, general manager at design-led manufacturing consultancy BrandInc, says: "The uniform is the showcase for the brand. The first thing people see is what someone is wearing, so it has to be right, look good, and give the core values of the brand."

First and foremost, the brand representatives need to stand out from the crowd and be identifiable as promotional staff. Brewer Scottish & Newcastle, when it conducted its sampling campaign The Biggest Round in bars and clubs last year with BEcause Experiential Marketing, needed standout in a dark environment. So it went for a uniform of branded yellow T-shirts with black trousers and small black aprons.

"Standout is number one for us, be that colour or style," says Jody Wyse, customer marketing manager, trial, at Scottish & Newcastle. "The rationale behind yellow is it's the easiest colour to see and is less intimidating for our consumers. It projects a cheery presence - there's an uplifting effect."

The brand being represented must also be obvious. This doesn't necessarily mean putting huge logos everywhere. The current trend is towards subtler branding - smaller logos, or even no logo in the case of the Perrier dresses (see box). Where a brand is clearly identifiable by colour, such as easyJet's particular shade of orange or Perrier's green, using these colours can prove branding enough.

"Branding tends to be more discreet and more inventive," says Matt Peters, sales manager at Mantis World. "Companies generally are doing subtler branding and there are a lot more ways to brand things now - it used to be just basic embroidery and print, now there are so many different embellishments."

How branded an outfit is also reflects the purpose of the activity. A company trying to build up awareness would tend to go for more obvious branding, while an established one may not need to be so effective.

Importantly, one also has to consider who will be wearing the clothes, what they will be doing in them, and where. It is important to make sure the uniform style will look good on all potential shapes and sizes.

"You want something that will suit a number of different body shapes," says Sharon Richey, managing director of BEcause Experiential Marketing. "If we feel good and think we look good, this comes out in our work."

Sky needed a promotional uniform for salesmen who might be knocking on doors one day and selling Sky packages in a shopping centre the next (see box). Its agency, Live & Breathe, had to come up with a range of clothes that were hard-wearing, suitable for all weather conditions and temperatures, and that looked good on predominately middle-aged men. It also had to gel with the very varied audience a Sky salesman comes into contact with.

"When creating a promotional uniform, it's important to ensure that whoever you're talking to can identify with the brand advocate, that the uniform is practical, and it's also important to consider how often it will be used," says Richey. "If it's not a once-only, it needs to be durable, and it shouldn't be cost-prohibitive to replace it."

In terms of fashion, the promotional clothing market follows the trends to an extent but, again, how much depends on the brand, its target audience, and who will be wearing the clothes. "Drinks brands are very fashionable as the target audience is often young and trendy, so styles have to be very high street and in vogue," explains Ferrand. "Blue chips however want something more conservative - a polo shirt rather than a low-cut vest, for example."

Being too fashion-led can lead to problems as trends can move on quite quickly. Nick Gray, managing director of Live & Breathe, says: "While it's important to tip your hat to the current fashions, it's important not to be too fashionable, but rather be stylish, so no individual garment will go out of date."

Quality is also important, and mixed fabrics are preferable to all-natural or all-synthetic ones because of their durability, washability and the way they keep their shape. "If you're designing a uniform for the summer, it has to be lightweight and able to be washed at high temperatures," says Ferrand, "so not just cotton, and with the addition of Lycra so it keeps its shape."

And, while it may be tempting to get as much for your budget as possible, wily brands are going for quality rather than quantity. As Peters says: "There's no point spending a fortune promoting your ultra-cool brand and then ruining it by dressing people in a rubbish T-shirt."

CASE STUDY - PERRIER

Late last year, BEcause Experiential Marketing created a campaign for drinks brand Perrier at London club Boujis. The event was part of a plan to establish Perrier as the soft-drink alternative for adults. Glamorous brand ambassadors interacted with clubbers, greeting them on a green carpet with a branded green poker chip to exchange for a free Perrier cocktail. Inside, they chatted to customers about their drinks preferences before offering them a bespoke cocktail.

It was essential that the brand ambassadors' uniforms allowed them to be seen in low lighting and were in keeping with the club's fashionable clientele. BEcause dressed them in Perrier-green strapless evening gowns with Perrier-branded necklaces. The uniforms had no branding but their colour was enough to make them stand out in the club.

"Most of this was about creating standout: in a dark environment, to have the girls in these dresses was great from that perspective," says BEcause managing director Sharon Richey. "They looked elegant so the audience could identify with them, and the branding was discreet, which had more impact than if it had been embroidered on the dresses."

CASE STUDY - SKY

Retail marketing specialist agency Live & Breathe was responsible for coming up with a uniform for Sky salesmen. The broadcaster's only customer touch-points are where Sky packages are sold, for instance at shopping centres, and door-to-door. Because a salesman's diary can vary enormously from day to day, Sky needed a uniform that worked everywhere. "One day they might be selling Sky at the Country Living Show, and the next, traipsing up and down a council estate in Coventry," says Live & Breathe managing director Nick Gray.

This also meant that the uniform had to be suitable for all weathers, and very wearable, so that it looked good on 400 salesmen of different sizes and ages who might be on their feet all day. The other main criterion was that it had to make the salesmen seem approachable, and because of its wide audience spectrum, Sky required quite a large range.

Live & Breathe came up with a range of 19 items of clothing, from a blazer to a polo shirt, and trousers. The various garments had subtle branding and were designed to work well in any combination. "Often there might be two salesmen working in close proximity who might choose to put on different components of the range. They still had to complement each other even though every garment might be different," says Gray.