Posted October 4, 2018

BELMONT, N.C. – One of the many pleasures I’ve had covering the textile and apparel industry over the last, oh, two-plus decades is the bonds formed and knowledge gained from being on hand at various industry association meetings. And on a connections and personal growth scale, the Southern Textile Association (STA) ranks among the best. With nearly 500 members representing the lion’s share of the supply chain, you won’t find better diversity – and opened-palmed benevolence – in any other textile organization.

With more than seven STA functions per year, I’ve attended well over 100 of this group’s events through the years. And with such a long track record of outings – including some I would categorize as doubles, triples and home runs – I must say its recent Summer Marketing Forum was a grand slam. The event, which took place at the Textile Technology Center-Kimbrell Campus at Gaston College here, was like one of those big-scoring innings, where the hits just kept on coming.

Moderated again this time and since its inception about 13 years ago by the always amiable/affable Jim Booterbaugh, now CEO of National Spinning Co., the event drew more than 100 of our industry brethren, who turned out to get a voluntary brain freeze and information overload by a program themed, “"PARDON THE DISRUPTION: The Changing Face of Retail and Brands." In this U.S. textile and apparel industry renaissance, this age of reshoring, this era of Industry 4.0, this day of digitization, this changing and challenging chapter of consumer “omni-channelism,” knowledge is power.

And, no doubt, attendees probably left this meeting with superpowers, ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Certainly, with a retailer/brand bent, the event brought speakers with upstream perspective that registrants may not experience every day. But that’s a good thing, considering we’re all pulling the (supply) chain in the same direction.

Ben Cooper, who I’ve had the pleasure of hearing speak on multiple occasions, led off with a solo dinger in his discussion titled, “"Who Said We Had to Go to Mars?" The founder and managing director of IoClothes of Boston, this passionate dynamo covered the common perception that innovation has to be “grand and audacious.” That may be the case in some instances, but the reality is it that innovation does not need to disrupt an entire industry to be effective.

Cooper described what the spirit of innovation means and how everyone can start being innovative TODAY.

“What itch are we scratching for our customers?” he asked the audience. “What is our purpose to them? We need to know that and we need to think differently (in order to innovate).” (Listen to Cooper’s audio podcast of his presentation here.)

Cooper’s stirring start was followed by another inspirational slugger, Julia C. Townsend, senior vice president of Renfro Corp., the world’s largest sock marketer. She reared back and brought the group “The Gift of Disruption,” where she laid out the reasons we’re on this chaotic course and why that offers opportunities to tee it up and take advantage of this paradigm shift.

“Expect more of everything in the future – more channels, more brands, more choice, more speed, more confusion, more noise and less signal,” she said, noting that disruption will continue among channels, consumers and competitors. “Consumer connectivity will play a greater role with insight, engagement and digital social power. The brand focus will move more to storytelling, innovation and technology, design-centric and experience-centric.”

On deck was Kenny Stewart, product innovation technical senior manager at J. C. Penney Purchasing Corporation, who delved into possibly a touchy subject coming from a representative of a retailer, the topic being "Retail's Innovation Problem."

“Old maps get you lost. The problem is a lot of the retailers are using the old maps,” he said, when discussing his sector’s biggest challenges.

Among challenges for retailers, he said, is an often-engrained culture, innovation vs. iteration, debating vs. doing (one of his biggest pet peeves, he said), the urgency to innovate and misunderstanding creativity.

“I spent 25 years of my life on your side of the table,” Stewart said. “The innovation you bring to the table is always more important than what we bring to the table. The future of retail is you guys. It’s the deeper partnerships. I think we’ve gotten away from relationships. We need to spend more time building relationships. If we win, we win together.”

That said, he deep-dived into the courage to change, the clarity to focus, the curiosity to explore and the conviction to persevere.

“Don’t’ focus on the end game,” he said. “Enjoy the process. That’s typically where the ideas are, during the process. Just do it your way, have fun, enjoy the process and watch the results happen. I think we’ve made this more complicated than it should be. I call it paralysis by analysis.”

Batting cleanup, Nathan Mack, senior manager of apparel innovation at New Balance, explained an eye-opening look at the "Innovation Road Map: What Are We Solving and How Do We Get There." He went over a number of high-tech strides the company has made in footwear technology and the process it took to make these breakthroughs.

Closing out the scoring drive were representatives of marketing agency SFW Results, Greensboro, N.C. President Ged King and Marketing Director Ashley Dillon hit it out of the park with a poignant presentation on "The Rise and The Fall of Retail." They opined that retail is not dead but just changing, providing a number of examples of retailers that are responding positively to shifting dynamics and enjoying success as a result.

We are in a period of brick and mortar merging with online, they asserted. “A big convergence of technology will change the way we do business,” King said.

The real innovation in the marketplace is coming from retailers, made possible by technology and fueled by an ever-morphing and increasingly demanding “I want it now!” consumer base, he added.

They also extensively covered demographics and generational shopping preferences, emphasizing that authentic “experiences” is the No. 1 driver these days.

If you’re keeping score at home, count this STA event as a rout.