According to a recent report from Sheffield Hallam University, the two sectors that will benefit most from the London Olympics are gambling and sports clothing. The research suggests that the UK sporting economy will expand and the clothing industry in particular is likely to grow by 15% in the next three years, while the gambling industry is predicted to grow by around 6% over the same period.

The long term trend of the British sporting industry to take a larger share of national economic activity is likely to accelerate as a result of the Olympics, and will spike in specific areas if British athletes win gold medals during the games: already Mo Farah’s impact on distance running has been seen not just in medal tallies and young people entering the sport but in an increase in sales of United Jack running vests and his trademark white-rimmed running glasses. As sports stars like Freddie Flintoff and Jonny Wilkinson develop their own sporting clothing brands, this trend will become a large part of both the economy and the fashion consciousness of the nation.

One of the greatest growth areas of sports clothing is branded winter wear, especially clothing that has UV protection against winter sun. Snow reflects around 80% of UV radiation, which is much higher than the 10% reflected by water, but most people forget to wear sunscreen in winter who would always put on suncream when they wore shorts and a T-shirt on the beach.

Men are much more likely to develop melanoma (a sun related skin cancer) than women because they wear less sunscreening products and tend to exercise outdoors more, giving them a greater risk of exposure to high UV levels on a regular basis, especially if they play team sports such as rugby or football where hats and sunglasses are not generally worn.

The excellent and exhaustive blog, Clothes on Film has taken its annual trip through just about every film that came out this year (and some that we’d never heard of but apparently premiered anyway) to look at what clothing tells us about character. It’s fascinating.

Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth both played with reality – Helena by sticking to it and wearing genuine vintage fur, while Colin insisted on not wearing a suit jacket underneath his overcoat because it made him too bulky to be a realistic King George VI. Russell Brand played Arthur Bach in suits tailored by Martin Greenfield in New York to included a wide range of fabrics and to look like Savile Row tailoring while meeting the demands of an active character on a film
set.

Several films this year also focus on masculinity, using the most traditional symbol, the plain white T-shirt as worn by Elvis Presley and James Dean and seen in Drive worn by Ryan Gosling and even by Captain America! So plain white T-shirts for men add to their sense of masculinity, but make women feel vulnerable because of the risk of underwear showing through. Putting male staff in white and women in grey, blue or black T-shirts can create an impression of gender balance.

On TV, Boardwalk Empire also used Martin Greenfield to dress its characters in 1920s style and this focus has been particularly important in giving the impression of authority, power and prestige – according to the designers, this has involved using ‘hard’ dressing such as starch, brilliant whites and matte neutrals like beige and hats. Baseball style or soft caps were saved for lower ranking characters while harder headwear like fedoras or boaters were worn by bosses. Hats functioned to reveal who had power. That’s something that businesses tend to forget – if you put somebody in a
baseball cap, they have no authority – so let senior staff go bare-headed or give them a hat with a harder profile that denotes power.

There’s a lot to learn from film … and smart companies will use a designer who has a finger on the pulse to ensure that staff uniforms convey some of these subtle messages that help boost business success and productivity.

With the bad news about retail sales over the past month, it may be time for many small businesses to design a strategy that uses promotional clothing to increase awareness and boost sales.

One of the easiest ways to win a good share of the Christmas spend is to offer something for nothing. Station a couple of temps outside your premises, giving passers-by a voucher for a free mince pie or glass of mulled apple juice. Set up the hospitality station in the heart of the shop or business, so that people have to walk right in to get their freebie and ensure you have good footfall with a couple more staff members giving away the food or drink and more guiding people back on a circular route through the space so that there isn’t a log-jam. Dress the temps and food servers in appropriate hospitality clothing such as branded aprons and caps trimmed with holly or tinsel so that their role is clear.

Alternatively, identify a local good cause and print some promotional T-shirts for your staff, including both your logo and theirs. Tell the press that you’re going to donate a certain percentage of every purchase over £100 to the charity and make sure you have posters and flyers so that customers know their spend is going to help the good cause. Make sure you issue a press release detailing the amount donated and featuring a picture of your staff in their promotional clothing. It gives you three chances at good publicity: through publicity for the event, during the event itself, and as a good news story after the event.

This week has seen the unveiling of the uniforms that will be worn by the support staff and volunteers for the London Olympics. Around 70,000 volunteers and 6,000 paid employees will wear the branded clothing which has been designed to be a clear presence for the millions of tourists who will travel to the games.

The clothing has also been designed to balance the practical requirements of uniforms for active people, brand image and promotion of London, of the Olympics and of British heritage. The case study behind the design of the clothing is a useful tool for any company designing work clothing.

The uniform is a functional outfit that divides into two categories:
1.    Games Makers who will be given a jacket, polo shirt, trousers, trainers, socks, cap, and umbrella
2.    Technical Officials receive a jacket, trousers and (for women) a skirt, a shirt, a trilby hat and a tie for men and a scarf for women.
Epaulettes in different colours are used to identify special staff such as white for medical officials, red for team leaders and green for those involved in the anti-doping programme.

This is a good idea for any company that has staff with a range of different roles and functions. Making the various accessories colour-coded helps everybody to know what their job is and what tasks others will be undertaking.

The basic colourway is deep red and purple which picks up on the themes of the regimental uniform of the Grenadier Guards uniform, the original clothing worn by the staff at the 1948 London Olympics, Wimbledon tennis colours and those of the Henley Regatta.

Picking a theme that echoes your company’s heritage is a great way to build brand values – this can be a colour, the cut of the clothing or an emblem that you build into the design to remind people of what underpins your company and why it matter.

There’s a lot of up-to-date detail in the clothing too, drawn from the latest designs in sportswear such as the cut, ergonomic seams and the wicking fabrics.

Using modern detailing such as flat seams, poly-cotton fabrics and work socks that help inhibit foot infections can all keep staff happy and comfortable at work.

For many companies, offering a personalised or branded gift at Christmas has several purposes:

1.    It recognises customer loyalty
2.    It creates brand recognition
3.    It offers a thank you to new customers who may not be fully engaged with the brand yet
4.    It establishes the company offering the gift as being substantial and caring.

These are great marketing opportunities that shouldn’t be neglected even when marketing budgets are tight. In fact, thinking creatively around the idea of a business to customer gift is a great way to establish some brand features that will encourage your customers to think of the company as one that supports them in tough times.

Branded clothing has practical value, unlike the traditional forms of corporate gift such bottles of wine or spirits, boxes of chocolates or the more modern and less personal approach of giving vouchers.

At the top end of the scale, monogrammed shirts, or hoodies for younger individuals offer a superb, highly-personalised approach to gift giving. It’s not a cheap way to recognise the customer’s value but for the truly valued client, it’s a brilliant approach. Think outside the box though, and see if you can select something that the customer will really value: sports clothing with a monogram that a customer can use for their favourite sport is an ideal way to say thank you.

In the middle of the market, T-shirts offer a chance to give a gift that gets worn, and is fully appreciated without breaking the bank. If your customers are young, find a young designer to style your company logo in a completely new way, that reflects current trends but if they’re more traditional, go for a classic and simple statement, maybe the company logo as a sleeve print or small embroidered detail with neat and unobtrusive contact details below it.

For the masses, if you have lots of customers and/or want to buy something that can be used for both Christmas gift and general promotional purposes, think about branded hats or lightweight bags. Don’t fall for too much novelty though: amusing images like Santa riding on your logo etc are only funny for a very short time and then fall out of favour and have no value to the recipient. It’s better to think about longevity and choose a hat or bag that will be used year round. Practicality is the key to a successful gift and you can double the promotional whammy you get from such items by running a competition that offers to reward the person who takes the best picture of their hat/bag in an unusual place or in a location appropriate to your business. Post the photos on facebook and tweet about them in your twitter account to get the maximum cross-platform marketing boost from your promotional clothing spend.

As the American government faces cutbacks, President Obama has told government agencies to reduce spending on ‘extraneous promotional items’ such as mouse pads and coffee mugs. It’s not quite as silly as it sounds: each department is required to demonstrate how it’s going to reduce wasteful spending and/or create more efficient ways of operating.

Commemorative gifts such as backpacks have been ruled out except for where such an item has a clear purpose so that the logo-emblazoned baseball caps and printed T-shirts many American agencies give away to both staff and visitors may now become rare items. However some branded clothing has been given a special status: the printed jackets FBI agents wear on raids will remain because they are classed as ‘essential work-related clothing’.

So how can the average business be sure that it’s not wasting money on inappropriate branded clothing? Customer or staff research in advance of placing an order is key to getting it right. There’s no point designing and printing hundreds of bags for your customers if they actually prefer to carry backpacks. If your staff wear baseball caps and you order beanie hats, you’re likely to find that your investment is wasted.

Caps in winter are a valuable tool for business promotion and staff well-being! Not only do they help keep your staff safe and well by conserving body heat and protecting the vision from wind, rain and snow, they also serve as a great promotional item.

Winter caps are often worn by joggers and golfers, and those playing winter ball sports. This delivers a lot of public awareness of your brand if it’s emblazoned, printed or embroidered on a cap.

It’s important to decide whether to have a cap embroidered or printed – embroidered caps have a classic appeal while printed ones can carry bigger and bolder images and messages. Colour choice matters too. In winter you need to select strong colours to compensate for the low light and washed out skins of winter employees and to appeal to the jaded eyes of customers and clients who will enjoy a splash of brightness in an otherwise grey day.

After their first Rugby World Cup win in 24 years, All Blacks fans have bought up and bought out virtually every piece of promotional clothing bearing their teams name in the entire country.

Nobody can ever know how well sporting promotions will work out because one of the variables is the performance of the team that wears the sponsored clothing, but when it works, it really works.
Major New Zealand retailers have sold out of stock with one retailer sending out more than 100,000 fan-wear items including hats, scarves and shirts. Most stores, whether physical or online, ran out of stock before the final weekend’s matches.

New rugby shirts were printed to commemorate the win, and they have already sold out too.

Interestingly, New Zealanders also bought many hats, bags and scarves to support the Pacific Island teams who are their near neighbours, showing that once a sporting event catches the information, many smaller promoters and brands benefit from the rush to possess a memento of the event.

Increasingly, athletes at all levels are choosing running caps and beanie hats to contribute to their sporting success. The old adage that a vast amount of body heat is lost through the head has been proven to be a myth, but even so, good hats really make a difference to sporting safety and performance, and they are very fashionable: Cheryl Cole wore one when she landed in the UK this week and Gryffindor beanie hats are one of the top selling Halloween costumes in the UK this year.

If you want to find a good way to publicise a business, event or person, then quality caps or hats are ideal. Sportspeople know that headgear protects them from the sun, conserve warmth in colder times and may even add a reflective safety element at night through high visibility fabrics or flashings.

When choosing the hat or cap to feature your design remember that knit hats have a more porous quality giving better wicking and breathability while woven hats are less breathable and have less wicking but offer better sun protection. Anglers and sailors like a brim to help avoid low winter sun, while runners like hats that they can crumple up and carry in the hand if they get too hot. Winter athletes need close-fitting hats that don’t fall off when they perform stunts or move at hight speeds – take advice from your clothing provider to ensure your hat will do what you want it to.

Ensure your logo or wording has high contrast to the material of the hat. Athletes move fast so observers need to be able to spot the promotional message easily. If you can run the image or wording right round the hat or on both front and back, you get double the chance of it appearing in photographs of sporting events, which means twice the opportunity to promote yourself.