Look who we have on Hanes...

Hanes is known not only know for their colorful, comfortable, and affordable underwear but for the funny TV commercials with the famous celebrities. This brand and product captured my attention because of the famous celebrities who promote this product like Michael Jordan, Kevin Beacon, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Cuba Gooding Jr. and others. The Hanes TV commercials use and follow the SEMs Bernd Schmitt talks about to create the overall customer experience for their products.
The lines of product from Hanes include but are not limited to Women, Men, and Children underwear tops and bottoms along with outwear such as fleece sweatshirts. However, the focus of their recent commercials includes the men’s tag-less tees and women’s bras and underwear. One of the immediate SEMs you recognize is the SENSE marketing; one of the first commercials for the men’s tag-less tees shows a guy trying to scratch his back because the tag on the t-shirt was bothering him. Then Michael Jordan comes in and presents his Hanes tag-less shirt. This portion of the commercial focuses on the relief and touch sensation of wearing a tag-less tee. Additionally in the recent commercials with the Heather Magee Dance group moving around in their Hanes underwear projects a visual and touch sensation. The visual imagery of the product is very fun, bright and colorful; also the movement of the dancers in their underwear produces the touch sensation that the product is comfortable and very wearable. “Look who we have on Hanes…if they can move comfortably so can you”. Moreover, the commercials stimulate FEEL marketing appealing to the emotions of fun, happiness and comfortableness. In all of the commercials the music is always very cheerful making the audience feel happier about the underwear lines. Another emotion the commercials evoke is humor and laughter; many of the commercials that feature celebrity duos such as Michael Jordan and Kevin Beacon and Michael Jordan and Cuba Gooding Jr. where they make you laugh with their jokes. Furthermore, Hanes creates ACT marketing by showing how the products cater to their lives. For instance, the commercial with Jennifer Love Hewitt portrays her frustrations with her bra straps and she goes and changes into the more comfortable and “fitting” Hanes bra. This depicts the sensation that Hanes will fit into your lifestyle no matter who or what type of lifestyle you have. Their marketing emphasizes that their products will enhance your underwear experience and alters your frustrations into happiness with comfortable underwear. Overall the Hanes brand does a good job meeting the different SEMs to represent their products; they catered their marketing efforts so that the customers can understand what makes Hanes stand out and part from its competitors like Fruit of the Loom. They try to deliver the message of comfortable underwear fitting into your lifestyles no matter who you are.
Hanes has many experience providers that enhances their marketing efforts of their different product lines. For example, their website and electronic media includes ways to purchase and view all of their products at www.hanes.com. Also their electronic media extends to emails and special promotions you will receive when you sign up for an account on their website. In addition, most Hanes products are sold in retail stores such as Wal-Mart, where Hanes products are included in store pamphlets and newspaper inserts. Their visual and verbal identity is included in their Hanes logo, along with their tag-less product lines. Moreover, their product design and packaging truly represent their values in comfortableness and causal/happy approach to life. Their simple packaging is easy to open and obtain through more retail stores. Also their product designs meet the needs of the “every-day” customers (i.e. tag-less shirts). The people that represent the product are their main spokesperson and model, Michael Jordan. However, the brand is also associated with other celebrities who wear the Hanes products, their brand phrase of “Look we have on Hanes right now…” always promotes a famous celebrity who uses their products. Again, overall Hanes creates a great experience for its customers beginning with their commercials and ending with their availability of product on-line and through stores around the world. However, I think Hanes need to focus on building more of the RELATE and THINK marketing modules to stand out among other underwear brands.
This exercise was a little difficult because most brands and products definitely fit into a specific SEM category but some relate to multiple categories with just one of their features. Some of the features of this brand focus mainly on the immediate needs of the customer (i.e. comfort of wearing Hanes products) instead of trying to appeal to a larger pool of consumers and therefore making it difficult to pick out additional features that relate to other SEMs. Also I might be more bias about this brand because I grew up with purchasing and using this brand of underwear.