Baby, It's Cold Outside

In the winter of 1949, Ella and Louis sang it best.

While sometimes we may have the luxury of tossing our jacket aside and staying for another hot toddy and some records, at some point we all have to go out and face the cold. To take the matter to its chilliest point, the National Weather Service reported that the average seasonal snowfall a year in Denver is 61.7 inches. That is a lot of fluffy, cold, white stuff. So what does "baby" need most of all when those Ella Fitzgerald records stop spinning? A nice, warm, imprinted jacket.

"Jackets and outerwear are an integral part of our lifestyle. We are all fashion-conscience to some extent," said Charlie McGuinness, national sales manager, corporate and golf divisions for MV Sport/Weatherproof, Bay Shore, N.Y. And now is the time to begin planning your sales efforts around this market. "Fall in particular is a time when people start wearing lightweight jackets and then start thinking about buying a coat for the long cold winter season," McGuinness continued.

So what should a distributor know to become more outerwear savvy? There is a lot more to it than it just being warm and having a high-quality zipper. There are as many options on a piece of outerwear as there are in a new car, and knowing the difference of what makes a jacket great for a particular promotion is of the utmost importance. Doug Burkett, president of Nucom/Burk's Bay, New Hope, Minn., stated, "The creative distributor is able to take these unique needs and match them to a product that might not have been available previously. We're carrying over 40 different jacket styles to meet [the] demand for niche product."

When thinking about those unique needs, these are the basic questions to consider: