Proven Winners Clothing
Proven Winners (PW) has always been a company that strives to find new ways to support its brand to growers, retailers and consumers. Recently, it has done it again by introducing a new Proven Winners clothing line for independent garden centers that are members of the PW Certified program.
GPN spoke to Marshall Dirks, marketing director for Proven Winners about the new venture and what the company hopes to get out of the new line. Dirks told us that the PW team travels all over the country to garden centers, and time and time again it is very hard to identify who the actual employees are. “That got us thinking,” Dirks explained.
Soon after, Dirks started looking into clothing vendors and stitching companies, and the rest is history. Currently hats, t-shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts, aprons and much more are custom embroidered with the PW Certified logo as well as the garden center’s logo. They also come in a number of colors and sizes.
The PW Certified program contains logo pots, tags, signage, POP and more, and Dirks felt like it was time to add it to the clothing to show that the person wearing the logo is behind the product 100 percent. The more name recognition the consumer sees the more reinforced they are to purchase the product again.
According to Dirks, the program was added to the PW Certified Web site in early November, and the advertising in trade publications started soon after; it is already making its way around the United States and Canada.
GPN also spoke to Lois Robocon, owner of Birch Meadow Garden Center in Alberta, Canada, who was one of the first garden centers to sign up for the program. She had nothing but great things to say about it. She ordered the clothing because it is not only functional, but it looks dressy and people will know who works there.
Robocon also said that the whole issue of marketing is a major part of it. Birch Meadow Garden Center is an exclusive Proven Winners retailer in the area, and they are very proud of that, according to Robocon. They provide all of the flowers for the town, which are all PW plants, and that helps market both names. The logo wear adds more name recognition. Robocon said she ordered the t-shirts, some sweaters and a number of aprons because her employees get less dirty, and they like that.
The program has only been around for a little over a month, and garden centers are placing their orders sooner than later. For more information on the new clothing line and the PW Certified program visit www.pwcertified.com.
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