Who: Hanes Brands
Highlight package: Premium Subscription
Customer since: 2023
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<1 week to fill a recruit |
3 weeks faster to completion than other vendors |
33 wear tests in less than 3 years |
Hanes Brands makes everyday apparel that is known and loved by consumers around the world for comfort, quality and value. Perhaps best known among the company’s iconic brands is Hanes, the leading basic apparel brand in the United States.
Hanes Brands’ Consumer Insights team is led by Dana French, Director of Consumer Insights, who, along with Senior Manager of Consumer Insights Izzie Malota, take a hands-on approach to research and analysis. These market research industry veterans play a key strategic role across product teams with the work they do and insights they provide.
Prior to working with Highlight, the Consumer Insights team had worked with four other wear testing providers, but they were facing issues related to cost, speed, and flexibility.
“We move quickly,” explained Dana. “Once we have our product, we want to move. We want to move yesterday.” But that wasn’t always possible with the restraints of their testing partners.
“Previous vendors felt clunky,” said Izzie. “It took forever and we heard a lot of ‘we can’t package it for you,’ or ‘we can’t do that.’”
“A lot of these companies were more ‘old school’ market research companies,” explained Dana, “so they weren’t very flexible.”
On the other hand, they also encountered tech companies without the research expertise they needed. “We run across lots of companies who have the technology, but they know nothing about consumer insights for market research,” said Dana.
They were also facing issues related to quality of respondents and data, and weren’t able to access analysis must-haves like crosstabs.
That’s when Dana heard from an old contact–who just so happens to lead up the sales team at Highlight. “I’m very relationship-based,” said Dana. “So when he reached out, I trusted him, and because our needs weren’t being met, I thought, let’s give it a shot.”
It’s a good thing they did, too, because since 2023, Dana and her team have gone on to run 33 different tests using the Highlight platform, community, and logistics solution.
Highlight was able to solve key pain points for the Hanes Brands team…
“First and foremost, your testers are really good. They’re very thoughtful,” said Dana. “And the recruit takes no longer than a week, whereas other companies would take at least two weeks.”
Highlight is recruiting product testers in half the time it takes other companies
The Consumer Insights team has also tested products that require relatively niche tester audiences or incorporation into very personal routines like period management. With Highlight, they’ve been able to fill recruits for men’s, women’s, and children’s absorbency product testing, and conduct longitudinal studies for period underwear without the typical dropout rates.
“Knowing that we can rely on our respondents, knowing that they’re really wearing the products and testing them as they should be so we can make the proper tweaks has just helped the whole line be successful,” said Izzie.
“The logistics are also fantastic,” said Dana, to which Izzie added, “You all just took over everything–we send you product, and we know that it’s being taken care of. Not having to worry about it or think about it is very nice.”
Highlight’s logistics arm offers flexibility the Hanes Brands team appreciates.
“Let’s say our product team was supposed to send 75 units,” said Dana, “but they only sent 70. We’ve worked with other companies that would panic because that wasn’t the original plan. But you guys just roll with it. It really speaks to your flexibility.”
Highlight’s in-house team of research experts are here to help as well.
“We love our project manager,” said Izzie. “She is great in terms of communication. If there’s an issue, or I want to know why we’re doing something a certain way, I can push back. We can build off each other and find a solution that works within the platform and for our data.”
At Hanes Brands, Dana’s team is responsible for the insights that power their product innovation cycle. The data they share out to stakeholders is used for naming, claims, packaging, pricing strategy, core line renovation, and more, including the all-important stage gate, “Does the product work?” So many teams across the company rely on the Consumer Insights team for the data they need to succeed.
“Speed and trust are so important,” said Dana.
The Consumer Insights team saves approximately three weeks per project by using Highlight.
They’ve noticed one big change since beginning to wear test with Highlight.
“Teams are actually asking us for wear tests now,” said Izzie. “Previously, we had to push them and remind them to wear test. Now they’re coming to us, because they can trust the data.”
Dana agreed. “We have requests all the time now for wear tests, and that was not the case when we joined the company.”
It’s always nice to run a wear test and hear that all the testers loved your product–but of course, that’s not always the case. Luckily, wear testing has made clear when problems existed in the product before launch to save the team major headaches and lost revenue later on.
“There was a problem with one of our innovation launches, and we were able to fix it before we put it to market, thanks to wear testing,” said Dana.
The data quality is also compelling more stakeholders to listen to wear testing results. “We’re making progress because we’ve proven that we can catch issues with wear tests,” said Dana. “If stakeholders have questions about issues with the product, we can show them the wear test results.”
Before working with Highlight, wear testing was a nice-to-have. Now it’s a must-have.
“It's a formalized step in our research process now, and that wasn't really the case previously. It was much more ad hoc,” explained Dana. “We're not putting product out on the floor until it's been wear tested.”
“We’ve moved from a reactive to a proactive approach,” said Izzie. “Previously we would ask, ‘Why isn’t this working?’ And now, it’s, ‘Let’s make sure this works before we put it out there.’”