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Research Outline

Prepared for Isaac O. | Delivered February 5, 2020

Letterman Jacket Market

Goals

To obtain the key players, the popularity overall, popularity geographically, popularity by school type (public HS, private HS, college), geographical trends, innovations, and market disruptors in the Letterman jacket market in order to make internal strategic decisions.

Early Findings

Market Research

  • There is no market information available for Letterman jackets.

Popularity On the Decline

  • A Washington state newspaper article from 2014 on Letterman jackets discusses the fact that very people seem to be wearing them anymore. “I hardly see any athletes wearing Letterman’s jackets now,” said Nick Wold, who played quarterback and defensive back for Mariner High School in the 1990s. Wold now teaches at Monroe High School, where he coached football and basketball for several years. He said he sees even fewer athletes wearing letter jackets today than he did when he started teaching in 2003. Some schools in the area reported jackets were still in style. Overall, results were mixed.
  • If there is a decline in the number of kids sporting jackets, it could have to do with the expense. Depending on where the jacket is purchased, it can cost several hundred dollars.
  • A private school in Cleveland, St. Ignatius, shared an article in their school newspaper in 2015 on Letterman jackets. " Lately, however, The Eye has made a shocking discovery: No one seems to wear Letterman jackets anymore. Many students do not even buy them. What has caused the rapid decline of this once popular badge of athletic achievement?" Some students feel that fashion trends have made the jacket less popular. Jack Cook ‘16 says that the alternatives to Letterman jackets contribute to their unpopularity. Although Jack is not a fashion expert, he asserts that the team gear that is issued to all athletes matches better with the types of clothes worn by high school students: “I believe that it (style/fashion) has changed and students have gravitated toward the team-issued jackets and gear."
  •  The Argus, a student HS newspaper in Oregon stated in 2017, "If you look around the halls of this school today, you will not see students wearing them. In fact, the number of students who actually own one is few and far between. “In my opinion, they aren’t that popular anymore because they aren’t considered cool,” senior Dominic Martin said. “The fact of the matter is that so many students nowadays have their own agendas and social groups that support for school has faltered a ton.”
  • There were no articles located that discussed a college Letterman jacket.

Key Players

Without any available market research we used websites located through a search. The websites that were mentioned the most were included in this list. The goal of this part of the research was to locate as many retailers of Letterman jackets as possible.

Innovations & Market Disruptors

  • There was no publicly available information on innovations or disruptors. This is most likely due to the fact that the Letterman jacket style has not changed for decades.
  • The decline in popularity could definitely be seen as a disruptor.

Research Recommendations Based on Initial Research

  • Taking the small amount of information available on the topic in consideration, pursuing research on disruptors and innovations is not recommended.
  • A media search was performed that dated back several years while looking at popularity. It is very unlikely we would uncover anything that would be significantly different, considering the information already located indicates the jacket is not as popular with this generation.
  • In regard to key players, we recommend taking the list we compiled through searching and using either revenue (which will likely not be available for all companies) or the number of website views each company has to determine the top five key players.