Business Marketing

In the early 1940s, New Era was providing caps for a long list of minor league, local, canadian, and college baseball teams. They also sold many plain caps to small stores and the small stores put patches and decoration on the cap and sold it at the store. By 1974, 20 of the 24  pro teams were using New Era's caps which put New Era on a national scale. New Era also sold caps to the military soldiers during World War II. As a result of great business marketing, New Era's motto was "the caps the pros wear". In 93', New Era signed its first exclusive license with MLB to produce ALL caps for ALL teams, which took about 59 years to accomplish since securing their first time, the Cleveland Indians.  New Era now holds over 200 licenses to produce hats for, some include: MLB, Little League Baseball, National Hockey League, NBA, Collegiate Licensing Company, Minor League Baseball, Baseball Canada, USA Hockey, Harwood Classics, Arena Football League, and theTaylor-Made Titleist.
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Segmenting and targeting markets

New Era serves many markets such as children, women, action sports, fashion, and suburban.

On August 24, 2007, three New York Yankee fitted caps were pulled from New Era's shelves because they were considered tailor made for three well known gangs: The Crips, The Bloods, and Latin Kings. Each hat was white with the respective gang colored bandana wrapped around the hat. To show the support of the hats being pulled, the yankees joined an anti-gang group called Peace on the Street. The yankees and MLB claimed to be unaware of the gang symbols and colors linked to the hats and they also claim that they didn't see the hats before they were released to the market. Consumers protested in front of any stores that were still selling any of the gang colored caps. Ultimately, New Era said they would try to increase their knowledge of gang colors and symbols.

Here is a video about the protesting of the New Era gang caps I ran across on Youtube:

Intergated Marketing Communication

MLB has greatly contributed to New Era's promotion just by using New Era's caps and other gear for all games televised. Also, because a large amount of companies collaborate with New Era, the company has gained a lot of publicity and popularity. In May 2007, Spike Lee directed a New Era commercial where baseball player, Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins skips the line at a New Era special cap release. Morneau justifies skipping the line with a cardboard cutout of himself that was put at the front of the line by New Era.

Product Concepts

New era has worked with many clothing lines to create caps such as Billionaire Boys Club, Mishka, The Hundreds, Bape and many many more. An example of a specialty product from new era is their very rare gold logo clip, which i was able to get my hands on in 2009. The gold logo clip looks exactly like the new era logo and is used to attract eyes to your cap. As far as packing, new era does not package its products because caps are easy to bend or mess up. From experience, i know when you buy a cap from new era, they give you a small cardboard newera box to take the hate home with you safely.

Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

A small retail store on E 105th street called Goliath currently has a "limited time only" sale on 4 of Goliath's newly designed New Era 59FIFTY caps. The caps are being sold for 10 bucks, which is $20 less than the original price. I found that there are also many coupons you can find online to get a discount on a New Era cap (if you join their mailing list).

Advertising and Public Relations

New Era has introduced their new marketing plan called the "Flagbearer". The Flagbearer is a lineup of people who have unique stories or unusual perspectives and portray that in a dynamic way. The group of people selected to be 2011 Flagbearers are some respected athletes, entertainers and entrepreneurs such as Joey Votto, BJ Upton, Justin Upton, Stevie Williams, Ryan Miller, and the film makers of Ghetto Film School. Each Flagbearer will be featured in New Eras national, multimedia, advertising plan which includes print digital, outdoor ads, tv, and non traditional media.

Retailing

New era caps are sold buy many retailers around the world from big headwear stores like "Lids" to small businesses and boutiques. On Saturday I took a trip to the New Era Flagship store in Noho, Manhattan. I try to buy maybe 2 or 3 New Era caps every other week so I took the trip to see what new hats they were selling. I walked in and saw a large portion of their wall display filled with new hats from popular clothing lines and baseball teams. I tried on 3 hats but only 1 fit my head well so that was the one I purchased.

Developing a global vision

New era's globalization began in Canada in 1998 and since the year 2000 they have opened offices in Europe, united kingdom, japan, austrialia and new york. New era doesn't have any foreign competition that has threatened sales for the cap company.

The marketing environment

The marketing environment for new era is minor league baseball teams, major league baseball teams, and college baseball teams as well. They are also marketing to people of fashion since new era is becoming a fashionable cap label, not to mention they also target babies since they create most of their caps in baby sizes also.

Ethics & Social Responsiblity

At the New Era Cap Co., social responsiblity plays a big part in the operation of the company. New Era supports organizations in areas such as Sports & Athletics, Diversity through Education, Community, and Health & Human Services. Some of their partner organizations are the Ride for Roswell, the Jackie Robinson Foundation, Music is Art, the David C. Koch Regional Perfusion Cancer Therapy Center, Pitch In For Baseball, Sweat Equity Enterprises and Caps for Kids. Also, every New Era employee takes responsibility for minimizing the impact on the environment. A quote from New Era "Over the years, our efforts have included engineering our cutting process to minimize waste, overhauling lighting systems to conserve electricity, and purchasing green cleaning products. We’ve implemented Energy Management Systems (EMS) to control electrical energy consumption and whenever possible, we try to buy from local suppliers to reduce emissions from transportation."

Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage

In the early 80s, New Era decided to upgrade to the multi-head Barudan sewing machines which accelerated the production speed of New Era's caps. New Era started off providing caps for local and minor league teams until the Major Leagues acknowledged them. By 74, 20 of 24 teams were signed up with New Era's caps. Ultimately, New Era was granted the first ever exclusive license with MLB to produce on-field caps for all teams.

Mission Statement of New Era Cap Co.

The mission state of New Era is to provide fashionable caps for the public and efficiently produced caps for baseball players.

History Of New Era Cap Company

Ehrhardt Koch borrowed 5000 dollars from his aunt to start his own cap company in 1920. Joe Amerien left another cap company called "Miller" and became Erhrardt's first employee. They started production of caps in Buffalo, NY. Ehrhardt's sister Rose, was one his 14 employees by 1921. In 1922 E. Koch Cap Co. is officially renamed New Era Cap Co. By 1940, New Era debuts its adjustable size caps. They sold very well. By the 1980s, the multi head Barudan sewing machines were created which revolutionized manufacturing for New Era which caused major production of caps. In 1993, New Era was given the first exclusive license with Major League Baseball to make the on-field caps for all players. In 1996, Spike Lee requested a red yankees cap with started a fashion trend and a long relationship with New Era. Chris Koch becomes the new president of New Era. By 2003, New Era has offices in the UK, Europe, USA, Japan and Australia.