Washington Post January 22nd 1999

 Jason Strattonbey enjoys watching the Denver Broncos on TV. But you'd be hard pressed to find a shirt, jacket or hat bearing the team's name in the Alexandria teenager's wardrobe. "It's too low," he explained.

Like many teenagers, Strattonbey can't tell you why he shuns the apparel of sports teams as decidely unhip, but it's clear he feels quite differently about his red-white-and-blue Tommy Hilfiger jacket.

"I just wear it just to be wearing it," said the 15-year-old student at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria.

While Tommy Hilfiger is everywhere teens are, sales of Redskins jackets, Orioles baseball caps, and other clothing and accessories bearing the names of professional sports franchises have faded in recent years. The rejection has hurt the leagues, including the National Football League, whose sales from licensed team products flattened at $3 billion in 1998 after steadily climbing for years. It has also hit retailers such as JumboSports Inc., which recently filed for bankruptcy protection because of slumping sales in licensed team sportswear and other categories.

It's clear to those in the industry that teenagers -- part of the "echo boom" generation, the children of baby boomers -- are responsible for the slide in sales of sports apparel. At the Sports Maniac store in Landmark Mall in Alexandria, manager Gerald Taylor said most of his customers are 25 and older. The younger generation prefers to buy brand-name clothing, particularly Hilfiger designs, at other stores in the mall, he said.

"A lot of 16- and 17-year-olds are working, and they can buy Tommy and Polo clothing and Eddie Bauer jackets," Taylor said.

The fading popularity of team apparel is a telling example of how the echo boom is starting to flex its economic muscle, as the generation's baby-boomer parents have done for decades. The nation's 27 million teenagers, who set many trends in casual clothing, spent about $141 billion in 1998.

Teenagers spend about $84 weekly, on average, of which $56 is their own money, according to Teenage Research Unlimited, a research firm that tracks teenage trends. They are making more shopping decisions and are picking the brands.

Marketers are paying close attention because the birth rate is expected to remain stable over the next decade rather than decline, as it did after the baby boom ended in the early 1960s.

Grabbing teens' attention is critical because they not only buy clothing for themselves but also influence apparel trends for their parents and younger siblings.

This is something marketers discovered the hard way. After a long boom in sports apparel sales, the NFL in 1996 began to see Tommy Hilfiger swipe some of its market share. The league is now trying to entice youths back to sports clothes with new designs -- such as a hooded, short-sleeved shirt -- and more attractive color mixes.

"With the success in the late '80s and '90s of sports merchandise, you were able to dictate to the customers: `You are fans, therefore you should wear this,' " NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. "Now the playing field has been altered, and it's the branded companies making inroads into sportswear."

Still, there are some exceptions -- and the Chicago Bulls have been one of them, mainly because of Michael Jordan's phenomenal marketing appeal. But even his star power couldn't prop up sales of NBA team apparel overall. Estimated sales of licensed basketball team apparel and other products dropped almost 40 percent to $1.4 billion last year, according to License magazine, though the NBA lockout that started last summer was partly to blame. Experts predict that Jordan's retirement will further hurt sales of NBA team apparel as well as Nike shoes and clothing, for which he is a pitchman.

"I think an athlete's marketing draw has to drop dramatically if they're not playing any longer," said William Armstrong, a retail analyst with Fahnestock & Co. "The longer they're out of the game, the less appeal they'll have, especially for young people."

Yet some teenagers, including Shelly Gross and Brian Byles of Washington, shrug off this argument, saying they've never had a strong attachment to pro athletes or their teams. They view the teams as corporations more than as a collection of players, and consequently they aren't interested in displaying team insignia on their clothing.

"It's more because the NBA is more commercialized," said Byles, 18, as he shopped at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda recently. "All they're there for is the profits."

Added Gross, 17: "They don't do it for the fun of the game anymore."

For casual clothing, the two prefer to shop at Pacific Sunwear, which offers Venus Girl Trap T-shirts and wide-leg, baggy jeans. One of Gross's favorite stores is Hot Topic, which sells all-black clothing with a gothic theme.

Marketers and the leagues are particularly worried about their lost sales because research indicates that trends among teens tend to solidify rather than shift as the teens head into their twenties.

"Not only can you benefit from them now, but the thought is . . . that the loyalties and perceptions teens have now will continue as they grow out of their teen years," said Michael Wood, research director of Teenage Research Unlimited.

As a result, some companies are moving quickly to improve their images with teens. The Limited apparel chain, which found that its styles had aged along with its customers, recently tried to tap into the younger generation's purchasing power by acquiring Abercrombie & Fitch, the hip chain that blasts loud music and offers tiny cropped shirts, casual sweaters with three-quarter-length sleeves, and big jeans.

Department stores, struggling to put their finger on what teens want, have begun to revamp their junior sections. Nordstrom department stores, for example, have added hip, chunky Doc Martens and Steve Madden footwear, which has begun to replace athletic shoes as part of teens' school wardrobes. They also have introduced Tommy Hilfiger lines to just about every section, including the toddlers area, which offers a Tommy casual pants-and-shirt set for $32.

Hecht's, the Washington-based department store chain, has discovered that the Tommy Hilfiger marketing magic is reaching kids at increasingly younger ages. Parents have been picking up designer windbreakers for young children at $65 and up.

"Kids at a young age, 5 to 7, are inundated with television," said Nancy Chistolini, a spokeswoman for Hecht's, which is operated by May Department Stores. "They see the logos."

Market researchers and retailers continue to be surprised by what draws teens. Kelly Marfyak, manager of Montgomery Mall, said she had no idea that teenagers adored butterfly barrettes and inflatable furniture until the two items showed up as favorites on the mall's informal survey of retailers.

And then there's Steve Madden, a designer who makes some of the heaviest shoes around. "When Steve Madden opened here, I don't think there's many people over 30 who said, `There are a pair of shoes that I really want,' " said Marfyak.

J.C. Penney Co. had poor sales overall last year, but it was ranked teenagers' favorite store nationally. One reason is that Penney's has been successful positioning its Arizona Jeans label, said Wood of Teenager Research Unlimited, which conducted the survey.

Retailers often complain that teenagers are fickle and that it's hard to figure out what they really want. But it's safe to say that they want to be entertained and they want things that are appropriate to their lifestyle.

"These teens are bombarded with messages, so there has to be something that helps them sift through what's out there," Wood said.

Some of the most successful marketers include the Gap, which owns Old Navy -- a popular store among teenagers who buy jeans, khakis and other casual clothing. And Abercrombie & Fitch does "a great job of creating a lifestyle and image," Wood said.

Tommy Hilfiger has created a marketing phenomenon by speaking the language of teens, said Peter Connolly, the company's executive vice president of worldwide marketing.

"We don't try to overmarket ourselves," Connolly said. "We speak their language naturally through music and culture."

Tommy Hilfiger's employees comb the streets, campuses and nightclubs to see what teenagers are wearing, Connolly said. And designer Hilfiger has forged relations with many music celebrities who wear his clothing, among them Snoop Doggy Dogg, Puff Daddy, Dave Matthews and Sheryl Crow.

What teens really dislike, Connolly said, is having someone older tell them what to wear.

"There's nothing worse," he said, "than a bunch of 35- to 40-year- olds trying to figure out what teenagers want."

More Loyalty Toward Brands

While sales of sports teams' licensed products (most of which are clothing) have been falling off . . .

Total sales of licensed products from the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball
1997 $7.2 billion
1998 $6.7 billion

. . . brands such as Nike, Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger are enjoying greater popularity among teens. Here are the top 20 brands:

Percentage of teens who mentioned the following brands as among the top three "coolest"*:
Nike 38%
Adidas 19
Tommy Hilfiger 18
Sony 11
Gap 10
Pepsi 9
Coca-Cola 8
Levi's 7
Ralph Lauren/Polo 7
Nintendo 6
Old Navy 5
JNCO 5
Abercrombie & Fitch 4
Cover Girl 4
Calvin Klein 4
Dr Pepper 3
Nautica 3
Mountain Dew 3
Ford 3
Reebok 3

*From a fall 1998 study by Teenage Research Unlimited. The question was: "Thinking about brand names of clothes, food, drinks, shoes, cosmetics, video games, cars, audio/video products, etc., write in which are the three `coolest' brands."

SOURCES: National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball; Teenage Research Unlimited.

Where They're Shopping

A ranking of teens' "one favorite" store:

1. J.C. Penney

2. Old Navy

3. Tommy Hilfiger

4. Sears

5. Gap

6. Millers Outpost

7. Gadzooks

8. Pacific Sunwear

9. Contempo Casuals

10. Limited

SOURCE: Teenage Research Unlimited
Illustration

PHOTO-MUG; PATRICK D. WITTY FOR TWP; PHOTO; PATRICK D. WITTY FOR TWP; INFO-GRAPHIC; LOGO; CHART; TWP Caption: Kon Rattanaphone, A 16-year-old From Alexandria, Wears Nautica -- Not Redskins Or Wizards. Wearing A Dallas Cowboys Jacket, Betty O'Loughlin Of Springfield Checks Out The Racks At Sports Maniac In Landmark Mall Last Week.

Credit: Washington Post Staff Writer