Impetus – Undressed to kill
There is a Portuguese brand to rival the underwear of Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana on the shelves of El Corte Inglés, of Galeries La Fayette or Printemps. Find out about the success story that is Impetus, leader in the Portuguese fashionable smalls market.
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Even with the help of a GPS, it’s not easy to find Lugar Fonte de Cima, located in a parish with just over two thousand inhabitants, in the Barcelos region in northern Portugal. Tired of getting lost, we decided to set technology to one side and simply ask for directions. However, our first attempt failed. There are lots of places but nobody seems to know Fonte de Cima. It’s best to forget the address. “Impetus? Do you tell me how to get to Impetus?” we ask. “The factory?! It’s not round here. You’ll have to go back”.
When we finally discover the premises of the market leader in the Portuguese underwear segment (a huge complex that includes a factory, offices, a canteen and even a medical office for the 352 staff who work here), we soon realise that we’re in a company that didn’t get lost on the road to success. Every day thousands of items of mid to high-range underwear are produced that rival brands like Calvin Klein or Dolce & Gabbana in the shops of El Corte Inglés, on the Iberian Peninsula, of Galeries La Fayette and Printemps, in France, or of El Palacio del Hierro, in Mexico.
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What is now a small empire of ten companies, around 800 employees and almost 10 million items produced a year, started in a small house in Esposende, in the north of Portugal. “The cutting was done in the kitchen, the stitching in the living room, and the store room was in the bedroom”, recalls the founder and president of the company, Alberto Figueiredo, now 59. It was December, 1973. Two hundred and fifty thousand escudos in old money (1,250 euros) and six workers began an adventure of hard work that was not without its ups and downs. “We only worked for the export market and, with the revolution in 1974, they cancelled all our orders. We were left with 350,000 escudos (1,750 euros) of merchandise, which we ended up selling to stall holders for 80,000 (400 euros). We had to start from scratch”.
At the time, the Minho company produced a little of everything in the textile trade, including underwear “in lurid colours, which was unthinkable to sell here”. However, Figueiredo didn’t take long to realise that only one strategy would allow the business to grow alongside the huge national and international competition in the sector: invest in specialisation and create a brand capable of giving added value to the factory production. This was how Impetus came about in 1990, focussed on the male fashion underwear sector and the external market. “That was always our vocation. First we developed our potential abroad and only later in Portugal, where we’re also growing”, explains Alberto Figueiredo. Today, the brand exports around 90% of what it produces.
Quality and design
In the space of a decade, Impetus would make it into the top ten of European male underwear products. Today, the brand is sold in 15 thousand shops in 35 countries, from Western Europe to Greece, from Scandinavia to the United States, from Russia to Korea. For example, it was the first Portuguese textile firm to enter the Chinese market five years ago, at the invitation of a luxury shopping centre, the Beijing Lufthansa Center. Now, it is found in all of the country’s major shopping centres. The products are mainly sold in the multi-brand specialised shops and large mid to top-range retail chains. For example, Impetus is the best-selling brand in its segment in the El Corte Inglés shops in Portugal and the third most sold in the Spanish chain in Spain itself.
Alberto Figueiredo believes the key to success is in Impetus’ genetic code, which mixes two essential components: the quality and design of the items. “In the first place, it’s important for the client to look and like what they see. If they don’t like the item, they won’t buy it. But if the item is attractive but isn’t comfortable, then I’ve lost a customer. The brand has made its mark via customer satisfaction. That’s why we’re proud to have faithful followers, who have bought Impetus for years”.
The president of Impetus i«underlines that it is this loyalty that has allowed the brand to avoid recent financial woes of the market. “Despite the crisis, sales haven’t suffered, because our products are directed at the upper middle class who still have buying power. The aim is to grow. We want to achieve more, consolidate the markets we’re in and enter new ones”.
Investing in diversification
Impetus’ growth strategy also involves the segmentation of what it supplies. Last year, the company incorporated two new brands into its catalogue, both French in origin: Coup de Couer (which had already been owned by Lacoste), leader in the “funny” sector, with amusing items for all the family; and the fashion range Éden Park, a brand inspired by the world of rugby, which comes from the ready-to-wear sector, “a kind of French Ralph Lauren, but a little more elegant and chic”.
“Impetus began as a brand of male underwear, but we’ve since diversified into other sectors, like beachwear and the female segment. From the moment the brand became totally broad-based, a total look brand, the company decided to begin segmenting what it produced”, explains Alberto Figueiredo. This strategy also allowed Impetus to sell in markets where Coup de Couer and Éden Park were also present.
The company is still prepared for other types of commercial endeavours, like distribution. To this end, they opened an Impetus flagship store in S. João da Madeira, which will serve to study how the range develops within a space of its own. “We’re analysing consumer behaviour and the viability of a space that we run ourselves. We’re considering this possibility in the future, but, at the moment, the two main priorities are multi-brand specialised shops and large department stores”. More recently, Impetus opened its own on-line shop (available at www.impetusunderwear.com), currently only available for Portugal but which will distribute to other European countries in the near future.
Impetus’ concern abut quality can be seen in the details. At the age of 59, the president of the company still tries every new item that comes out of the company’s development department. “The men’s stuff, of course”, he says with a smile. “The designers are sometimes like architects: they design the house according to their own taste and not that of the client. A good architect creates something they like but something which pleases the person who’s going to live there. In the same way, our products should be designed for those who are going to wear them”.
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por Nelson Marques
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