No boring textile company - 25 years of bruno banani

Jan Jassner

In just a few days, bruno banani will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. Founded on 1 November 1993 in Mittelbach near Chemnitz and now based in the city, the brand has been writing its success story ever since, which continues to this day. It has attracted international attention with spectacular marketing campaigns and has established itself as one of the leading labels on the designer underwear market within a decade. Jan Jassner, one of the three managing directors, looks back on the past quarter of a century in the Maker of the Week interview and explains why Chemnitz is the perfect location.

Congratulations on a quarter of a century of company history. Could you have imagined in 1993 that you would be celebrating this anniversary?
Jan Jassner:Of course it was hard to imagine when my father, Wolfgang Jassner, founded the company in 1993. I've been with the company for 18 years and have been a member of the management team since 2006. These 18 years have passed so quickly. When I started, the company was seven years old - now it's 25, which is quite an impressive number. But we are still a very young company.

It quickly took off. What was one of the highlights at the beginning that you yourself say I remember fondly?
I was impressed by the marketing we did. There were several highlights, of course. One event was the test of the underwear on the MIR space station. Then the awarding of the perfume licence and the awarding of further licences at OTTO. We also opened our own shops, which are very important to us. This is how we gradually expanded the business. Not forgetting the co-operation with the luger from Tonga, who is called Bruno Banani. There are more highlights to come.

The PR and marketing campaigns that have made headlines prove that bruno banani is not a dull textile company. The underwear was exposed to extreme situations. In 1996, for example, the adventurer Achill Moser travelled over 120 days and more than 10,000 kilometres from Jerusalem to Zimbabwe to test the quality of bruno banani underwear. In 1998, bruno banani kitted out the astronauts on the MIR space station and was able to make a name for itself with quality tested in space. Three years later, the company went from space to the deep sea in the Bermuda Triangle. This made the bruno banani underwear the only one to be tested on land, in the air and in water. It withstood all the tests. Another marketing measure was the support of the luger Bruno Banani, who actually bears this name. The man from Tonga came 32nd out of 40 starters at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. "For someone who had only started luge five years earlier, that really was a huge sensation," says Jan Jassner.

What does the luger actually do?
He wanted to return to his home country after competing at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi. He now lives in Tonga again, is married to a Tongan woman he met in Germany and so fate brought them together. They have a child together. We are still in good contact.

Apart from marketing, what is the secret behind the bruno banani product?
It was important for us to find a market niche first. As the founder of bruno banani Underwear GmbH, my father saw this in the designer underwear sector. At that time, there was less fashion underwear and more off-the-peg underwear. He said that our target group was men and women who were looking for high-quality underwear and were prepared to spend a little more on it. The product was designed accordingly. Certain cuts were developed with a very high degree of fashion. We have conquered the market with this claim.

Travelling the world, at home in Chemnitz: the designs in combination with the elaborate marketing measures have made bruno banani known worldwide. Nevertheless, the company sees itself as a medium-sized enterprise with 117 employees. The products are represented in over 15 countries. Around 500,000 men's underwear items are produced annually at the factory on Mauersberger Strasse and shipped all over the world.

Where do you design?
We have a freelance designer based in Italy who works for us.

In addition to your underwear fashion, 12 licence partners distribute the products and make bruno banani a lifestyle brand.
Our biggest licence partner is Coty, who make the perfume. We are the No.1 perfume brand in Germany in terms of units sold. We are naturally very proud of that. We currently have eight men's and eight women's fragrances on the market. That's very important for us because we do a lot of advertising with them. Which of course has a knock-on effect on the brand in terms of likeability and brand awareness. On the other hand, we have many licences with OTTO in the areas of men's ready-to-wear, women's outerwear, sports, men's and women's swimwear, home textiles, i.e. terry towelling, bathrobes, carpets, bath mats and bed linen. Also in furniture and soon in men's and women's shoes, watches and jewellery. We have a strong position there. We also have individual licences for bags, hats, shoes in the stationary sector and eyewear.

Bruno banani is regarded as the colourful dog of the Chemnitz family of companies. Do you see it that way yourself?
Let me put it this way: our marketing and our approach are different from others. But we also realise that our brand awareness is higher than that of other companies. Of course, this has something to do with our marketing, which is mainly based on the principle of event marketing.

The last big marketing campaign with an event was a few years ago. Is it annoying to always be asked about it or do you benefit from it or does it set standards that you always have to "go one better"?
We are pleased that people remember such campaigns. It shows that we have done everything right. Of course, event marketing will also become more demanding in the future. You can't expect a manageable number of media channels, i.e. TV, magazines and radio, to automatically generate this kind of response. Today, you have to do much more and position yourself much more broadly in order to get your message across. Nowadays, the overall brand image is made up of many more smaller images. In the past, it was more of an overall image that could be projected. That was the difference. But of course there are still plenty of possibilities.

For example, what would be an action to "go one better"?
We already have various things in mind. It's still too early to talk about it. We have an interesting approach that we imagine could be a great story again.

So something is coming - people can be excited?
Yes, we can't let it go.

Your customers can currently create their own pants. What would a typical pair of Chemnitz pants look like?
Colourful. As colourful as Chemnitz.

Chemnitz has a long textile tradition - do you notice that in your daily work here at the site?
The textile tradition in Chemnitz was of course also noticeable during the reunification. My father was the managing director of various textile companies in the West and then advised the textile companies as a management consultant. It was the basis for being able to found bruno banani in the first place that the technical expertise and skilled workers were available. Many companies have established themselves, including in the field of technical textiles. And you can tell that this background is still there in Chemnitz, even if the textile industry no longer plays this role compared to the past. That is quite logical.

Not only you, but other global players are also based in Chemnitz. Is the soil here fertile for success?
Chemnitz is an ideal location for us because the city has always been an industrial centre. Chemnitz has always been a place of makers. Something has always been created here. It may not have the glamour, but I think that has to do with the fact that it has always been a working-class city, an industrial location. Important innovations come from Chemnitz and you can simply feel this spirit. That's why the city has developed so well.

To be honest, it doesn't really matter where you have your company headquarters. But are the people and the labour force the reason why you are still here?
Yes, of course. We have had nothing but positive experiences at the location from the very beginning. The people were and are hard-working, committed, reliable and well-trained. We can simply say that we value the location.

Do you like to think of yourself as a kind of economic beacon for the region?
Many people don't even realise that we are from Chemnitz. But if you ask us, we stand by it, even now. We are perhaps also a beacon because we are very well known and a lot has been created here. However, we realise that we are not the only ones and we are very happy about that. We can see how many great companies there are here that also have an outstanding history, some of which are now 25 years old and have achieved a lot. We feel very comfortable in this context.

Are you getting a response from your partners due to the recent events in Chemnitz?
The partners we work with know us and are able to judge us correctly. Every now and then the conversation comes up about what happened. But they have no doubts about us, our employees or our location. What I could imagine being more difficult in the current situation is the search for skilled labour. You're always competing with other locations and at the moment, with the current reporting, you need a bit more persuasion to really get people to come to Chemnitz. I see that as a problem not only for us, but also for other companies.

Unlike your father, you live in Chemnitz. Why is that?
First of all, when I started working here, I realised that I would also live here. I think you move to your work, you have short distances. I liked it in Chemnitz right from the start. I feel like a Chemnitzer.

We want to be the Capital of Culture in seven years' time. Hence the final questions: Where do you see your company and the city in 2025?
I think that Chemnitz will have regained its flawless image by then. As I see it, we now have to use the increased awareness of Chemnitz for positive image work, for positive PR work. To show people what the city is really like, what everyday life is like and what opportunities there are here.
As bruno banani, we will of course continue to try and work on our projects. We will continue to expand with our own shops, we will continue to think about digitalisation in terms of the appearance of our online shop, in terms of marketing, and we are convinced that we will also be very successful on the market in 2025. That we will be a colourful competitor in a colourful and liveable Chemnitz. We are firmly convinced that we will achieve this goal. We will remain committed to the location.