How Alejandro Betancourt López Took the Hawkers Brand To New Heights
Alejandro Betancourt López is the president of Hawkers Sunglasses, a company that caught fire quickly but eventually started to buckle under the weight of its own success. Founded by four friends in Spain, the leadership team approached Betancourt López to help them straighten out their production and operational issues while still growing demand. They went to the right person — Betancourt López had a perfect, innovative game plan.
Much of Betancourt López’s success at Hawkers was born from his understanding of online marketing. The increase in the net worth of the company came down to his ability to execute ideas on social media that would help the enterprise stand out. The sunglasses market was dominated by the most prominent brands at the time, but Hawkers managed to increase its following on platforms like Instagram by focusing on style and price point.
The company was offering accessories that were every bit as durable and fashionable as other brands at a fraction of the cost. At the time of the initial campaigns, influencer marketing wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Betancourt López said of the strategy, “It was cool, it was fresh, and we were doing something different than anybody else at the time, which is online social or social media marketing. And that approach totally disrupted the market. And I think that that innovation has built a huge brand that is today Hawkers.”
Influencer marketing, whether through celebrities or everyday people, is a proven tactic to expose people to a brand in a fresh way. Hawkers made a splash because the company worked with fashion-forward people who already wore the shades. These were customers who believed in the products long before they received an incentive for an endorsement. The authenticity of the photos, showing real people in real situations, was enough to drive sales in 2015 and beyond.
The Future of Marketing
It’s clear that the marketing game has changed since Alejandro Betancourt López — who has a net worth of $2.6 billion — was brought on board. Today, marketers are determining how to best implement the latest tools based on their customer base and revenue targets. As the number of artificial intelligence and virtual tools explodes, the Hawkers team continues to make use of the latest technology.
“A virtual try-on or an algorithm that does more efficient marketing can decide overnight what’s the best strategy to apply to the different market sentiments or different markets’ tastes when you see a shift in demand,” says Betancourt López. “All of these tools are constantly evolving, and we have a huge team working on that. That makes us one of the pioneers in being able to take advantage of the different tools that can be built based on AI, from logistics to shipping, to customer service, to virtual try-on, to all the different segments our company is interacting with, and where our customers are interacting with us.”
Alejandro Betancourt López has made strides as a businessman by thinking ahead of the curve. He’s interested in how he can adapt Hawkers’ strategies to fit how his demographic purchases different kinds of products. Today’s customers crave personalization. They don’t want to be shown eyewear that’s the polar opposite of their everyday sense of style. They expect to see frames that will fit their face and are aligned with how they dress already. This is a tricky balance for all sunglass companies, but it’s easier to achieve when you’re thinking strategically.
Studying the Markets
Hawkers has performed spectacularly on a worldwide scale, and Betancourt López has long been resolute about finding the most profitable pockets in various countries. The brand has been expanding to Europe as well as countries including Peru and Colombia. Because more people than ever have access to affordable, fast internet, the company’s virtual efforts were well received.
“We’ve been very successful in Mexico,” Betancourt López says. “We are one of the leaders in Mexico, and it’s a country that just population-wise is as big as almost all of Europe, or half of Europe. This is a country that we’ve been putting a lot of resources into lately, and we want to expand not only on the digital presence but on the physical presence by opening stores. In the next two years, we should be opening some stores there and some optical services in different places in Mexico.”
As the brand grows, Hawkers keeps making the products more accessible to everyone. Despite the core strategy to find people in the virtual world, Hawkers had to adjust as it started branching out. As Alejandro Betancourt López put it, “We have to learn how to not only apply the different tools and solutions we had when we were only a one channel company, but now we’re an omnichannel with a retail presence, a wholesale presence, [and an] online presence.” It’s taken some time to work out the details, but Hawkers has proven itself to be adept, thanks to the people at the helm. The company went from 40 employees in the mid-2010s to more than 500 people now. There are 80 stores in Spain alone, and the wholesale division has enjoyed steady growth.
There are countless examples of Alejandro Betancourt López’s acumen. When the pandemic hit, the company had to consider how people’s lives were changing. With fewer and fewer people venturing outside, they had to pivot away from sunglasses to eyewear. “It was a big challenge,” he recalls. “We had to adapt. Not many people were going outdoors and needing sunglasses.
“So we focused more on developing the eyewear part of it, and we tried to keep the revenue of the company, which was a big challenge, trying to develop new products that would adapt to people not going outdoors and [instead] using eyewear for their computers.” Because of the shift created by a global emergency, the company now has a strong eyewear division that helps people see clearly, no matter what light they happen to be in.
The Choice of a New Generation
From movies to celebrity magazines, we see people experiment with sunglasses, playing with color, texture, size, and shape in an effort to shake up their looks. Spotting the next trend isn’t always so cut-and-dry, and companies have to be willing to accept that people who might swear by a particular model today might grow to hate the style by next year.
What is certain is that the rules for purchasing have changed. People no longer have to exceed their budget to get a pair of quality sunglasses. Betancourt López comments, “With the numbers that we have, we were one of the largest by units sold in the whole world, and we continue to grow. And the market is accepting that today there’s not only one kind of price band, but there are options. And that good sunglasses cannot cost only a hundred dollars.”
As the president of Hawkers and the founder of Auro Travel, Alejandro Betancourt López’s reputation has been built on more than just his ideas. His instincts have given him a grasp of what people are looking for and how to get it to them in the most cost-effective ways. Strategic online marketing in 2015 was essentially influencer partnerships in targeted markets. Today, he continues to branch out into countries that are receptive to Hawkers, all while using the latest technology to reach people where they are.
