Some Thoughts on Skate Marketing

[english15x 3]

Tell you what, Tyler. Go sign-up with another username and I'll give you a head start by not telling JR to check on that. This time around, don't reference where you work and use it when it's convenient to you to mention it.

I'm not ashamed of where I work. I have answered a ton of PM's from people wanting advice on skates. All I ask is that I am not attacked for having an opinion. If you feel it necessary to hide behind anonymity, so be it.

Now I remember, my PM wasn't answered.

answered my PM for the record.

[JJStripes 1]

I do understand your differentiation, but I disagree. The only reason why, due to demand, the S9 is not or will not be a mass produced skate, is because the materials are no longer available to mass produce. The 7000, 8000, and 8090 would still be produced if the materials were available, as they were some of the best selling skates in the industry...and a company like NBH that must be concerned with bottom line (it is a company with investors and such) would not stop selling a high demand product if it could access the materials and still maintain a similar profit.

The world has not run out of the materials that those skates are made of. I'm sure if Bauer wanted to mass produce the 7000's or the S9's they could. Bauer has decided not to make them available to the public because they want to sell the new stuff. They don't want to be like Graf and sell the same skates for 20 years.

[epstud74 24]

You can make more $$$ introducing new products into the system. It is common sense. Market forces are at work here and people want to buy the new thing. If a product stayed the same, where is the incentive to go out and buy more?

I do understand your differentiation, but I disagree. The only reason why, due to demand, the S9 is not or will not be a mass produced skate, is because the materials are no longer available to mass produce. The 7000, 8000, and 8090 would still be produced if the materials were available, as they were some of the best selling skates in the industry...and a company like NBH that must be concerned with bottom line (it is a company with investors and such) would not stop selling a high demand product if it could access the materials and still maintain a similar profit.

The world has not run out of the materials that those skates are made of. I'm sure if Bauer wanted to mass produce the 7000's or the S9's they could. Bauer has decided not to make them available to the public because they want to sell the new stuff. They don't want to be like Graf and sell the same skates for 20 years.

I'm sure if Bauer re-introduced the 8000, people would buy it in large numbers, but marketing and innovation go hand in hand. You may run into teething troubles with the new stuff, but people are always looking for an edge or to have the latest thing. Just human nature at play here. The S9s that I have seen have been the 8000 dressed up to look like a One90. At my local Play It Again Sports, they have about 10 new Bauer 8000s next to a couple used S9s and they're identical with the exception of the One90 graphics. I can see why many players want to stay in the Bauer 8000 boot. Excellent boot, light and comfortable compared to past Bauer Supremes.

[D aka speck 0]

Hockey is a big business.

Living is a big deal.

Marketing is like breathing...

hold your breathe and see how long you make it...

[TheBert 0]

You can make more $$$ introducing new products into the system. It is common sense. Market forces are at work here and people want to buy the new thing. If a product stayed the same, where is the incentive to go out and buy more?

Personally, durability is huge for me as a consumer. And I wish it ranked higher for society as a whole just for the sake of reducing waste.

[TBLfan 25]

MLS, I dont really buy the arguement with leather. How much stuff has similar leather as grafs? It's used in many products, mainly furniture. I assume that graf uses a bonded leather in their skates which is cheap but durable and more cut resistant than aniline leather.

On the S9 thing... I dont think it's feasable for NBH to offer the S9 at retail. You have the S9 available for retail and that's one more skate that the LHS must stock, a lot of these shops are barely getting by as it is, It's not cheap to add in a line of skates... Then you get pressure to add onto the line. There's really two ways to go, laterally or move forward. You're not pushing any bar if you're just moving laterally.

[D aka speck 0]

Grafpro...

What you do at Graf is not up for debate.

What IS however, is your professionalism and tact.

I read at least 2 pages of empathy for you, followed by a post of apoctolyptic proportions by you.

Nobody here is attacking Graf... just attacking your (personal) untactful statements.

Welcome to the boards, just learn the fundemental rule of indifference.

There's people here from all walks of life.

We command respect from public representatives from all companies, not just Graf!

If a representative from ANY other company disrespected another company on these boards, they would get THE SAME response from the community.

It's nothing personal, unless you make it that way.

This thread is about marketing, nothing more, nothing less.

Leave it at that.

Live and learn friend.

You are welcome here, so long as you hold yourself in a dignified manor.

Some of us don't want to see you go, we would rather see you cut your losses on this topic and contribute factual (and product related) feedback.

[VakarLajos 5]

That's funny....I don't see the word "Graf" in my statement at all. You guys jump to conclusions and put words in my mouth all the time. Just get over it already. If your little club doesn't want me here, I'll leave. Just relax already. Go watch a hockey game and drink a beer or something. I happen to have a game tonight, so you ladies will just have to trash me all by yourselves.

I for one, thought you were somebody high in Graf's hierarchy based on your name. It's slightly misleading. If you work for Graf and believe in them then how come there's about five Graf threads on the first page that you are nowhere near?

As far as marketing goes, the OP is spot on. For manufacturers it's all about getting their skates on five year old feet.

Anybody that is adverse to a certain brand because of their marketing is shooting themselves in the foot. What's the most common advice given on here when somebody asks for help fitting skates?

"Go to your LHS and try on different brands."

Darkstar said it better than I possibly could, Market your skates or Die

[rmnyi 0]

This was so totally blown out of proportion. Someone should lock this thread...about 10 pages ago.

[DarkStar50 679]

It has been one of the better discussions we've had in a while, IMO. Everyone's two cents has been worth a lot more than usual.

[JR Boucicaut 3789]

I'm sure if Bauer re-introduced the 8000, people would buy it in large numbers, but marketing and innovation go hand in hand. You may run into teething troubles with the new stuff, but people are always looking for an edge or to have the latest thing. Just human nature at play here. The S9s that I have seen have been the 8000 dressed up to look like a One90. At my local Play It Again Sports, they have about 10 new Bauer 8000s next to a couple used S9s and they're identical with the exception of the One90 graphics. I can see why many players want to stay in the Bauer 8000 boot. Excellent boot, light and comfortable compared to past Bauer Supremes.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the 8000 was a DOG at retail. Why would it sell today?

It didn't sell because too many dealers were worried about stocking them after the 7000 (first revision was too stiff, second go-around slightly improved). Even at the NHL level, you weren't seeing a ton of guys switching over to it - they stayed in their 5000/7000s. At the same time, the Vapor had begun to peak at the retail and pro level.

Love affair with the Supreme started again when the 8090 hit.

[ktang 34]

But the thing is, and I'm sure hockeymom will chime in - marketing shouldn't be a dirty word.

At the end of the day, you're selling a product. And you must market said product. It really doesn't get much simpler than that.

There are 4 important Ps in marketing: Product, Placement (advertising), Price, and Place (where to sell it). Different companies will allocate their funds differently among these 4 Ps.

DS50 says it best; NBH is beating the others in their combinations of Products and Prices. Then, because of their Product / Price combinations, they can execute effective Placement (advertising).

Then, the reps can get the NBH lines into more LHS and other stores (Place).

It doesn't start with Placement (advertising) because players are relatively informed; enough players can feel and prefer the benefits of using the newer technology NBH skates.

Others may prefer the traditional skates, but these people will not be the majority of skate buyers (I remember when players preferred tube skate holders). These can even be characterized as older, soon-to-retire players.

[JJStripes 1]

The 4 P's of marketing are:

Product, Place, Price, Promotion

S9's can be made to replicate 7000's, 8000's or 8090's. I have seen them with all three outsole options. The 8090 version is most common because it incorporates the fit of the Supremes with the light weigh of the full composite outsole.

[NuggyBuggy 0]

Market your skates or die.

It is this reality, I think, that is at the root of GrafPro's discontent. It must be very hard for someone in certain parts of the industry to know that ultimately, such a large part of the success of a product lies with how well it is marketed instead of how well it performs. I'm sure that he didn't mean that e.g. the One90s were completely uninnovative - but sometimes extremes in the name of rhetoric gets misinterpreted, and sometimes people are quoted out of context or with very selective emphasis - as happened several times in this thread. And then, everything spirals out of control.

We've had at least one very similar discussion before. Phil Knight has described Nike as marketing company - not a running shoe company, not a hockey company. He has described a view in which marketing does not serve to support the product, but rather one in which the product instead supports the company's marketing.

Give Nike's tremendous success, it's hard to argue with the validity of this strategy. But I imagine that for many traditionalist hockey insiders, it has to be frustrating to see the logical consequences of this view. It has to be hard to see that the battle for space on our kids' feet is being won not (just) by performance, but by 10 foot banners of Malkin or Crosby hanging in your hockey store, and flashy graphics on old sticks with new names. I also imagine it must be frustrating for some engineers at companies making superior-sounding MP3 players when they see yet another pair of those ubiquitous (and substandard) white ear plugs on yet another drone (disclaimer: yes, I own an iPod).

I'm not too naive to recognize the importance of marketing a product. I can, however, understand why people might push back - maybe a little too strongly - at it.

[mrusse01 0]

^ You do know the vaunted Nike 'marketing company' was forced to sell their hockey operations at a massive loss just a few months ago, right? So, how successful have they really been?

[Chadd 916]

^ You do know the vaunted Nike 'marketing company' was forced to sell their hockey operations at a massive loss just a few months ago, right? So, how successful have they really been?

You do know that NBH is the number one company in the industry in terms of market share, revenues and profits right?

[Fletch 219]

Man...I don't think Graf has ever gotten so much ink on these boards! Apparently there really is no such thing as "bad publicity!" ;)

[VakarLajos 5]

^ You do know the vaunted Nike 'marketing company' was forced to sell their hockey operations at a massive loss just a few months ago, right? So, how successful have they really been?

I don't think that has to do with Nike's success in the hockey market as much as hockey's place in the sports industry.

As Chadd pointed out, NikeBauer is the most dominant manufacturer in the game right now. However, in Nike's eyes the majority of a small market was not an economically sound decision.

We rarely sell Graf's in our shop. People new to the sport have never heard of it, and it's a lot to convince somebody to spend a ton of cash on a company they have never heard of. I can recommend the skate to them if it fits them, but at the end of the day it is their decision and like it or not, many people are swayed by marketing.

[mrusse01 0]

^ You do know the vaunted Nike 'marketing company' was forced to sell their hockey operations at a massive loss just a few months ago, right? So, how successful have they really been?

You do know that NBH is the number one company in the industry in terms of market share, revenues and profits right?

Were they not already number one in the industry before Nike acquired them?

Don't get me wrong, NBH is by far my manufacturer of choice, I use their helmet, skates, gloves, sticks. Just pointing out if Nike's marketing plan from the get go was to try and grow the market at all, well they failed pretty badly. Look at what they paid for the company in '95 or whatever and what they were forced to sell it at this year, it doesn't take an accountant to tell you that they screwed up somewhere.

[rmnyi 0]

^ You do know the vaunted Nike 'marketing company' was forced to sell their hockey operations at a massive loss just a few months ago, right? So, how successful have they really been?

You do know that NBH is the number one company in the industry in terms of market share, revenues and profits right?

Perhaps but Nike paid $395 million in 1994 and sold it for 200 million. Despite what the market share may be, the balance sheet seems to be telling a different story. The good news is that the Bauer name will continue on.

[Chadd 916]

^ You do know the vaunted Nike 'marketing company' was forced to sell their hockey operations at a massive loss just a few months ago, right? So, how successful have they really been?

You do know that NBH is the number one company in the industry in terms of market share, revenues and profits right?

Perhaps but Nike paid $395 million in 1994 and sold it for 200 million. Despite what the market share may be, the balance sheet seems to be telling a different story. The good news is that the Bauer name will continue on.

Bauer had more physical assets like factories when Nike bought them. Off shore production is much cheaper than doing it yourself in North America, so there was little financial justification for keeping their old facilities open. Nike execs will also tell you that they overpaid for Bauer in 1994. That was at the height of NHL popularity and they thought it was going to be the next big thing is American sports. They gambled and lost on that aspect.

[Spreedizzle 1]

^^ Sadly.....I'd dare to say that we all lost in that aspect. :(

[rmnyi 0]

Well, the good news is that it sounds like the Bauer name is in good hands.

[gagner89 0]

I would tend to agree with that...

[MLSman 22]

The 4 P's of marketing are:

Product, Place, Price, Promotion

Very true...but the first P in business is Profit.

Let's look back to why Nike sold Bauer...because it does not fit with their normal profitability requirements to sustain. Nike as a company is used to paying $3 in materials to produce a $150 sneaker. They are not used to the technology and investment required for long term sustainment of a superior product. They certainly have the budget for that R&D, but not the long term mindset to use it properly.

The fact is that at the end of the day, public marketing is NOT the reason why the pair didn't work. At Nike, Bauer hockey folks most likely struggled on a daily basis to "market"...or essentially sell internally...hockey innovation to stockholders, investment firms, and a board of directors. It is safe to say that very few of them most likely understood the chemistry and physics of hockey equipment and design. It is also safe to say that ALL of them understand cost per price ratios.

What I am trying to say is that the explosive responsiveness of "ultralite tech mesh with Thermoformed X-ribs" did not give the public the Vapor XXXX, but the ability of the Bauer development team to "sell" the cost of the materials to make the boot over other materials, and the ROI for that choice.