I think they should have spent some of the money on ONE real innovation. With that name in the background, what if they had released something like the Evolution rubbers, which by time would have won people over?
But they had P-series and R-series, then tenzone, variations of tenzone, they wanted to compete with the classics and released R-classic (or whatever it is called), then E-Razor, plus about two dozen different blades, and yet some that weren´t even available on every market.
Too much, too soon.
I was tempted to buy E-Razor when it was heavily discounted, just to see what it´s like. But I have been such a good boy lately when it comes to testing that I´ve really kept my money together ;-)
IMO (and this won't be shared by everyone), TZU was a real innovation at the time. It was the first ESN tensor to have a suppressed bounce and was amazingly easy to use while retaining huge power. Evolution on the other hand was a variation on the Bluefire M and Rasant series (or they're all part of the same family of rubbers), and has the drawback of relying on extreme factory boost to get the job done. Tibhar's trick with evolution was to make sure their high-profile players were using it (something adidas couldn't replicate - they didn't have high profile sponsored players), and to cover the packaging with random japanese iconography in an attempt to fool the customer into thinking it had some japanese component (a bit underhand).
Now don't get me wrong - evolution is a great rubber in many ways, but hardly some kind of true innovation, unique among its peers. I've always preferred Bluefire M myself, and the original Rasant is still incredibly popular among Andro sponsored players. These aren't identical rubbers by any means, but there's nothing particularly special about Evolution when you look at the whole group in the round. Any innovation evolution can claim is shared by many similar ESN rubbers in that generation of products.
But anyway - I feel that TZU was a hugely important ESN rubber and has laid the template for many releases since, was the first of its kind, and was totally different to the original Tenzone. This was adidas' big investment and big push into the market. I think they did all they could considering their financial limitations - they ran forum testing schemes, made sure their sponsored players were using it and so on. But let's face it, the choices of the majority of amateur players are governed by two big factors - trust long-standing companies with your equipment selection, and copy what the pros are using. These aren't particularly rational factors, but are seen as low-risk, and who can afford the money and time to try everything out? I know a lot of players who won't use anything non-butterfly simply because they can't bring themselves to even contemplate using non-butterfly stuff. This isn't rational. Any new company trying to break into the TT market is in for a tough time because breaking down this cultural groupthink is incredibly difficult.
If you look at Xiom, and maybe Victas, the key thing is to start small and try to initially innovate with your marketing. There's only so much room in the TT world really. They're both following a similar model - chinese blades, ESN rubbers, niche marketing. Then hang on in there for a long enough time that players see you as an established, reliable TT brand. Plan for a long haul. Hope to get a fairly visible sponsored pro after a while (Victas now have Niwa). Then branch out (Xiom now have their own korean blade-making facility). Perhaps the problem with Adidas is that the business model seemed to rely on immediate impact based on existing brand power, and this would offset the high licencing costs. But TT players aren't sheep in this way - they're more likely to blindly follow TT trends than general sporting trends. I get the impression that ITC are treading much more carefully (they look to be going down a similar route to Nexy to me - specialist appeal), which is probably a sensible approach and I wish them every possible success.