New Butterfly rubber "Dignics 05" 2019

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Hi,

Many interesting comments here.

Permit me an attempt at structural coherence from a couple of perspectives.

Butterfly has top sheet lines and sponge lines. When combined, Butterfly has marketable products called rubber lines.

Butterfly has three types of Tenergy in the Tenergy rubber line: (Regular) Tenergy, Tenergy FX, and Tenergy Hard. Each of the three is distinguished not by the top sheet line but by the sponge line. All of the sponges are in the Spring Sponge sponge line. Each of the sponges is a type within the Spring Sponge sponge line.

Butterfly Dignics is a new rubber line. Because it is not a Tenergy rubber, it is highly likely the top sheet is a new Butterfly top sheet line. The sponge line used is a new sponge line called Spring Sponge X. Today, there is one type of Spring Sponge X sponge, used in the Dignics 05 rubber line product.

One contributor's inquiry seems the most intriguing: What is Butterfly up to? From my view, to understand Apple Inc. is to understand Butterfly.

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JST

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JST

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If you have flagship product released 10 years ago and still being king of the hill (at least from marketing and price/volume perspective) you have two choices: keep the cash cow running "forever" which means one day someone comes and will kick you down or release something newer even more expensive (and give your followers ultimate choice: either they will be feeding your cash cow like they did for past 10 years or they will pay even more;)

I believe Butterfly is doing the right thing from marketing and business perspective and I do expect price of Tenergy not going down (or just marginally) while price of new products being slightly higher (and wouldn't be surprised if initial "promotion" price is equal to Tenergy and then increased as much as 25-50% - not double how someone suggests but even 25% is hard to imagine from today's perspective and yet it can work for them).
 
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I believe Butterfly is doing the right thing from marketing and business perspective and I do expect price of Tenergy not going down (or just marginally) while price of new products being slightly higher (and wouldn't be surprised if initial "promotion" price is equal to Tenergy and then increased as much as 25-50% - not double how someone suggests but even 25% is hard to imagine from today's perspective and yet it can work for them).

I think this will end up being a great guess. Also, BTY experimented with regional price cuts with Rozena, so perhaps we'll see some of that with Tenergy once Dignics is established.
 
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JST

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JST

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I think this will end up being a great guess. Also, BTY experimented with regional price cuts with Rozena, so perhaps we'll see some of that with Tenergy once Dignics is established.

Well it's more like text book business case: company dominating the market with basically one product for 10 years (assuming rubbers are the main thing which makes living of TT companies), how can they maintain the revenue/margin or better how to increase it (because that's what every CEO is asked for by the company owners)? They simply need to introduce even better product and they need to have pricing policy which will keep all the cost savvy customers while those who can will pay more. Butterfly can probably care less about customers who are saying that $10~20 rubbers are the best for them. They care about customers who want the best performance and who use 4+ sheets per year. Some of these customers are willing to pay even more then $60 for Tenergy replacement (because they simply have the money or they will "steal" the budget form another hobby or TT equipment - this applies for clubs and pros).

Indeed all this is a speculation but it's based on similar stories from many industries (and actually when Butterfly was introducing Sriver replacements it was the same story: you can buy Sriver for the same price today as 15 years ago - at least in Europe - and there are probably still many players who buy them, while many moved to more expensive products - again supplied by Butterfly). Unless Butterfly is struggling with Tenergy volumes and margins on key markets (I don't see any sign of that) it's very unlikely they would suddenly cut the price (more then let's say 10% to help marketing of the new better and more expensive Dignics series). Definitely not because they like us TT players more then their profit;)
 
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I think all in all, it is a safe bet on the Bty part. I mean if Dignics has a potential to dethrone Tenergys, then it also has a good chance to be the king for another 10y or so. If not, then it will be another Rozena or Roundell ... still no problem for the Japan brand.

No, it's not safe. If it were to be an utter flop (of say, Roundell magnitude, or worse) not only does it flop, but Tenergy got tainted on the way there to boot.
 
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No, it's not safe. If it were to be an utter flop (of say, Roundell magnitude, or worse) not only does it flop, but Tenergy got tainted on the way there to boot.

Yeah, but Roundell didn't ... in the worst case it would show that even Bty can not come up with something better than what they invented 10 y ago. But ... if Mizutani already plays it, there must be some good quality involved.
 
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Yeah, but Roundell didn't ... in the worst case it would show that even Bty can not come up with something better than what they invented 10 y ago. But ... if Mizutani already plays it, there must be some good quality involved.

Roundell, as far as I know, wasn't marketed as Tenergy's successor, intended to eclipse and obsolete it. Marketing a new flagship product does mean your current flagship isn't it anymore, and it won't regain its full glory in case the new flagship happens to go down.

Hmm, "Butterfly Yamato"…
 
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Roundell, as far as I know, wasn't marketed as Tenergy's successor, intended to eclipse and obsolete it. Marketing a new flagship product does mean your current flagship isn't it anymore, and it won't regain its full glory in case the new flagship happens to go down.

Hmm, "Butterfly Yamato"…

Time will tell of course. One thing for sure is that Bty has to "bet" anyways. It would be interesting to know though, if the new series are a "standard extension" of product lines - to stay fresh - so to speak, or that Bty in fact feels bit of a pressure to come up with some new flagship, taking what competition has to offer nowadays. In another words how they feel, is the T05 kingdom still safe in the era of plastics .. so far it was I think.
 
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The marketing hyperboles aside, and regardless of the various rubbers' qualities, I'm wondering what game Butterfly is playing here.

Up to T05H (I'd say), Tenergy 05 was the undisputed king of the hill. Untouchable, and no matter what others appeared on the scene, the main question would be: how does this compare to T05?

That sacrosanct position, to me, sounds like pretty much a priceless asset in terms of brand value. Which is apparently something relevant in ape colonies, such as the table tennis population forms.

The main message I see Butterfly sending out with the T05H marketing, and now this Dignics 05, is that T05 isn't all that after all. Now why undercut that untouchable position previously held this way? What compels this line of action?

Without wishing to work for or on behalf of Butterfly in the hype department, its been over 10 years since Tenergy without an upgrade, they have presumably been researching away in their labs that whole time, not wishing to release anything unless it was definitively better. I would say they obviously think this is the one. It couldn't be the standard bearer for all rubbers forever. They eventually needed to supercede it. It's almost strange it took this long given the modern era, rivals changes and the plastic ball etc.
 
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Without wishing to work for or on behalf of Butterfly in the hype department, its been over 10 years since Tenergy without an upgrade, they have presumably been researching away in their labs that whole time, not wishing to release anything unless it was definitively better. I would say they obviously think this is the one. It couldn't be the standard bearer for all rubbers forever. They eventually needed to supercede it. It's almost strange it took this long given the modern era, rivals changes and the plastic ball etc.

Yeah this would be the third option ... they genuinely have found a really good "stuff". If it will become popular like T05 is another question.
 
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Butterfly isn't like all the other brands. Since every pro in the world (pretty much) is using Tenergy, there's no way they'll be releasing an 'upgrade' without extremely extensive trials.
It would only be to their detriment to release something aimed at the pro market that the pros don't like.

I definitely expect it to be a marked improvement rather than a sidegrade.
 
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It appears Butterfly has been sticking to an 11-year-cycle since the release of Bryce in 1997, then Tenergy in 2008, and now Dignics in 2019.

Like I wrote, ESN's clients got screwed big time after the disaster of 40+ balls and Butterfly has taken this opportunity to strike back with Rozena when ITTF decided to make the switch to ABS. Now that their sales are back to where it was, it's the perfect time to rub it in their face.
 
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