This is BTY way of innovation. If we look at it from afar, we see the fail in it, and are not willing to fall for it.
However, in real life, BTY has found a way to entice people to buy the stuff anyway... in ever-increasing numbers.
BTY has either mastered the art of bullcraping large numbers of TT peoples, or are at least in the forefront, that is the true gage of successful business operations.
In business, to get more sales (where the product NORMALLY has a very long life... like uh say BLADES!) companies must "innovate" and come up with new ways to get people to buy again, hopefully at higher prices.
The options any company has in general (any industry) is to do this to make more profit... (assuming a mature market)
1) Make the product better, improve it somehow
BTY generally has great quality products, but obviously the ALC isn't a juggernaut of class improvement over the already outstanding TBS
2) Make the same products less expensive, then sell more of them to in the end make a little more money.
It is obvious this isn't BTY's strategic option of choice, right?
3) Make a totally new product that no other outfit is or can make and get it to the market
This is where innovation comes in. If you look at the long history of any outfit, you will see over time what is going on. Gergely, Viscaria, TBS, Korbel, Primorac, Grubba, and a couple of the new materials... these are obvious no-crap examples of where BTY actually innovated and made some great stuff... AND got it to market... AND got it accepted... in numbers.
A company should be allowed to innovate and take the rewards for the business risk. As much as I and many forumers make fun of BTY's envious position in the market that enables them to command prices that make no sense... even a jealous idiot can see BTY has done more than its share of innovation over the years, prolly more than its competitors.
When a company CANNOT or chooses to NOT go for any of the obvious 3 ways of product strategy... all that is left is to use smoke and mirror bullcrap con-artist methods. BTY is NOT alone in this, EVERY industry does this. BTY has a strong position in the market and market perception of its brand (supported by the great products they have made over the years)
Here are the common ones used...
1) Hire a pro or someone totally un-related to the industry and NOT an expert, but has a really attractive figure and say a lot of great and false stuff about the product to make it look like it is the "thing" to buy
2) Make minor changes or very superficial ones and re-market it as innovation, use your strong market position to support your company's launch and continued sales
3) Hire a bunch of under-paid grassroots people and bloggers to glorify the company's products online.
4) The most common used and it comes from the pagebook of number ONE. Simply TELL the customers this is good stuff and they need it and MUST buy it.
5) Pay of the regulators of the industry and get rules put in place that greatly favor your business operation.
Ironically, this is used the most often at the high levels of big business. Ironically, this is the EXACT same method large pharmaceutical companies have used for YEARS as well as in my own USA agricultural industry where a giant pesticide company can lawfully poison the crops over and over, and at the end of the day get people to love it.
In TT, there have been so many outfits who have already re-written the book so many times, it is difficult (but not totally impossible) to write it again in a way no one has yet seen, so it is natural for TT companies to re-brand their stuff to "churn" sales.
For the USA market, the only REAL key to growth is to increase participation in the sport with leagues, even if they are newbie social leagues, these players will want to get better, or at least feel that way buy buying pro equipment. Ikea has a marketing slogan something like "It's a big city, SOMEONE has got to furnish it" and such a method can work even if there are already the number of outfits it takes to saturate the market.
Developing and growing the market is an obvious long term strategy a lot of outfits do well or fail at and it is the telling indicator of their present and future.
)
