EBI is going to promote and grow their brands that have the most popularity. Hammer has a huge following and is kind of like EBI's equivalent of Storm, so that brand is currently growing pretty fast and getting the "carbon fiber" tech, extended warranty, and other latest and greatest attributes.
Ebonite is becoming the "value performance" brand. Ebonite is taking their previous high performance tech, moving it down to the Upper Mid-Performance line, and promoting it as higher performance at a reasonable price. They aren't going to invest a ton of money in a brand that is sort of evaporating.
Track is trying the "custom tuned" thing. Their balls are supposedly engineered to fit specific styles, and you buy based on that. Uh, ok. Track products are pretty decent. They need to return to traditional ball names and just market their stuff. They are coming off as some sort of an ultra-premium, high-tech brand but it just doesn't work. Track should focus on marketing themselves as a direct competitor to Motiv. Their products offer looks very similar to what Motiv is offering these days.
Columbia, to me, is kind of like the Roto Grip of the EBI umbrella. They have a whole line of stuff for all bowlers. It is overall good stuff, but gets overshadowed by Hammer.
Last I heard, EBI was struggling with what to do with their brands. There were rumors that the Ebonite brand was going to be totally eliminated due to lack of sales. It wouldn't be surprising to see that happen, especially considering they only have 10 different balls total under the Ebonite brand. Hammer and Columbia are the volume sellers, they won't go anywhere. Track is an interesting problem. Track stuff is high quality, and performs very well. It is just a very confusing line to many bowlers and needs to be revamped and better marketed.
I am a fan of EBI products and have used my fair share of them. My current arsenal includes a Track 716T and a Ebonite Mission X. Both are very good. However, it is obvious that Hammer is where EBI is focusing a lot of resources and the other brands are sort of along for the ride.
This is very close to what I was thinking actually. I think part of the problem is that Ebonite right now does not have the best marketing staff to sell all 4 brands. Also, I get a sense of them not knowing exactly what direction that all 4 brands should take. When you compare Ebonite's brands to what Storm/Roto Grip have done or even Brunswick/DV8, you know what you're going to get between those companies whereas EBI is all over the place.
If I were responsible for fixing anything over at Ebonite, here is what I would do.
Track: Make this the high performance line where all the latest and greatest technology is available. I would also cut down on the number of balls available by changing it to be similar to Motiv (1 early hook, 1 delayed hook, 1 late hook). I personally liked the original number system that was used and would possibly use that again. I also wouldn't use things such as C/T or A/SE or anything like that. Simplify it to be T= traction/early hook, C= control/delayed hook, A= angular, long/strong. Besides that, I would bring carbon fiber over to Track and give them the ability to use magnetite cores as well. On top of that, I would also change their video demos to be more similar to Hammer but go more into the tech of the products themselves.
Hammer: This being the best seller of EBI, I would market it as being the mainstream brand of the company. Similar to Storm being the better seller between them and Roto Grip. Again, I would take the Motiv approach that I would use with Track, limiting things to 3 balls in each category. However, I would keep the ability for Hammer to name the balls whatever they would like and also keep the Carbon Fiber cores. Hammer makes the best tech videos out of any EBI brand, so no changes would be made to that.
Columbia 300: I would change this into the value brand out of EBI. Columbia makes a little of something for everyone, so this should be marketed as such. Again as with Track and Hammer, I would take the Motiv approach of limiting things to 3 balls per line. There could be some good experimentation of cores/covers here but I would stick more with the tried/tested and proven products that are out there now. For example, the Resurgence core has worked really well with many of Columbia's products. Similar to Storm's Inverted Fe2 core and R2 covers that are almost always reused no matter what the new product is, with new cores/covers occasionally appearing in the line. I would also reintroduce the tech videos and model them after Hammer as Columbia seems to have ditched these with the "fun branding."
Ebonite: I would eliminate the brand as it doesn't sell well compared to the other 3. Or if Ebonite has to stay, make it an overseas brand only which is similar to what Dynothane did. They have been all over the place with many releases for several years now and their tech videos absolutely suck in my opinion. Ebonite seems to want to be everything to everyone and unfortunately that isn't possible. The other thing is that Ebonite as a brand seems to have the worst reputation compared to the other 3.
The other thing I would do- limit releases to 1 new ball every 45 days. This way, there is time to build up the hype. Also, I would stagger the releases as well. For example, the first 45 days could see Track with a new ball. Then, the next 45 days could see Hammer with a new ball. Then 45 days after that, Columbia introduces a new ball. Then it's not flooding the market as much but still allowing the brands to intro new stuff and gain momentum.
Another thing- the tech videos should feature a variety of styles and the pro staff as well. Hammer does a very nice job of this and has now started to feature Bill O'Neill along the regional staff. They should keep doing this, and the other brands should also start doing this.
