You Are Lynx Golf

[robrandalgz]

What about golf coaches/teachers? Breed and Cameron McCormick pimp Titleist and Leadbetter Callaway (Haney, too, if he wasn't let go). I think Butch was Titleist then Cobra. I imagine there are other well known teachers who would be good product/brand ambassadors. Maybe you could grab the folks on Golf Channel's School of Golf or other teaching programs.

Would that resonate or help gain traction?

Interesting angle. One I hadn't even considered, to be honest.

 

[-CRW-]

I guess you have to care about news at all to care about that. I typically stay away from just about everything news related these days.

You’re not alone. I’ve never thought Twitter was useful.

I’m mid 30’s and use Facebook for sharing family photos with other family/close friends. I look to Instagram for all things golf news related.

ETA: I previously used Facebook for golf news as well, back when Instagram was for “Insta Ho’s”. But Facebook made a big push to make it more family oriented and pushed business content to Instagram. I gave in when golf stuff just stopped showing up in my Facebook news feed.

 

[NoShanks]

Hire a branding agency to give the brand a new and fresh perspective that connects with a broad range of golfers. This will help set the tone and voice of the brand.

redesign website.

sign a few low level tour golfers, but go heavy on amateur tour and social media influencers at this stage To raise awareness and improve brand favorablilty.

After a couple years, continue to maintain social and tour relationship.

invest in research and development to design clubs for different experience levels. Have amazing customer experience to handle any issues to grow brand favorability. At this point a top level tour player should be signed.

 

[aslxa]

First, and hopefully they have already completed this, I would pay for a complete market survey. If you do not understand where underserved niches exist, I'm not sure how you can be successful when introducing a product. The market survey would also include a brand recognition survey, which further drives choices.

If the above has been completed, then the next challenge would be figuring out the distribution channels to reach the prime markets. In the UK, they service mostly green grass accounts as the shop's lower price option. Maybe that's possible here? Wilson, who has much greater brand awareness, has struggled with this and I have a sense that green grass accounts are disappearing (they definitely are in my neck of the woods).

What I see in their designs are what appear to be open foundry models, rather than something created by their own R & D department. Does not mean the product is bad in any way, just means that they do not have that part of the story to tell with any authority. It also means they are ordering a product, stamping it with their logo and bringing it market. So really moving units is the primary goal - again nothing wrong with that.

Taking all of this into account, unless the market survey shows me something radically different, I'm looking at basically becoming a house brand again but with a twist. I would be looking at a retailer that has strong customer loyalty, has at least some recognition for selling golf products and will allow me to keep the Lynx logo on my products. If I were them in this scenario, I would be speaking first with Costco.

 

[JB]

Taking all of this into account, unless the market survey shows me something radically different, I'm looking at basically becoming a house brand again but with a twist. I would be looking at a retailer that has strong customer loyalty, has at least some recognition for selling golf products and will allow me to keep the Lynx logo on my products. If I were them in this scenario, I would be speaking first with Costco.

What do they do for Costco that makes them valuable?

 

[aslxa]

What do they do for Costco that makes them valuable?

They can provide, at what I assume to be a decent margin, clubs that could be sold individually (drivers, putters, wedges, etc.) versus the full set only offerings which are the only options I have seen at Costco previously. Costco does not have to replicate this under the Kirkland brand, meaning Lynx deals with foundries, assembly and possibly transportation.

 

[JB]

They can provide, at what I assume to be a decent margin, clubs that could be sold individually (drivers, putters, wedges, etc.) versus the full set only offerings which are the only options I have seen at Costco previously. Costco does not have to replicate this under the Kirkland brand, meaning Lynx deals with foundries, assembly and possibly transportation.

Im still not sure I understand. Costco can get that with their buying power from anybody.

Lynx team of assembly is most likely taking place at the manufacturing facility already. I would venture a guess to the American buyer, that Kirkland name would sell more pieces with them dealing directly and keeping all points on margin than having the Lynx name on there. See the golf balls, which also offered no exclusive R&D, no quality control in house, etc.

certainly its a pay day for Lynx, they wont sell that many pieces compared to a national Costco order, but at that point the brand would be officially killed from being premium on their own.

Its an interesting dialogue, I just am not sure what Costco gets that they couldn't get on their own.

 

[aslxa]

Im still not sure I understand. Costco can get that with their buying power from anybody.

Lynx team of assembly is most likely taking place at the manufacturing facility already. I would venture a guess to the American buyer, that Kirkland name would sell more pieces with them dealing directly and keeping all points on margin than having the Lynx name on there. See the golf balls, which also offered no exclusive R&D, no quality control in house, etc.

certainly its a pay day for Lynx, they wont sell that many pieces compared to a national Costco order, but at that point the brand would be officially killed from being premium on their own.

Its an interesting dialogue, I just am not sure what Costco gets that they couldn't get on their own.

The interesting aspect of Costco is that they do not bring in everything under the Kirkland brand. For their bikes, they have Northrock, which are available elsewhere and are just a basic frame with decent sourced components. Their flooring comes from other companies. My suspicion is that they would prefer not to have to control the entire supply chain for some products, especially those which might require more sophisticated construction and assembly. For golf balls, you can just reach out to Nassau and say I want X ball at X price and negotiate from there. Choosing a driver head, shaft and grip plus deciding on assembly would require more knowledge and time.

While Lynx may want to position themselves as a premium brand, I'm not sure that is possible without doing the R&D yourself. I would take the win of getting stocked at a larger retailer and call it good.

 

[JB]

The interesting aspect of Costco is that they do not bring in everything under the Kirkland brand. For their bikes, they have Northrock, which are available elsewhere and are just a basic frame with decent sourced components. Their flooring comes from other companies. My suspicion is that they would prefer not to have to control the entire supply chain for some products, especially those which might require more sophisticated construction and assembly. For golf balls, you can just reach out to Nassau and say I want X ball at X price and negotiate from there. Choosing a driver head, shaft and grip plus deciding on assembly would require more knowledge and time.

While Lynx may want to position themselves as a premium brand, I'm not sure that is possible without doing the R&D yourself. I would take the win of getting stocked at a larger retailer and call it good.

Right. All true, except missing some components. Still not sure what is in it for Costco. They can do the exact same thing they did with golf balls with these irons. They dont need to control a supply chain. There are a manufacturers that have them catalogued, either blanks or near net and then choose logo, some milling aspects and a few other things (dependent on if you want 2, 3, 4 stage, etc) and go from there.

They can literally call them anything they want, since the average Costco customer doesn't have a club who Lynx is outside of the early 90s.
Lynx wins with one large order, but with little US demand currently, there is not much in it for Costco.

 

[OGputtnfool]

I'd sponsor THP and get really involved here to get the clubs out into the hands of amateurs!