Marketing is an effective tool, and I was thinking of the whole product-based era of marketing.
What did we learn from it?
My understanding so far, is that a superior product will sell itself no matter what the price, and everything else and in a sense that creates value which is the current focus of marketing.
Now I want to talk about something that is one of the most misunderstood industries in the world!
High Performance Road biking or Cycling components are a specialty segment, that focuses on the elite athletes.
This segment is dominated by 2 dominant players and a new recent entrant and it is by far one of the most segmented and specialized market from what I can pull off from the back of my head.
Campagnolo – Italian, hand-crafted, and amazingly high performance oozing with the tradition, passion that Italian products are famous for (think Lamborghini supercars, and Ferraris). Campagnolo is known by only a handful of cyclists who’s dealt into true high performance components.
Shimano – Japanese, machine drilled, high performance and high technology just like what Japan’s known for, its the most widely known and most used groupsets around the world! If you look at even your most basic mountain bike it will have shimano in them and they don’t just deal with cycling but mountain biking, fishing rods and it’s a giant company with lots of resources.
SRAM – American, started as a mountain biking component company. They’ve just entered into the market with the most cost effective and bang for the buck type of product. It’s space-age design is just like how Americans do it by using technologies from other companies and combining to create a fantastic new product but maybe they break down easily.
For more information visit their respective sites:
http://www.campagnolo.com
http://bike.shimano.com
http://www.sram.com
The conclusion is this, the origins of the product reflect how the product performs, looks and its developed. It’s a known fact that a lot of marketers use this “origin” technique to appeal to different markets!
Now knowing what the three companies are:
How do you think the prices are?
Think of dropping a few grand for just little tiny cogs, gears, and levers (and I’m not exaggerating). And dropping tens of thousands of dollars to build an amazing jaw dropping epic masterpiece (yes it costs more than your first car easily)
Here’s an example of a campagnolo groupset provided by Ribble Cycles (my favourite store)
http://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/groupset.asp?action=GenerateConstructor&part=GSCAMP2011SUPREC11D&sub=conf_GS&bike=1
Did you see the price? $2000, yes for pieces of metal and gears. (No it is not covered in gold)
