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well i was trying to hone in on what i might call 'hype for hypes sake'. anything limited edition/quantity is almost objectively the apotheosis of that concept. And that's the point I was chasing was... I'm not surprised they sold 50 insane bikes at an insane value, but is that something YT will chase repeatedly almost as a business strategy? Or do we think they can hop right back into the selling basic Jeffsys and Decoys at values that are only 'just okay' in such a way that would be sustainable long term.
seems like the truth always fluctuates in the middle and they will just do both and struggle to sell both... but that almost sounds like worst of both worlds, as opposed to balanced and predictable. A while ago I mentioned that the aggressive tactics for uncaged were kinda stupid. and I thought the would do well to do a single uncaged model every year, with a 5 year cycle (capra, jeffsy, izzo, tues, dirt love). but it will be interesting to see if they go right back into trying to shove LE/uncaged models down our throats multiple times a year... or tone it way down to like, this LE 50 unit thing. and generate hype out of thin air solely around '50 units only'. i mean its an annoyingly effective concept. thinking of the entire 'collector' and 'fomo' community... basically pay pigs lol
just take a peak into the mtb-news.de forums regarding the last YT topics. the tenor there is totally different compared to here. doesn‘t matter how many facts you bring to the table about YT/flossmann screwing people over multiple times plus the very convenient founding of the new company right before the press release about YT’s financial troubles. markus is the hero there. those 50 bikes got easily scooped up by those people. problem is now most will expect such ridiculous pricing on all future YT bikes.
lots of germans like cheap stuff
"efficient"
I'm also from Germany, and I have to say that I was equally irritated by how casually people (or at least those commenting) dealt with all the YT fuss. I hope it’s just the people who comment.
But outside the „real interested bike-people-bubble“, I think nobody cares if they don’t know the YT story.
Others already said it, but we’re a narrow niche inside the bike world. Most people buy bikes based on price, performance, and looks. Unless Markus turned out to be the literal devil, most riders won’t care. And even within our little corner, plenty of people see him as a kind of “savior,” so it’s not like there’s consensus, outside this thread.
There’s also a bit of hypocrisy here. I almost always judge a product on those same factors: price, performance, and looks. I’m not doing deep research on the CEO’s ethics, whether employees were treated well, or whether vendors got screwed. There just isn’t enough time in the day.
And if we’re going to play the ethics game consistently, it gets messy fast. You could argue Giant is less ethical than YT. You could argue the phone in your pocket has a supply chain tied to exploitative labor. Most of us don’t really engage with that, because it’s out of sight, out of mind. In a way, this is adjacent to the Shallow Pond thought experiment...because its far away, and not in our face, we don't consider these things in our day to day lives.
On the other hand, look at how many Americans were up in arms about customers not getting bikes in Europe, yet, at least to my knowledge, that wasn't an issue here.
Ya there are a couple levels here. At the end of the day you can do stuff to damage your brand, such that people who maybe were never considering you or didn't know much about you yet have then decided to write you off for good.
For me the prime example is Ari. A brand i had ZERO opinion on for a while. Seemed like they were ok bikes, ok prices. Nothing good or bad. But after seeing their astro turfing fiasco plus the general way they handle social media and stuff... That's a hard no for me, and we were shopping for a dirt jumper recently and Ari was just straight up the best value to get a dirt jumper with a Bomber fork. We skipped em.
I understand that I am still in the niche of things here... But I'm just saying basically if you fcuk up bad enough it can bleed into the mainstream enough to cause problems.
The interesting part, to me, is people who KNOW outright what a brand's dirty deeds are and willfully ignore it. Cuz a DEALS A DEAL babyyy
People tend to look at only what affects themselves. So, if you were never burned by YT, most people will look at the good deal. If I had the money, I would have considered a Jeffsy, but then I've come to realize that I want something with a longer chainstay. I would still considered an Izzo or a steel Dirt Love. But, now both of those would be coming from the used market most likely.
As for Ari, every company in the world is trying to manipulate what we see online. A shop I used to work for had a lot of reviews from family members... It's way more common than you think..
i know we are a small dedicated bubble and YT as a whole won't care how critical we are about their actions. and yes, moral is a tricky topic when talking about a big company.
i can just say that i for myself look to buy from a brand that supports their riders, community or has his roots/commitment in racing.
Something else to think about.. At a point not to far into the future, there will be a new batch of riders who will have no idea what the fuss is all about..
There are multiple reasons. The blatant astro turfing was bad especially when other companies have been transparent with like a riders real name as the username or an outright disclaimer by somebody who is a rep or employee.
But even beyond that just their marketing and dorky social media viral meme posting is... Awkward. I am absolutely not a 'professionalism' person, but it's just corny. Cringe, even. lol (almost as corny as a weirdly written advertisement with Christopher Walken, one might say)
Can't beat good ol fashion shreddit marketing.
I think we know, average consumers will consume just about anything. So there's not much conversation there.
But I would like to know what companies enthusiasts (ie: us) have written off due to let's called it a 'flawed philosophy'. Whether it was warranty, marketing, general design, treatment of athletes, etc.
to me still one of the best marketing videos was hope letting adam brayton shred in pila with their, at that time, new pro4 hubs. the sound of a 1000 angry bees plus tires ripping through corners 😍
no corny storytelling, just what mountainbikers dream of.
https://youtu.be/89V3uCgfuco?si=LSdXIzSBOK94ruk5
I know it's asking for too much, but I think one of the peak MTB media productions that was strictly for product marketing was the Kona Process video. (note the run time lol)
For each of us in the little bubble, choose a bike industry villain and be a dick about it!
Hey @jeff.brines just want to give you a shout for the second time sending me to Wikipedia from here. Today I discovered the Shallow Pond, last time it was the Ship of Theseus. Makes my once-totally-bookworm-brain engage with actually interesting stuff and tickle some neuron connections when it just wanted to kill time on a biking forum
Thank you, Sir!
I know for sure this thread has made me more smarterer!!
The RAAW and ebike comments in the rumors thread are really interesting. Might make for good discussion here or even a good podcast topic.
The upshot is: Core Brand has a market niche along the lines of "we got rid of the MBA's and marketing department, and then designed a couple of frames we'd want to ride and maintain for many years." Catering to very avid, highly knowledgeable riders.
Core Brand is watching as ebike sales continue to grow and regular bike sales continue to decline. Obviously, they are aware of all the missteps made by frame manufacturers over over the past years, current sales numbers, the uncertainty of tariffs, etc.
What should they do? And more specifically, what about RAAW's strategy of partnering with Hepha? My layman's understanding is that, very generally, RAAW is to Hepha as David Weagle is to Pivot, etc. That seems smartly conservative in that Core Brand is not completely forgoing the ebike market, but they're also letting someone else put up most of the capital and shoulder most of the risk of things going south. Have to think it could crash and burn and the fallout wouldn't directly impact Core Brand's balance sheet.
But this also makes me think of Intense and Costco. I don't think we need consumer focus groups to know that move didn't do anything for the Intense brand image, even though they tried to brand those bikes differently. Going back to Core Brand, would the licensing fees, etc. from the partnership be worth the risk to the brand image?
Intense might provide an additional analogy via their reaction to the move from alloy to carbon. As I understand it, they were slow to accept the reality of offshore carbon manufacturing, and then by the time they reacted it was too late. Would they have been better off staying put and riding out the carbon wave, essentially transforming into a North American RAAW (I realize RAAW frames are made in Taiwan, but let's put that aside for the sake of discussion)?
Does this go to the desires of the owners? Are they happy to stay small and simply make great, sensible regular bikes? Will that still be viable ten years from now - i.e., will there be a regular bike resurgence like there has been an alloy frame resurgence?
Or are they more financially motivated and want to grow? If so, is RAAW's partnership a feasible model for Core Brands? Is there real money to be made in it? If not and Core Brands need to directly enter the ebike market, should they go ahead and bring in partners with a bigger balance sheets before they sail into ebike waters?
I think Core Brand could be defined fairly broadly. From what I recall about the Rock Mountain financial issues, I think they could have constituted Core Brand. Is this right?
Good questions! One thing that may be a factor is that endless growth isn't necessarily part of the definition of success in German business culture; it's acceptable/admirable to just run a solid, sustainable, small business (what might somewhat derisively be called a "lifestyle business" in the US).
This article about Schmidt Maschinenbau (the folks who make SON dynamo hubs) does a pretty good job of describing that: https://bikepacking.com/plog/inside-son-dynamo-hubs/
okay okay... just... on the TOPIC of whats good vs whats bad marketing for bikes (and me boomer-moaning about how it used to be cooler). this is EXACTLY... EXACTLY how you market your brand. I almost forgot how legendary Commencal's media production is cuz I feel like there were less concentrated edits in recent years. wow
KMUs (small and medium sized companies) are the backbone of germany, not the big companies you usually know of.
Commencal's edits are always so sick.
The Hugo Frixtalon stuff...the Tomas Lamoine stuff...even the hardtail release videos. They do it all with an eye on brand identity not just "make cool riding footage with cool sounds." Though they do love a sub drop.
(Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen if ya'll want the full Teutonic glory of that TLA*)
*Three Letter Acronym
So the argument is that flossman only did 10% damage to his brand, instead of something like 80%?
Why not just not damage your brand
The music rights must have been $$$!
Agree though, Commencal always seems to support great promo videos. Gotta recognize that the filmmakers and producers are the real talent here; not the brand they are promoting.
Blown away when the Method Man dropped. Like the actual visceral feeling you get when you see a rider you like with a proper run time video from a brand that does good work and the music is fire and the filming and editing is good and the track/zone is SICK... It's ALL coming together. Gave me the feeling I got as a kid popping in DVDs of the best skate/BMX videos. You KNEW it was going to be good. They couldn't afford for it to be bad.
Despite saturation, kinda hard to get that feeling these days. The only thing I can truly rely on is SleeperCo. That's about it...
with youtube you can use all kinds of good music these days without copyright strikes (just like insta reels or tiktok). the video won't get monetized but who cares when it amounts to like $87 for an action video under 30k views
briole video and all commencal vids are 🔥
I'm not an American IP lawyer, but does that hold true for something made as a commercial/promotional product versus video made in its own right so to speak? I can imagine there'd be a licensing difference.
it seems like youtube has access to the license/rights to a lot of the music. while commencal doesn't get monetization $, the artist does AFAIK.
Frix Frix T.E.M.P.O. ad is my favorite.
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