BallReviews
Equipment Boards => Columbia 300 => Topic started by: blesseddad on October 18, 2014, 10:23:05 PM
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Is int just me or have you also seen this recent pattern?
Ebonite recent releases are all hybrids or solids (no pearls)
Columbia recent releases are all hybrids or pearls (no solids)
Until the Blur line, this was almost a dead lock, no?
BTW, Blur does not really count in my eyes as they seem to be farther down the performance chart. Guessing we will not see many Blur products at WSOB...
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Solid/hybrid/pearl just doesn't matter anymore... and company reps are even starting to admit it.
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Is int just me or have you also seen this recent pattern?
Ebonite recent releases are all hybrids or solids (no pearls)
Columbia recent releases are all hybrids or pearls (no solids)
Until the Blur line, this was almost a dead lock, no?
BTW, Blur does not really count in my eyes as they seem to be farther down the performance chart. Guessing we will not see many Blur products at WSOB...
Thought the Eruption Pro and Throw Down are both solids? Anyway.........do not think that solids have been selling very well lately. Antics line was not very popular. Enigma was sort of a dud. Freeze Solid was not a huge seller. The balls that seem to roll best right now are the pearls. Freezes, Eruption, Violent Eruption, Take Down, Vow. If they are the best sellers; then why do anything different?
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Is int just me or have you also seen this recent pattern?
Ebonite recent releases are all hybrids or solids (no pearls)
Columbia recent releases are all hybrids or pearls (no solids)
Until the Blur line, this was almost a dead lock, no?
BTW, Blur does not really count in my eyes as they seem to be farther down the performance chart. Guessing we will not see many Blur products at WSOB...
Thought the Eruption Pro and Throw Down are both solids? Anyway.........do not think that solids have been selling very well lately. Antics line was not very popular. Enigma was sort of a dud. Freeze Solid was not a huge seller. The balls that seem to roll best right now are the pearls. Freezes, Eruption, Violent Eruption, Take Down, Vow. If they are the best sellers; then why do anything different?
Its not that they aren't popular. They have someone with zero marketing talent trying to sell, name, and develop the balls. Its like columbia and ebonite get the left overs. Hammer gets all the cool cores..for some reason.
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Solid/hybrid/pearl just doesn't matter anymore... and company reps are even starting to admit it.
Indeed!!!
"You don't buy a ball; you buy a ball reaction."
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Solid/hybrid/pearl just doesn't matter anymore... and company reps are even starting to admit it.
Indeed!!!
"You don't buy a ball; you buy a ball reaction."
If only that was true for the majority of bowlers. Unfortunately most people buy ball marketing not ball reaction....
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Hammer gets the "best" cores because the Hammer brand is the only EBI brand that has had long lasting brand appeal.
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As a long time Columbia brand "loyalist" I too, have been less than pleased with most of their latest releases. I am not sure what Ebonite's strategy is as it relates to
their Columbia line of balls. For me (a stroker), I find that they
are more "control" pieces---very good on fresh, flatter patterns. However, once the shot breaks down, I often have to resort to another brand. The hitting power is just not there for my style, regardless of different drill angles and surface or release changes. On THS, they rarely come out of the bag at all.
I would like to see Ebonite create a wider range of reactions in their Columbia line.
They can definitely use a strong pearl, one that is coupled with a larger diff core. At the upper end, they could use a strong "oiler". I cannot use the Blurs or the Eruption Pros unless the lanes are very, very dry--which is not very often. At the upper end, the Antics, N'Sane Antics and the Enigma were not very strong "oilers" in my hand.
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you want more solids? the disorder and whatever the smackdown solid one was called didnt come out too long ago.....isnt the nsane a solid as well? from my view it looks like they have one at every level of performance aside from the freezes
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Current Columbia 300 "Solids":
N'Sane Antics
Throw Down
Disruption
Blur Solid
I don't really see the lack of balls with solid coverstocks.
As to the cores, doesn't each brand have their own individual R&D team? It's hard to say EBI is behind the lack or surplus of what another brand has IMO. They all know who they are targeting and I doubt EBI is saying who can use what in their balls. It's a business and the purpose of a business is to make money.
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ron hickland designs all the cores for the 4 brands im pretty sure
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I don't know why the Antics line isn't selling. The Antics line is incredible in my opinion. And don't be surprised if you see another one in the near future. I have heard several people complain about C300. They don't like the fact that they use the same cores for so long. However , the resurgence core has been proven time after time. They do have a few newer cores out now as well. As for the solids , C300 has them available. Rather it would be a solid , pearl , or hybrid cover.It's very important to get the proper surface on it to match the specific bowler , and oil pattern. That's my personal opinion anyways.
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Columbia doesn't really have many pearl balls these days. They are very solid and hybrid heavy in their lineup.
Solids:
Antics
N'Sane Antics
Bring It
Disruption
Throwdown
Eruption Pro
Blur-Solid
Hybrids:
Smackdown
Disorder
Eruption Pro Hybrid
Blur-Hybrid
Freeze hybrid
Pearls:
Crazy Antics
Takedown
Blur-Pearl
Freeze blue/orange/green
Ebonite, on the other hand, has a couple of high performance pearls and a lot of hybrids in their lineup:
Pearls:
Pivot Point
Source
Hybrids:
Pivot
Honor
Legacy
Energy Source
Salute
Solids:
Gamebreaker2
Hammer is mostly hybrids and pearls
Hybrids:
Deadly Aim
Absolut Curve
Amp
Black Widow Legend
First Blood
Arson Low Flare
Pearls:
Arson
Amp Up
Cold Blood
Nail Titanium
Spike
Absolut Flip
Viral
Solids:
Black Widow Assassin
BadA--
Burgundy Hammer
Taboo Jet Black
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Agreed. Also, Ebonite seems to be steering away from its Columbia brand when it come to adding new balls in the higher performance category. Instead, they are adding them to their other brands ( Ebonite,Track, Hammer). Disproportionately so as of late. A quick inventory will reveal this apparent trend. Disappointing.
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Agreed. Also, Ebonite seems to be steering away from its Columbia brand when it come to adding new balls in the higher performance category. Instead, they are adding them to their other brands ( Ebonite,Track, Hammer). Disproportionately so as of late. A quick inventory will reveal this apparent trend. Disappointing.
I don't believe that is a valid assessment. Why would EBI try to hurt one of it's brands over all of the other. Each brand has it's own staff if I'm not mistaken. EBI wouldn't put it's hands in the pot just to tell them to make sure Columbia doesn't have the same chance at success than their other brands.
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I think they are flexing their muscles in areas that sell best. C300 has had a lot of homeruns in the eruption line. If it was my investing money, I'd make twice as many eruptions as anything else...as that is what the market wants. Track hasn't had a good high end release (besides the 811ct) in a long time. But they are utilizing their tour line well lately...especially with the new release coming. Hammer always had the better selling assyms. That's why you see so many.
People they are making what sells!
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I would agree that they are likely making what sells best. My assessment is again, mine, and mine alone. However, if one again, closely looks at the latest line of C300
balls, they are mostly, without doubt, "weaker" than EBI's other brands if one defines a ball's general strength by core differentials and hook factors. In my view, it is undisputed. I would also agree that the Eruption line was (up until the release of the Eruption Pro and Pro Hybrid) very very good in my hand. However, core diffs of .32 do not compare with core diffs of .48 & higher--not in this old (senior) stroker's hand.
I have no doubt that others will differ, because what works for one, does not necessarily work for another when it comes to a ball's performance. I have always been a big C300 fan, going back to the days of the Columbia caramel and the
legendary Yellow Dot. Lately however, I have seen an emphasis away from higher
performing cores/coverstocks and one geared more for much drier lane conditions under the C300 line. Are they selling? Perhaps. But at least for the moment, I am compelled to look elsewhere.
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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.
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What Bowler19525 describes as the tentative strategy of Ebonite International sort of reminds me of GM's solution to their brands of GMC, Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet.
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What Bowler19525 describes as the tentative strategy of Ebonite International sort of reminds me of GM's solution to their brands of GMC, Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet.
Good analogy, Ebonite is to bowling balls what Pontiac is the cars. Coming from some one that owned a POS Pontiac in college, thats not a good thing.
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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.