Hooray for Innovation!!!!!

Well I was personally delighted to find out that Nomis had won the 'Most Outrageous Boot of the Year' award from footy-boots.com with our NexGen boot which utilises cutting edge customisation technology.

This was real innovation that went on with this development in that it was a brand new invention that was commercialised to produce a solution to customer desires, being customisation. It is a very complex procedure, but the results are magnificent! This particular design is internally codenamed the 'sunset waffle', much to the amusement of some, and we have more designs coming...... all are VERY cool. They will be utilised in our Nomis Spark football boot product, and I'm sure it wont be long before other brands in non-compete market areas start to look to use this technology.

I saw another copycat the other week, where the brand Azuma has clearly ripped off our upper design from our Instinct boot, and blended it with a copy of a Nike outsole. This is starting to get annoying, as it clearly shows that they are just copiers and not innovators. And poor copiers at that as well. Grrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still they will get found out soon enough once the consumer becomes unhappy with their purchase because of inferior materials being used, as they can't even get close to our materials since they are patented.

So continuing on the innovation theme, I've been looking out for new stuff that the competition is doing with regards to leather. Seems as though not a lot is out there at present, with most companies just regurgitating colours and making adjustments through designs as opposed to genuine material upgrades. We have a new waterproof technology coming which is VERY cool..... and will be used to good effect in 4 new products we are developing. It ibased on a completely new chemistry, so stay tuned for that one.

Well better sign off for now.

Rgds,

Dr Leather

Pricing Strategies........how much are you really paying????

Well this blog is not really specifically leather related, but more about products in general with regards to price.

Over the past few months there are more instances coming to light and public attention where the true cost of the product is being questioned. There is so much mark up within the supply chain, and it is the poor old consumer who has to pay. Now I totally understand this from the old traditional 'bricks and mortar' point of view, but now with direct sales being so much easier to carry out, surely the price benefits and greater supply chain economy should be at least offered to the customer/consumer.

Another thing that really annoys me is just how much these sports stars get paid through endorsements, which ultimately you and I as consumers/customers end up paying for. Last night was a prime example when Usain Bolt (that rather quick sprinter!!!) was being interviewed on BBC's Top Gear. It was stated on the programme from Bolt himself, that when he won Gold at the Olmypics last year that Puma asked him what gift he would like. And so he said a super expensive BMw M3, and hey presto he got one!!!!!! (only to write it off in an accident some time later). But who paid for that M3???? That's right!!!!! Us the consumer/customer!!!!!! Do you really think that is a brand that is acting in the interest of it's consumers/customers...... I certainly don't. This is the tip of the iceberg, and simply adds cost to the final pricing of the product. I mean really what is the big deal with professional endorsements these days....... do they really mean what they say or is it just greed and all lies behind the scenes...... I'll let you be the judge.

Well anyway, here at Nomis we have decided to take the stance and do things differently where we can. Hence the pulling out of retail and offering our product through a direct marketing approach rewards not only us but also our customers, and here in Australasia you will be rewarded by up to 35% off of the original RRP's if you order through our website www.shopnomis-au.com or call us on 1300 1 NOMIS or via skype ID Nomis.Australasia

We call this the Nomis-2-Consumer (N2C) pricing and we hope it will help people out in these tough and uncertain economic times. In addition, we'll be offering a limited 30-day money back guarantee as well and real fast shipping options. That way we think it addresses the needs of the consumer pretty well. Couple this with our Mobile Wear Test Centres that are cruising around, and where you can try our footwear out without obligation, and we think we have a great strategy in place. We'll be letting people know by Twitter and our monthly e-mail newsletters about the planned Wear Trial dates and locations going forwards.

But the one thing I am interested in is does the customer/consumer understand why the price has been reduced or is it better to say up to 35% off RRP and show a discount all of the time ??? What appeals to the consumer more??? A bargain, or transparency of costs involved??? Frankly I'm still researching that one, as we need to ensure that the consumer/customer still fully understands that the prices can be reduced through direct marketing due to the retailers profit margin being removed, and not the notion that the product has been engineered more cheaply. But I would love to hear your thoughts on this as the jury is most certainly still out with good arguments for both approaches.

Well signing off for now. And remember.... each time you purchase something, just think what amount you have contributed to that new toy for the professional that is endorsing it ;-)

Cheers,

Dr Leather

Copycat products...... grrrrr!

Well a few weeks ago I found a copycat product for out Nomis wet control leather rugby gloves. It's from a supposed 'leading' rugby supplier brand in Australia, so I decided to get a pair to see for myself.

Frankly they are a VERY cheap copy, and the marketing is a direct rip off of ours. So how does this make us feel??? Well imitation is the supposed greatest form of flattery, but in this case it is evidently not that as the brand in question is using all the efforts of Nomis, whom are trying tocreate a good product, but then this other brand is actually trying to cheat the consumer with something that looks near the same and reads the same with their packaging. In testing it comes nowhere near our product!!!!!

We had this earlier this year when the Nomis Instinct football boot was blatantly copied by another inferior Australian footwear brand, and confused the consumer so much that we even had returns from confused consumers/customers who thought they were buying our genuine Nomis product, but it wasn't!!!!! I just wish other brands had the real innovation horsepower to actually come up with something new and beneficial to the consumer.

So what to do???? Well we have a new DNA type technology that we are looking at installing to prove you have genuine product.

Well there's my rant for the Sunday afternoon. Just remember people..... imitation never leads to innovation!!!!

Cheers,

Dr Leather

Patents and a Bit of Fun!!!!!!

Just to start on the lighter side of things for the weekend, I recommend a visit to www.xtranormal.com to make some fun movies. Very easy to use and publish!!!!!

It's interesting that still the simple things in life are great...... even if that means in this day and age that someone else has done all the hard work behind the scenes.

I'm off to Europe for a few weeks now to organise 12 new innovations for Nomis. But I was yet again amazed today to read some new patents, allied with the footwear and leather industry, that have just been passed which to me are truly a representation of what rubbish you can get away with. There is still the two criteria for patents, well there are in my book, in that a patent should be awarded to a novel solution to a problem or issue, and that it is 'non-obvious'. This last aspect is commonly forgotten, and the one that can be argued upon best of all. What may be obvious to me may not be obvious to someone else, but surely there has to be some sense of reality in that!!!!!! Then there is the whole saga of 'first to invent' and 'first to file' aspects which have differing priorities in different countries. No wonder legal lawyers are so rich these days!!!!!

Regards,

Dr Leather

How Marketing Can Be Just A Little Misleading

It was with interest this week that I spent some time on reviewing just how certain companies are now marketing leather in ways that obviously suggest they are related to one thing, but are actually something completely different.

One example was the ULT-K leather being marketed by adidas. Now one might think that this is a kangaroo leather from the simple 'K' letter being involved and the 'ULT' maybe suggesting to the consumer that it is a superior version of the normal K-Leather. So imagine my shock to learn that actually the ULT-K appears to refer to a calf leather instead of the revered kangaroo leather!!!!!! This was after a number of searches on various retail stores online, just in case some error had been made in this instance. What would you think it meant out of interest?????

The same goes for the KNG-100, which is actually a synthetic leather offering by Nike in some of their football boot models.

In my opinion, marketing should not be about 'tricking' the consumer to any degree, instead it should be about providing good, genuine information for the consumer to make a considered choice. That tactic may have worked in the past, but the consumer is far more savvy today, with the internet allowing access to a greater volume of data. But this doesn't just happen in the leather industry..... oh no!!!! There have been a number of others cited from the Cosmetics idustry and Drugs companies through to Food manufacturers.

Just who do you believe these days!!!!!!!

Rgds,

Dr Leather

Missing in Action in the Nomis Sports Laboratory......

Well it's been an incredibly long time since I last posted anything I am ashamed to say, but trust me it's all been go, go, go!!!!!!

So we've developed a lot of cool stuff in the R&D labs over the last few months, and in March I was asked to become the MD of Nomis Australia!!! This is such an opportunity that I could not refuse, and despite long hours has already allowed me to comment on many of the new ideas of the business. So have a look at our website being www.nomisfootball.com or www.shopnomis.com

The long term goal for Nomis has been to focus on the 'grass roots' player for football (soccer), rugby, AFL, hockey and other sports codes. And we have now looked at this still further and decided to push it so that we cut out the middle man and simply interact with the consumer on a direct basis only. That way cost savings can be pushed along the supply chain WITHOUT cheapening our product in any way or cutting corners with regards to materials used or production techniques employed. This will be reinforced with our Mobile Wear Test Centres, also known as Vanguards, whereby we will have customised Mercedes Sprinter vehicles circulating in many cities offering a free wear trial service. Here's a link to let you see what we are doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdBmxbJrni8

From a technology point of view it was great to finally see the NxGen technology be implemented into a limited run of Nomis boots. Whilst not everybody likes the design, the technology really is the clever bit, and allows custom images to be applied to leather as seen in the picture above.

The other thing we have done is to create some 'Hot Pink' boots for a charity event to be played in the next few weeks. It is to raise awareness for Breast Cancer Research, and last week the boots were presented to the player in question, Jarrod Sammut from the Penrith Panthers, with several photographers and TV cameras there for the event. Here is a link for the first bit of footage we found http://bigpondvideo.com/NRL_Panthers/126477

Well that's all for now. Back soon,

Dr Leather

Dr Leather gets a new job!!!!!!!

Well today I started my new job as Head of Research for a company called Grip Technology AG. This is a Swiss based company that is an innovation and production solutions think-tank for products to be used in the sporting goods and military sectors. One of our clients is Nomis, the relatively new, yet very much up-and-coming, sports brand. We'll be doing a lot of work for them with regards to their leather, textiles and thermoplastic requirements, along with sourcing and designing many of their new glove and footwear products. Here's a PR photo from this morning!!!! 

This is a great opportunity for me to 'jump the fence' so to speak and actually move more into the sectors where the large brands operate. We already have some very cool ideas that we'd like to develop and offer to market, so you should see some of them quite soon. 

Regards,

Dr Leather