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
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
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
Monday, May 18, 2009
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:
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
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