Ron and Dorothy Strasser
Thank you David. I know I can rant at (or is it all) times, but the truth is these corporate or business decisions are not all black and white. They are not just the radical Muslims, Christians, Capitalists or Socialists making the decisions for the rest of us. Most often they are complex and tough. The general public very often just gets the sound bites of information and thus a tainted perspective.
ron
----- Original Message -----
From: David Diviney
To: Brian Johnson ; obra@list.obra.org
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] Dorel "pained" to cut the soul out of Cannondale
Dorel a mega-corporation??? You mean like GE and Microsoft? It's barely a mini-corporation. I've been involved with mergers and downsizing in companies 1000x bigger than Dorel and the people making the decisions are in fact pained by doing it. Decision makers are people (believe it or not) and for the most part they do care about people and families they affect.
Did you ever think that they are saving jobs? What if not moving production overseas brings down the entire MEGA-corporation? Then all the jobs are lost.
--- On Mon, 4/6/09, Brian Johnson wrote:
From: Brian Johnson
Subject: [OBRA Chat] Dorel "pained" to cut the soul out of Cannondale
To: obra@list.obra.org
Date: Monday, April 6, 2009, 10:30 AM
The story just keeps getting better and better.
Mind you, this is not a story about "American jobs" being sent overseas. This is a story about a megacorporation clueless about how to take care of the shiny new toy they just bought.
Full disclosure: I happen to think that Taiwan hosts some of the best frame builders in the world. So does Portland, Oregon. :)
Anyway-- Dorel just keeps spewing more and more bullshit:
***
Dorel Industries executives say it pained them to end U.S. production of Cannondale bicycles, but said the cost of domestic production made the decision "crystal clear" from an economic perspective.
...
"It was painful to make the decision we took today; the people in Bedford are the soul of Cannondale," Jeff McGuane, president of Cannondale Sports Group's North American division, told VeloNews Thursday. "We've got a bright future for Bedford, for the team that's remaining and hopefully will expand in the future; but right now the economics around frame construction are just crystal clear."
***
Read the full story here: http://www.velonews.com/article/90148/cannondale-s-parent-says-the-decision-to-end-frame
The economics might be crystal freakin' clear, but you don't cut the "soul" out of a brand and hope to retain anything. You have no brand. Nothing. A name is all that's left.
I'm going to quote Seth Godin directly here because he puts it so well:
***
What's a brand?
I think it is the product of two things:
[Prediction of what to expect] times [emotional power of that expectation].
If I encounter a brand and I don't know what it means or does, it has zero power. If I have an expectation of what an organization will do for me, but I don't care about that, no power.
***
Go read the full text of the article here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/04/the_brand_formu.html
Beginning in 2011 what will "Cannondale" mean? It will be just another name on a line of bikes produced by bike manufacturing juggernaut, Taiwan. It will be like "Scattante" or "Tirenno" or whatever.
"Innovation"?
"Feel it"?
Zero power. Zero resonance.
Since Cannondale no longer has the "soul" that it once had, since it's just another brand from Dorel, purveyor of all that is bland and boring and "me too" I don't care about it.
Zero power.
So Cannondale is a big nothing right now. Is that what the suits at Dorel want? To start over, fresh and new, to re-invent the Cannondale brand?
Who cares.
My point is that Dorel are a bunch of idiots focused on the bottom line-- not what's important. Marketing isn't about making a fast buck anymore. (It shouldn't ever be, in my opinion.) It's about relationships. People will buy because they believe and care about the company, how it does things, what it stands for. Not because it has the lowest price-- that's just unsustainable.
* * *
My father asks : "Do you live here or ride bikes?"
http://liveorridebikes.blogspot.com
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