Marketing

Comment

Comment by Ken Stofflet on June 2, 2009 at 1:41pm

GENMAR FILES 11

Well this will start an avalanche of negative and hateful comments about Irwin Jacobs. As a former employee I can say I understand some of the comments about him. But what most seem to have forgot is that he was and IS independent. That means he didn't drink the coolaide from OMC or Brunswick and the like. He did however work them over for deals that no one else ever seemed to be able to get and that made some folks really upset. But that's not what brought them to 11.

Marketing was never Irwins strength, in fact in my opionion it was his biggest weakness. At best he gave it lip service. He never seemed to buy into the meaning of marketing and what it can do for a brand. It's so much more than self promotion and god knows he loved to do that. Gemar was never top heavy with talent, at least in terms of marketing. When you trace the history of some of the brands it's enough to make you sick; what he let happen or forced to happen to the likes of Wellcraft is a real sin. Once as dominent as Sea Ray and Chris Craft in the late 80's and early 90's; the 3 brands fought for the number one spot for years. Only one brand remains unscathed in terms of marketshare and brand awareness. Yes Sea Ray certainly has suffered like all builders in this current market, but they remain a dominant player because of marketing and product.

If Irwin is smart (and he is) he will hire a very strong marketing guy to help define the brands that continue to suffer from poor marketing and make some tough calls on what brands to kill. There is just way to much product overlap and Irwin let his ego get into the mix of things thinking since he had the vision he would be the front & pitch man.The problem was his ramblings in the media did little to show people he really is a smart guy, he became a target of bad jokes and cheap shots. What Irwin didn't realize is that Independent or not he had become a major player and therefore he would get painted with the same brush as the others.

I wish Irwin Jacobs and all the Genmar employees much luck going forward. How the company will look and act in the future who knows, how will the industry look going forward is the better question. How will Genmar reflect the real market change in the industry, If anyone can remake a company my bets on Jacobs and Gemar.