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Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

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Hasse
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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby Hasse » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:04 pm

I heard a rumor from a pretty sure place today at North Sail still gone make windsurf sails. They already have a designer hired for it. And maybe make kites to.

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby dlangpap » Fri Jun 15, 2018 2:35 am

I’m not sure how much weight the North brand had in the success of North kiteboarding as I’m guessing many kitesurfing product buyers didn’t even know North Sails existed. Having come from windsurfing I can say it did have an important effect on me and my contemporary windsurf sails buyers. At that time I thought North windsurfing sails were made by the same manufacturer that produced some of the best yacht sales in the world. And the impact of this was huge as luckily the quality of North windsurfing was equal to that of North sails. With kiting it may be a little different as there’s no direct connection being made by the customers. Having said that, North has a huge brand recognition in kitesurfing on its own, and it will be an important loss to not have the power of that brand available anymore. But what is making this more important than it has to is the unexplainable choice of a terrible brand name. And it’s really difficult to understand that they don’t seem to notice the importance of having a cool brand in a cool sport. Was it too expensive to find and register a new brand name? Were all the good names taken? I don’t think they see the risk they are taking, especially if North sails do decide to come out with their own kiting product line. And make no mistake, if they do, quality will be very high and they will enter to compete at the top...

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby Toby » Fri Jun 15, 2018 3:13 am

:nono:
Hasse wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:04 pm
I heard a rumor from a pretty sure place today at North Sail still gone make windsurf sails. They already have a designer hired for it. And maybe make kites to.
Heard from a guy who knows North Sails people, that he saw a kite prototype from them.

Will be interesting. But could be unfair to customers if they buy North now and it's not from former North.

But, if you keep reading Kiteforum this won't happen to you ;-)

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby tautologies » Fri Jun 15, 2018 11:02 pm

Toby wrote:
Fri Jun 15, 2018 3:13 am
:nono:
Hasse wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:04 pm
I heard a rumor from a pretty sure place today at North Sail still gone make windsurf sails. They already have a designer hired for it. And maybe make kites to.
Heard from a guy who knows North Sails people, that he saw a kite prototype from them.

Will be interesting. But could be unfair to customers if they buy North now and it's not from former North.

But, if you keep reading Kiteforum this won't happen to you ;-)
So now you're saying that there might be lies produced under a north brand after all?

I mean to me it makes sense, and the window closes / brand loses value the more time lapses so mother north has all the incentives to make something happen fast.

I don't think it's unfair to customers because that was what previous kite maker was paying for..the brand name. If north does this I'd expect the top be some fallout from the previous kite producer.

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby Toby » Sat Jun 16, 2018 12:14 am

Lies? No. Just customers who can get confused.

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby knotwindy » Sat Jun 16, 2018 3:09 am

Maybe not lies but LEI’s? As in Leading Edge Inflato’s.

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby OzBungy » Sat Jun 16, 2018 8:01 am


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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby tautologies » Sun Jun 17, 2018 12:54 am

Toby wrote:
Sat Jun 16, 2018 12:14 am
Lies? No. Just customers who can get confused.
:o my phone auto corrected kites to lies.

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby Osprey1 » Sun Jun 17, 2018 5:21 am

I’m kind of stoked to pick up some North Evos on massive discount soon.

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Re: Officially announced: North becomes Duotone

Postby purdyd » Sun Jun 17, 2018 7:00 am

I sort of understand is if rolex became xelor would it still be rolex statement.

Duotone might need to lower their prices at least at first. Hopefully eliminating the license fee for the name will allow them to do that.

And the market will in the end tell if name had value when sales numbers start rolling in.

This might be one of those rebrandings that go into the text books.

I personally have never not bought something because of the name and as long as the graphics aren't offensive, I haven't been influenced by the graphic design.

I am rather insistent about color coding the bridles, lines, and bar as a safety feature.

An interesting parallel is Best Kiteboarding. In my opinion Best is gone. I always appreciated Peter Stewie designed kites but for that I would go to Eleveight.


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