Cobra Golf
Challenge: Stuck in a Niche Market
Demonstrated market leader with women and senior golfers Cobra Golf was a minority player in the more lucrative men game improvement market and unable to make inroads.
Market Insights
Leveraging on the successes of the Burner Bubble and Callaway Golf with visible technology (bubble shaft and oversize club head respectively) spearheaded the development of a new product category as a corollary to a proven and successful product category.
Recognized that, contrary to all other golf product categories (i.e. woods, putters, wedges) where Product Leader on Professional Tours = Market Leader in Sales, the purchase influence of sets of irons is driven by performance and aura factors.
Solution
Replicate the success of “oversize woods” in the irons category with new King Cobra OVERSIZE irons.
Leveraged the personality and aura of specific Tour players (Greg Norman, Hale Irwin) as ambassador for the brand and the performance message of the product.
Impact
Cobra Golf quickly became the #1 game improvement irons, taking the company from $25m in sales to over $180m.
Company went public and later was acquired by Fortune Brands for 3.5 times revenue, the largest trade sale in golf history.