Water-gate - Ryder Cup 2010

"MAY THE TEAM WITH THE BEST WATERPROOFS WIN"

That was how a press release from US Ryder Cup supplier Sun Mountain put it in the weeks running up to Celtic Manor. Rarely has a bit of spin been proved quite so accurate. That fateful, rain sodden Friday saw the topic of waterproof clothing make the 10 o’clock news and the name Sun Mountain was trending on Twitter. The company’s rainsuits were deemed “disappointing” by the US team and Captain Corey Pavin put in a new order for £4,000 worth of new Pro- Quip rain gear, the company kitting out the European team. For ProQuip, that £4,000 was a drop in the ocean compared to the thousands of pounds of free publicity.

“Clearly ProQuip got a great deal, due to the disproportionate amount of PR-led exposure from the waterproof shambles,” says David Collins, a golf sponsorship expert, “just as champagne brand Moet et Chandon did at the end, who also contribute way less than the big cash sponsors, such as BMW and Citi.”

ProQuip is thought to have paid in the region of £75,000 a year to become the official supplier of the European Tour and Ryder Cup team, a sum made up of cash and value in kind (VIK). This arrangement allows the team and the extensive list of tour officials to be kitted out for ‘free’. Much of the value of the deal for the supplier is the ability to market itself using the Ryder Cup marques and to have a monopoly on the sale of rainwear in the merchandise village.

“Do you think we’d have put Mickelson and Woods in gear we weren’t 100% sure was the best out there? Get out of here!” Kevin Plank, founder and CEO of Under Armour, told me during an interview a few days after the event. “We’d have worn those suits in the shower for a week.” More broadly, the Sun Mountain fiasco highlighted the intense competition taking place in what was once a rather sleepy backwater of the golf market but is now worth around £45million a year in the UK.

5 LESSONS FROM CELTIC MANOR

1. New golfers are hard to find

The basic problem for every company selling golf equipment is that the participation rates in most of the major markets – UK, Europe and USA – are mostly static or declining. Added to this, wet-weather clothing, or outerwear, is not an item we tend to change very often, so the manufacturers must find new regions – note Under Armour’s entry into the UK and European market of late – and think of new products to add to their core rainsuit offering.

2. The race to the bottom

If we, the punters, believe all the products are the same, we’ll go for the cheapest option. This is the nightmare scenario for the manufacturers, who must avoid getting into a straight fight based on who can make the cheapest suit. That way lies oblivion, or in retailing terms a place in the racks at JD Sports. The job of marketing is to take our minds off price and give us a reason to spend more. To do this, they must tell us a story. ProQuip’s deal with the European Tour associates them with the professional game at the highest level, the subtext being: ‘If it’s good enough for Rory, it’s good enough for you’. A similar strategy has been adopted by Sunice, which has just signed up as the official waterproof rainwear licensee for the 2011 and 2013 United States Solheim Cup Teams. The nightmare of Sun Mountain has shown that this strategy can backfire if the product isn’t right. The marketing power of the Ryder Cup is just as effective when spreading bad news as good.

3. The science bit

To put distance between themselves and the mid market, brands such as Galvin Green justify their higher price by telling a science story, specifically the presence of Gore-Tex within their suits. The Gore licence is expensive but in marketing terms hints at power under the bonnet in the same way computers sell themselves as being ‘powered by Intel’. It lends weight to claims of higher quality and gives us a reason to pay around £300 for a rain suit. There are two problems with the science story however. First, if the product is not of the highest quality, the punter will resent being taken for a mug and will never return. Second, there is a thin line between promoting genuine innovation and what could be termed Shampoo Science, of the sort made famous by the beauty industry.

4.When a waterproof isn't

There’s one fact that every golfer knows to be true – just because it says waterproof on the label doesn’t mean it is. Mike Johnson Hill, chief executive of Galvin Green UK, thinks the design of the American suits explains Sun Mountain’s woes. “All that USA and player name branding on the back of the suits was asking for trouble. To be waterproof every seam has to be bonded and sealed because it’s a potential leak. The American market has a different baseline in terms of what is suitable and they tend to view rainsuits as something they wear while they are running off the course. Over here we play in all weathers and demand a higher standard.”

5. All news is good news?

Sun Mountain are. OK, they know them for failure, but if the company can now do something spectacular – telling a story of ‘we learnt and now we’re better’ – they have an opportunity to change our perceptions of the brand. What they do next will be the biggest decision they ever make.

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